(AP Photo/John Locher)
Chris will be bringing you weekly PGA picks, analysis, and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings and FanDuel. As every week in DFS PGA changes with the course setup, field of players and weather, Chris will be providing a range of different picks for cash games as well as upside plays for tournaments. If you have any questions to lineup lock you can reach him a variety of ways. Leave your question/comment below in the comments section, find him in the DFSR Chat room or hit him up on Twitter(@Jager_Bombs9). Chris is also providing his DFS PGA Weekly cheatsheet where he provides stats, course history, current form, fantasy points, and much more. Grab your copy today and edge out the competition.
This week the PGA Tour takes a break from stroke play and heads to Austin Country Club for the World Golf Championships Dell Technologies Match Play. This will be the fourth straight trip to Austin CC and that is what I will be looking at mostly from a course history standpoint this week. I will look at overall match play history as well as the strategies are different from a stroke-play event playing against just one player at a time instead of an entire field.
The 64-man field is once again loaded with nine of the Top 10 and 48 of the Top 50 players in the world teeing it up. The only two missing from the Top 50 are #8 Rickie Fowler and #29 Adam Scott.
The format has the 64 players split into 16 groups of four with group play taking place from Wednesday to Friday. The player with the best record in each group will move on to the Round of 16 on Saturday where it will be bracketed and single knockout with the final 18 hole match being played Sunday afternoon.
For fantasy, scoring is obviously different this week as well so let's refresh how the points are handed out.
As you can see there is no scoring for birdies or placing but instead points for winning and halving a hole. Then bonuses for matches won, matches halved, three consecutive holes won, and no holes lost in a match. The holes not played just means if a player win 4 & 2 he gets 1.6 points for each hole remaining plus the matches won bonus. My strategy going into this will be to target golfers in favorable groupings that could potentially dominate one or two matches getting you a ton of bonus points. You will also want to look closely at the bracket and where the groups fall as to not overlap your golfers and thus limiting your upside. Hit me up in chat or the comments if you have any questions regarding this. I will go over this in this weeks video as well.
The course is a Par 71 Pete Dye design which immediately puts emphasis on Strokes Gained: Off Tee with doglegs, bunkers, and water in play in key landing areas. I will be keeping my model pretty simple this week and looking heavy at Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, especially current form in that area using Fantasy National Golf Club. Par 5 Scoring is also high on my list along with Birdie or Better % not because of scoring but with this level of talent birdie or better is going to be needed to win a hole and multiple to win the match.
If you are looking to research match play records and specifically records here at Austin CC, I have added that info to the sheet. It is courtesy of adamsarson.com and is a terrific resource for these match play events.
Austin Country Club
Par 71 - 7,073 Yards
Greens -
**Click the image above to see a hole by hole breakdown from PGATour.com**
When breaking down the top stats I use a combination of my own cheatsheet, the tools over at FantasyNational.com, and the Future of Fantasy Golfanac.
Dustin Johnson
World Golf Ranking (#1)
Vegas Odds (10/1)
DraftKings ($11,400)
This side of the bracket of very tough as there are four players with a price of $10K or higher(two on other side) and the decision between McIlroy and Johson is very close at the top but I lean DJ as he checks every box. They both have terrific form, both play very well on Pete Dye courses but DJ has the edge with putting lately(gained 3+ strokes in 3 of last 4) and with course history. He has a record of 10-5 here at the WGC Match Play in the three years it has been held at Austin CC(Rory is 5-5-2) and, in my opinion, has the better route at getting to the Elite 8 where I have him facing Jon Rahm in a rematch from the final in 2017. In the lineups I fade DJ in this region, I will be loading up on Rahm(likely a 70/30 split).
Bryson DeChambeau
World Golf Ranking (#6)
Vegas Odds (28/1)
DraftKings ($9,500)
I want to go to the other side of the bracket for my second core top tier play and I side with science on this one. This will be DeChambeau's first trip to the WGC Match Play event but looks to have one of the "easier" routes out of his group and comes at a mid $9K price tag. His form has trended down lately after a hot start to the season but he is a terrific ball striker, plays well on Pete Dye courses, and dominates the Par 5's(2nd in Par 5 Scoring on sheet). I am sure my bracket is super chalky but I currently have DJ and Bryson in the final but have yet to declare a winner. Stay tuned!
Henrik Stenson
World Golf Ranking (#39)
Vegas Odds (60/1)
DraftKingss ($7,600)
I love the value with Stenson in the mid $7K range but it is definitely a contrarian GPP play as he sits in the Group of Death. Jason Day has won this event twice in the last five years, Mickelson has gone 8-3 here at this event last three years(all at Austin CC), and Furyk comes in with excellent form and plays well on Pete Dye courses. Stenson only has one Top 20 in his four 2019 PGA Tour events but is starting to trend up as he has gained a whopping 16.5 strokes on his approach shots in his last three events but has struggled with the putter in the last two(-4.8). The other good news is that he ranks among the leaders in Ball Striking and always seems to perfect the "Less than Driver" strategies off the tee at the Dye courses. If he can get out of this group, I think he has a shot at going deep at very low ownership.
Patrick Cantlay
World Golf Ranking (#19)
Vegas Odds (50/1)
DraftKings ($8,400)
After putting my core together, which is pretty chalky, I will be taking some shots with players in the mid to value range to separate myself in GPP's. One way to do this is to target a player in a group with a projected high owned golfer. Enter Patrick Cantlay who has to get through Tiger Woods who will likely be Top 5 in ownership. Cantlay, on the other hand, is coming off a missed cut at the PLAYERS but is having a solid season making six of eight cuts with four Top 10's and six Top 25 finishes. He also ranks 8th in SG: Ball Striking and 10th in BoB Gained over the last 24 rounds.
Kevin Kisner
World Golf Ranking (#50)
Vegas Odds (75/1)
DraftKings ($7,000)
Kisner had a great run here last year going 2-0-1 in the group stage which was enough to get him into the Round of 16 where he beat some giants(Kuchar, Poulter, Noren) to get to the final. He eventually lost to Bubba Watson in 19 holes but increased his match play record to 8-4-1 at Austin CC. He doesn't get the easiest group(Finau, Poulter, Mitchell) but he does come in with nice form with six straight Top 30 finishes and has been riding a hot putter gaining strokes in five of those six events. I currently have Kisner coming out of his group and eventually meeting Bryson in the Elite 8. He is my top value play this week.
Emiliano Grillo
World Golf Ranking (#55)
Vegas Odds (125/1)
DraftKings ($6,900)
Call me crazy but I think Grillo has a shot to be the surprise of the tournament and make into the weekend. His match play record has been terrible(1-5-1 overall, 1-4-1 here at Austin CC) which should lead to very low ownership and he pops in my custom model on Fantasy National. Over the last 24 rounds, he ranks 1st in Opportunities Gained, 28th in Birdie or Better Gained, and 2nd in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking. To load up on two big names this week( or any week for that matter) we are going to need to take some chances and Grillo is one place I will turn to.
Chris Durell has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for six years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is an active player in college football, NFL, MLB, NASCAR, NHL and of course PGA. He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada with his wife and two daughters. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jager_Bombs9 for advice, strategy, answers to any PGA questions and how he copes with the winters up north.
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View Comments
Yo Chris what up man so with this tourney you said check your bracket so you do not overlap and I don't understand are u saying don't pick players from the same group I saw that it was separated into groups so do the golfers in each group play each other and then the winner out of there group moves on ?