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 Scramble live every Tuesdays and Fridays at 12:00 PM ET with Rick. If you are more into written content, I posted a detailed course breakdown of TPC Sawgrass on Monday, 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 (or after the tournament starts, in the case of Friday’s Scramble), 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, I loved Will Zalatoris heading into last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and yet I played zero percent Zalatoris. I thought he was a sensible outright wager, but a poor DFS play. I think many fail to realize that DFS and betting 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 two recent tournaments, the WM Phoenix Open and the Arnold Palmer Invitational (especially the API), one side of the draw saw at least a stroke advantage. The PM/AM draw at the Arnold Palmer Invitational had 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 12-20 lineups every week, and stick to a player pool between 16-20 players. I play in the same contests every single week, and I largely stick to Single Entry and 3-Max. 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  Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room. This… This is a blood-bath. First of all, I have no idea how they plan on finishing this tournament in time if the weather holds. This event had trouble getting players off the course before sunset last year in benign conditions. To give a summary, the rain is supposed to start Wednesday evening, and continue pretty much all through the night. In theory, this will prevent the superintendent from running the sub-air system overnight and being able to dry out the greens when the players aren’t on the course. So expect a wet golf course on Thursday morning. Interestingly enough, it did seem to clear a little on Thursday, with only scattered showers between 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm. Friday morning the rain is supposed to start at 7:00 pm and run pretty heavily throughout the day, finally stopping around 7:00 pm. At least this should allow the sub-air to run on Friday night, creating a firmer golf course for Saturday morning. Here’s where it gets fun though. On Saturday morning, we are expected to see up to 37 mph wind gusts (worst in the morning, but pretty steady throughout the day), with heavy rainfall between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm. Sunday is at least supposed to be dry, but it will be the coldest of the four days, and we will still see wind gusts up to 21 mph in the morning, that steady out at 14 mph in the late afternoon. What does all of this mean? Well, I’ll share a potential theory floated to me by a professional DFS player that I talk to. Delays at this point feel inevitable. With days only being 12 hours long this time of year, there is virtually no way that we will be able to get rounds 1 and 2 done by Friday. This likely means that the Friday PM guys would spill into Saturday morning, when the course was able to dry up over night and the wind is at its absolute highest. Playing in that type of wind, regardless of the softness of the course, is going to yield some high scores. Saturday morning seems to be hands down the most difficult time slot to play in. Even in the disastrous event that some of the Friday AM guys end up having to spill into the Saturday morning, at least it would be part of their round, whereas the Friday PM guys would undoubtedly have to play their full round in brutal conditions. For this reason, said friend is going with a 100% PM/AM stack. The one caution I will throw out with that is, there are likely others that will think this way too. Pat Mayo floated a similar theory in his newsletter, for example. If everyone does this, and there turns out to be no wave advantage, you might be able to get some very appealing ownership on the AM/PM guys… or they just get blown out to sea. That’s certainly possible too. I’m going to straddle the fence on this one. Of my 20 person pool, 11 of the players are on the PM/AM side, and 9 are on the AM/PM side. I really wanted to be more aggressive with a PM/AM stack, but I just couldn’t find the pivots that I was looking for. There were too many AM/PM players at great ownership that I already felt strongly about, and I couldn’t stomach pivoting to guys that I felt were objectively worse plays. This may ultimately burn me, and I will absolutely have some lineups that completely stack PM/AM, but I just couldn’t find enough PM/AM replacements to fully favor my player pool in that direction. Let’s dive into my core four. Core 4: My four strongest plays of the week that I will be the most overweight on relative to the field.

• Rory McIlroy, $10,800 (9.2% projected ownership) (PM/AM)
  • I had Jon Rahm locked into this spot until this morning, but now Rahm is pushing 20% ownership, and he is also on the “wrong” side of the draw. Am I really going to pass up a sub 10% Rory McIlroy on a soft golf course? I will still have my fair share of Jon Rahm, but McIlroy will my highest owned player, and the first man in for my main build.
• Xander Schauffele, $9,700 (13.8% projected ownership) (PM/AM)
  • I thought I was going to get a sub 12% Xander Schauffele earlier in the week, but people are starting to figure it out. I was hoping we could get more run out of the “BuT hE dOeSn’T LiKe FlOrIdA” narrative, but here we are. I will always play a sub-15% Schauffele, and I feel pretty comfortable with a main build of Rory-Xander up top.
• Tony Finau, $8,600 (5.6% projected ownership) (AM/PM)
  • I think there is a chance that Tony Finau wins this golf tournament. In my opinion, he is the biggest steal on the slate. We are still talking about a player that just gained over six strokes on approach at Riviera. He’s not far off, and his recent results have everything to do with a faulty putter. He is the only player in my core four that has the “wrong” side of the draw, which speaks to how strongly I feel that we are being given an absolute gift.
• Russell Henley, $7,400 (12.8% projected ownership (PM/AM)
  • You will rarely find me playing too many guys above 10% in the 7K range, but the Players Championship is different in terms of how soft the pricing is. My build up top is also pretty unique, so I can afford to eat it with a player that I believe is under-priced. If Henley was pushing 16%, I would probably be out, but with Talor Gooch, Corey Conners, and Paul Casey all in that range, plus Cameron Young and Chris gaining steam, there is a chance that Henley gets squeezed and comes in closer to 8 or 9. That may be wishful thinking, but his course history is also abysmal. With that being said, he’s got a great resume on short, positional golf courses, he’s deadly accurate off the tee, is one of the best mid iron players on the planets, and has experienced loads of success in the Southeast and on over-seeded Bermuda greens. I will trust course fit over course history here. I think Henley is a slam dunk.

Chalk Report 

• 10K
  • At the beginning of the week, I was convinced that Collin Morikawa would be the overwhelming chalk in this range. Yet as the week continued, people started realizing this and pivoting (Example A of why we thought this article was a good idea). At this point, it appears that Jon Rahm has essentially caught up to him. At this point, I believe Rahm, Thomas, and Morikawa will all carry somewhat equal ownership. This is a huge bummer for me, because Collin Morikawa was already a huge fade for me, and I thought being able to get Rahm at 14% compared to a 22% Morikawa was an absolute steal. With that being said, I would have played Rahm over Morikawa this week at double the ownership, that’s how confident I am that he is the better play. With that being said, with Rahm being on the “wrong” side of the draw and now pushing 20% ownership, I have greatly upped my shares of Rory McIlroy, who has both the “right” side of the draw and is the clear pivot play. I have zero interest in Viktor Hovland this week, but at 14%, you could certainly go in that direction as well.
• 9K
  • It appears that Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Cantlay, and Scottie Scheffler will all hover somewhere between 16 and 22%. I will gladly fade all of those guys, and instead turn my attention to Xander Schauffele and Jordan Spieth at sub 15% ownership. Xander is starting to climb a little bit, and at the beginning of the week, I thought there was a chance that we would get him at 10%-12%, but he’s trending towards that 14-16% range. That is still extremely manageable, especially if he is your second man in after McIlroy, which will be my main build. An 8% Dustin Johnson may make us all look extremely stupid by weeks end, but I just couldn’t find a way to fit him in my pool. Instead, I’ll take the $800 dollar discount and move down to a low-owned Spieth. If you want to get really unique and eat some 7K chalk, a DJ-Spieth build is very intriguing. Even if you like a 22% Scottie Scheffler, ask yourself this question: Is Scottie Scheffler three times more likely to outperform Dustin Johnson this week? The answer is unequivocally no. There’s a reason why books aren’t putting out matchups with Scheffler as a -300 favorite to Johnson. Ultimately, I’m playing Xander and Spieth, but DJ is also an excellent pivot.
• 8K
  • It seems like all of the ownership is collecting around Daniel Berger and Brooks Koepka, who are both trending towards 20-24% ownership. I am still playing both of them. I think both Berger and Koepka are good chalk, and I would potentially pivot if either of them were on the wrong side of the draw, but neither are. Before you plug in Berger or Koepka though, consider that a very popular build will be some combination of Matsuyama/Scheffler/Cantlay-Koepka/Berger, or Rahm/Morikawa/Thomas-Koepka/Berger. Because I am playing so much Rory, Spieth, and Xander instead, I can afford to eat the Brooks and Berger chalk. I am also even more overweight on Tony Finau (yikes) than Brooks and Berger. I think at $8.6K and sub 6% ownership, Tony Finau is the best DraftKings play on the slate. At the bottom of the $8K range, Billy Horschel and Adam Scott are both creeping up towards 18%, and my guess is that they will both finish between 16 and 20%. Hard pass on both Horschel and Scott at that ownership. I’m also playing Zalatoris. His ownership is manageable, and a sub-10% Louis Oosthuizen is another respectable pivot from the Brooks, Berger, Horschel, Scott chalk. Joaquin Niemann, Sungjae Im, and Shane Lowry are all very playable at between 9% and 14%.
• 7K 
  • Currently only one player is projected above 15% in the 7K range, and that is Matthew Fitzpatrick, who is hovering right now around 24%. I would expect that finishes closer to 20% once word really gets out that Fitz is that high. The other players who are projected above 10% are Max Homa, Russell Henley, Corey Conners, Cameron Young, and Chris Kirk. I would not be remotely surprised if Talor Gooch and Paul Casey joined them by week’s end. Especially if you have a unique build up top, I think you can really afford to play who you want down here, even the players that I just mentioned. I absolutely love Russell Henley and Corey Conners this week, and at sub 14%, both are extremely manageable. They are garnering ownership because they are under-priced, but there are so many great options in this range that it would be impossible for them get out of control. I still don’t really understand the Cameron Young thing… I mean I do, but really? Yes, he is talented, but most players struggle in their first appearance at Sawgrass. At the beginning week, I thought Talor Gooch would be MEGA- chalk, but it appears as if Young and Kirk are going to be just as, if not more, popular. I’d rather play Gooch. Oh, and if you are looking for a pivot, a sub 3% Luke List might be my favorite play in this entire range. Again, is Cameron Young six times more likely to outperform Luke List this week? I will also be playing Russell Knox and Tom Hoge at sub 5%.
• 6K
  • Honestly, you can play anyone here without worry. I don’t think many casual players are going to dip too hard into the 6K range this week. At the start of the week, I expected Mito Pereira to be MEGA chalk, but it just doesn’t seem like that is going to happen. He will still be one of the more highly owned players in this range, but I don’t see him rising above 6-8% max. Outside of Mito, my favorite plays are Mackenzie Hughes and Martin Laird, but no one is severely mis-priced in this range. Ownership will be spread out and completely manageable.

Final Player Pool (Ranked by price)

1. Jon Rahm, $11,100 (AM/PM) (19.5% projected ownership)
2. Rory McIlroy, $10,800 (PM/AM) (9.2% projected ownership)
3. Justin Thomas, $10,400 (PM/AM) (19.1% projected ownership)
4. Xander Schauffele, $9,700 (PM/AM) (13.8% projected ownership)
5. Jordan Spieth, $9,000 (PM/AM) (8.4% projected ownership)
6. Will Zalatoris, $8,900 (AM/PM) (12.9% projected ownership)
7. Daniel Berger, $8,800 (PM/AM) (22.3% projected ownership)
8. Brooks Koepka, $8,600 (PM/AM) (21.0% projected ownership)
9. Tony Finau, $8,500 (AM/PM) (5.6% projected ownership)
10. Russell Henley, $7,400 (PM/AM) (12.8% projected ownership)
11. Corey Conners, $7,300 (AM/PM) (12.0% projected ownership)
12. Si Woo Kim, $7,300 (PM/AM) (8.4% projected ownership)
13. Talor Gooch, $7,200 (PM/AM) (8.3% projected ownership)
14. Luke List, $7,200 (PM/AM) (1.8% projected ownership)
15. Russell Knox, $7,100 (AM/PM) (2.2% projected ownership)
16. Tom Hoge, $7,000 (AM/PM) (3.9% projected ownership)
17. Alex Noren, $7,000 (AM/PM) (5.8% projected ownership)
18. Mackenzie Hughes, $6,900 (PM/AM) (2.9% projected ownership)
19. Martin Laird, $6,800 (AM/PM) (1.4% projected ownership)
20. Mito Pereira, $6,700 (AM/PM) (2.7% projected ownership)

– AL