By Andy Lack

Welcome! My name is Andy Lack, host of the Inside Golf Podcast, a twice weekly golf betting and DraftKings show. I also co-host the betting preview every Tuesday with Rick. If you are more into written content, I post a detailed course and I will continue that every week with each PGA Tour stop.

The biggest thing I have realized from the fact that all of my content either comes out so early in the week is that I haven’t found a way to be able to share or synthesize my final DFS thoughts. Often on my Sunday show, I will discuss a player that I love from a handicapping perspective, and yet I will have zero percent of him in my lineups come Wednesday night. For example, the combination of last week’s weather madness and ownership took me off multiple players that I was high on from a handicapping standpoint. In my opinion, there’s a huge difference between a sensible outright wager, and a good DFS play, and I see far too many people simply plug the players they bet into their DraftKings lineups. Betting and DFS are two completely different games, and I go about my process for each completely differently. This is how Rick and I conceived of this Wednesday article, “Andy’s Final DFS Thoughts: Weather, Core, Ownership.” I wanted a platform where I could wait until the end of the week, and synthesize all the information at my disposal: price, ownership, and weather.

With the rest of my content all being recorded by Tuesday morning, I did not feel like I was able to give adequate DFS advice. For example, there’s no real point in talking about the weather in a podcast recorded on the previous Sunday or Monday. I can make guesses on what the weather will look like, but it often changes various times over the course of the next three days. Also, weather MATTERS. In four tournaments already last year, the WM Phoenix Open, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the U.S. Open, and the Open Championship, one side of the draw saw at least a one stroke advantage. More dramatically at the PLAYERS Championship, Scottish Open, the PGA Championship, and the Rocket Mortgage, one side of the draw saw at over a two stroke advantage. This may not sound like much, but it’s finding small edges like this over time that will make you a winning DFS player.

Before we dive in, I should also mention: the most important part of DFS is figuring out how you like to play and sticking to it (for at least a large enough of a sample size before you change up your process.) I am not a 150 lineup guy, or even a 50 lineup guy. I play 15-30 lineups every week, and stick to a player pool between 15-20 players. I play in the same contests every single week, and I largely stick to the 20-Max and all of the Single Entries. I will throw a few listener leagues in too to support my friends.

I play pretty aggressively in the sense that I do not play a lot of chalk (sometimes as much I should). A lineup that I enter into a contest will never combine to have over a 75% ownership threshold based on my ownership projections. I mention all of this to say, this has just been what has worked for me. There are a ton of different ways to succeed at this, but I think it’s important to have context for how I play. As always, hit me up in the slack channel with any questions. I am always happy to talk shop. Alright, without further ado, let’s dive in.

Weather

The weather forecast looked pretty bleak last week to the point where I was almost sure that there would be a delay at some point. Much to my pleasure, the tournament went on without a hitch. For this reason, I’m hesitant to suggest that there will be any major delays, but there is a fair amount of wind and rain in the forecast over Thursday and Friday. Scattered showers make predicting a potential wave advantage a total fool’s errand, and I’m not going to attempt to speak one into existence this week either. On both Thursday and Friday, it appears that those playing early in the morning will get a nice pocket between 7:00 AM and 11:00 AM where the course is dry. For the rest of the day however, the wind picks up slightly with the threat of rain. I always appreciate a galaxy brain take, but I have a difficult time looking at this forecast and feeling remotely confident that one side of the draw will experience a significant advantage over the other.

Core 4: The four players that I will be most over-weight on relative to the field.

• Scottie Scheffler, $11,400 (AM/PM) (Projected ownership: 13.8%): I have a sneaking suspicion that Scottie Scheffler will be the lowest owned player in the $10K range this week. I am certainly not suggesting that the number two ranked player in the world will be sneaking up on anyone, but it’s a hefty price to pay for a player that has really been struggling with the flat-stick of late. I do not believe this would be true if the pricing was more flat, but the fact that Tony Finau $1,000 cheaper cannot be ignored. Starting with Scheffler undeniably creates an uncomfortable build. It’s really hard to feel good about squeezing a Horschel or Wise in as the second man in, and even Hoge or Grillo as a second man in will require some creativity at the bottom. There are a lot of players that I love in the $8K and high $7K range, so I’m less fearful of building this way, and I simply believe this a rare opportunity to get the second best player in the world at an ownership discount. Scheffler remains a top-five iron player in the world, and his ability to drive the ball straight might be the most underrated aspect of his game. For what it’s worth, he’s also third in this field in long-term proximity between 125-175 yards. The fact that he is a downright lethal mid to short iron player also deserves more praise. He generates scoring opportunities at an elite clip and along with Tom Hoge, is one of only two players in this field to rank top-five in opportunities gained and birdies or better gained. I trust him to win this tournament at 25-under par if the weather clears, and I trust him to win this tournament at 13-under par if it’s windy and rainy all week. The major current concern is the flat-stick, but Paspalum might just be what the doctor ordered. These are some of the least thought provoking greens players will see all season, and the last time Scheffler got a crack at Paspalum, he gained 4.6 strokes putting at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island. We are rockin’ and rollin’ with Scottie this week at the top.

• Brian Harman, $8,900 (PM/AM) (Projected ownership: 8.1%): I really like this spot for Brian Harman despite the fact that he has struggled to crack the first page of the leaderboard at this event. In nine appearances at El Camaleon, he’s made six cuts, but with zero top-25 finishes. He’s played here a ton and never even sniffed contention, but this still begs the question of why he keeps showing up. Harman never has any issue keeping his card every year, and he’s got a home game in two weeks at Sea Island. There’s literally no reason for him be here this week. Either he legitimately believes he can compete here, which would make sense given my numbers suggest that this is an excellent fit, or he likes taking the family here every year for vacation. I’m going to side with the former. I really do believe that this is an excellent spot for the Georgia Bulldog, who remains one of the most accurate drivers of the ball on the PGA Tour. He possesses some of the strongest history you will find at the big four “Position A” golf courses, which makes his lack of success at El Camaleon even more befuddling. 3rd, 8th, 8th at the Players. 3rd, 6th at the Wyndham. 7th, 9th, 13th, 23rd at the Heritage. 4th, 13th, 13th, 13th at the Sony. These four courses feature an extremely high correlation between driving accuracy, mid to short iron play, and success. Harman is coming off a rock solid 23rd at the CJ Cup where he gained two strokes off the tee and 1.3 strokes on approach. He’s now gained over two strokes off the tee and over one stroke on approach in both of his fall swing starts this year, which both resulted in top-25s. Brian Harman is never a sexy play, but he’s always under-owned, and a top-25 machine. Works for me.

• Sebastian Munoz, $7,900 (PM/AM) (Projected ownership: 8.0%): I feel like many (myself included) have the idea that Sebastian Munoz is an extremely volatile player. This is likely because he always seems to find himself towards the top of the leaderboard on Thursday, before flaming out over the weekend. It’s true, Munoz can get scorching hot at times, and from a visual standpoint, he’s got a really aggressive move on the ball. This gives him the reputation of a player that we want to trot out of on wide open birdie-fests where he can bomb away with the driver and fire at pins. He’s plenty solid at courses like TPC Craig Ranch and TPC Deere Run, but the strongest and most underrated aspect of Munoz’s game is that he is a actually one of the most accurate drivers of the ball on Tour. Here is the list of players in this field to rank top-30 in driving accuracy percentage, good drive percentage, and strokes gained off the tee on short, positional courses: Ryan Armour, Russell Henley, Lucas Glover, Kramer Hickok, Hayden Buckley, Doug Ghim, Kevin Streelman, and Sebastian Munoz. For this reason, I actually believe that Munoz possesses his greatest advantage at short, positional courses, which explains the great deal of success he has had at tracks such as Sea Island and Colonial. While Munoz has yet to pop in three appearances at El Camaleon, I think this is a really underrated course fit, and the ownership is extremely palatable as well. The Colombian gained two strokes putting at Vidanta Vallarta the last time that he was on Paspalum, which given my confidence in his ability to gain strokes off the tee on this course, should be enough to finish in the top-25 this week. In fact, I could actually see him winning this thing.

• C.T. Pan, $6,800 (AM/PM) (Projected ownership: 4.0%): I get excited to play C.T. Pan every week, but given the course fit, I’m absolutely foaming at the mouth here. In five appearances at El Camaleon, Pan has made every single cut, with two top-20 finishes. The former RBC Heritage winner (comp course!) remains one of the most accurate drivers of the ball in this entire field, and his long-term wedge play is well above average too. Outside the aforementioned win at the RBC Heritage, Pan has also finished runner-up at Sedgefield, another course in the “Short, Positional’ Hall of Fame. It’s not a coincidence that Pan has consistently been able to rise to the top of the leaderboard at this category of course, and I expect him to continue to print money at these same spots year after year. Pan is coming off 44th place finish that could have been way better had a Sunday 74 not dropped him over 30 spots on the leaderboard. While his Sunday struggles were painful for my bank account in the moment, I still watched with glee knowing that he’d easily be 500$ more expensive and more popular had he stuck around in the top-15. I just have a really good feeling about this one. Take five bucks and throw it on his outright number of 180/1 as well.

Chalk Report: Ownership break-down for every salary range.

• $10K: I spoke earlier in the week on a podcast that I expected this salary range to be flatter than one would expect, and while I still believe that, I do have Viktor Hovland coming in as the most popular option. 22% feels like a fair approximation on the two-time defending champion. After Hovland, I think it’s pretty tight between Collin Morikawa, Tony Finau, Aaron Wise, and Billy Horschel. At the beginning of the week, I expected Horschel to be the lowest owned player in this range, but a strong Billy hive appears to have emerged. I believe that Morikawa, Finau, Wise, and Horschel will all fall between 19 and 15%. Just pick whoever you like within that foursome, as I do not see a discernible difference in their popularity. As alluded to in the core plays section, I do believe that Scottie Scheffler will be the lowest owned player in this range. I am not suggesting that Scheffler presents some crazy leverage opportunity, as I have still have him coming in somewhere between 13 and 14%.

• $9K: As expected, the two names to worry about here are Emiliano Grillo and Tom Hoge. I have both coming in between 16 and 19%. That’s high, but it’s not disgusting. Just bear in mind that Hovland-Grillo or Hovland-Hoge starts will be the most popular top-end builds. After Hoge and Grillo, I have Brendon Todd coming in somewhere between 12 and 15%, which is honestly quite a bit higher than I would expect given the price tag. The four remaining players could all actually fall in the high single digits. I’ve got Taylor Montgomery coming in at 9%, Maverick McNealy at 10.5%, Seamus Power at 7%, and Jason Day at 8%. McNealy will probably crack low double digits, but Seamus Power could actually be sub 5%. Is it inconceivable that Seamus plays well coming off a win? Fantasy players appear to believe so.

• $8K: The $8K range presents some opportunity as well. I believe that Thomas Detry, K.H. Lee, Andrew Putnam, Matt Kuchar, and Russell Henley will all fall somewhere between 10 and 14%. Every single one of these guys are playable. Brian Harman will come in just below them in them in the 7 to 10% range. Yet the real “leverage” comes with taking a shot on Alex Noren, Keith Mitchell, or Adam Hadwin. I have all three of these players hovering around 5%. I talk about how there is a dead zone in the $8K range literally every single week, and that choosing right here will pay dividends.

• $7K: We’ve avoided it for the past couple of weeks, but there’s some pretty gnarly groupthink formulating in this range in the form of Hayden Buckley, Adam Long, and Joel Dahmen. I like all three of these players just as much as the next guy, but under no circumstances am I ever playing anyone in this range above 15%, and all three of these players may pass this threshold. El Camaleon is a course that allows all types of players to compete. Under no circumstances is a Joel Dahmen FIVE times more likely to outperform a Chris Kirk, Beau Hossler, Erik Van Rooyen, or S.H. Kim. I understand the course history play with Adam Long, but suddenly he’s four times more likely to outperform everyone’s future Ryder Cup stud Sepp Straka? Come on now. The Buckley thing is probably the most jarring. I’m bummed about this one and I don’t know how it happened. I’m a huge fan of his and he’s an outright bet for me at 80/1, but this is so irresponsible. I also believe that Aaron Rai and Justin Lower will clear double digits, but over 14% would surprise me. After that, Patrick Rodgers, Sebastian Munoz, Lee Hodges, Mark Hubbard, Greyson Sigg, Russell Knox, and Justin Suh, all have an outside chance at double digits, but I would be surprised if any of them actually got there.

• 6K: No one down here to be worried about. The players that will receive more ownership relative to their peers are Kevin Yu, Ben Griffin, Tyler Duncan, David Lipsky, John Huh, and Danny Lee, but I would be very surprised if any of them approached double digits. Choose your own adventure down here.

Best of luck this week – AL