By Andy Lack

The 2023 Mexico Open Final Thoughts: Weather, Core, Ownership 

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 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. Already this season, the Houston Open featured a 2.5 stroke wave advantage! As soon as we flipped the calendar to January, weather played a massive role in the Sony Open as well. 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 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

I’m not really seeing anything here. I would guess that we might even get easier scoring conditions than we did last year based on the lack of the wind. The weather looks absolutely beautiful in Puerto Vallarta all week, with not a breathe of wind over 10 mph throughout the entire four day forecast. On both days, it is slightly breezier in the afternoon than it is the morning, but I would not expect a significant advantage for either wave.

Core Four

• Tony Finau, $10,700 (Projected ownership: 26.9%): I genuinely believe that Tony Finau is the correct play over Jon Rahm this week for a number of reasons. He actually outplayed Rahm from tee to green last year and would have won the event with any semblance of a putter. This is an excellent golf course for him, and what I find so intriguing about Finau is that despite the fact that some may view his lack of wins this season as a disappointment, he is in the midst of the best approach season of his career by a healthy margin. The 33-year-old has quietly emerged as one of the top-three iron players in the world this year, which has helped him develop an incredibly high floor. Finau used to miss cuts all the time, yet outside of the Match Play, he has not missed a single cut in the 2023 calendar year. I think when you combine the $1300 price difference along with the ownership discount too, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction in terms of the discrepancy between Rahm and Finau. I’ll gladly start my lineups with the far cheaper option and take my chances that the five time winner can find the flat-stick this time around in Mexico.

• Alex Smalley, $8,400 (Projected ownership: 11.5%): There’s a ton to love about Alex Smalley this week, and I’m fairly grateful that he’s coming in at such a palatable ownership number. The Duke University product finished sixth at this golf course last year, gaining over five strokes both off the tee and on approach, an incredibly rare feat for any player. There’s something about slow, long, tropical, Paspalum courses that Smalley has an affinity for, as he has also been incredibly strong at the Corales Punta Cana Resort and Club Championship. He ranks second in this entire field in strokes gained on Paspalum, and he also possesses above average distance off the tee, above average long irons, and he does an excellent job of taking advantage of par fives as well. Don’t overthink this one.

• Nate Lashley, $7,700 (Projected ownership: 7.0%): I have a ton of interest in Nate Lashley this week, who is coming off a 31st at the Heritage where he gained strokes on approach. The ball-striking has been steadily improving for him in both categories, and the former Rocket Mortgage Classic winner has now gained over 1.5 strokes on approach in three straight starts. Lashley has already piled up some impressive results this season, with a seventh at the Sony Open, a 20th at the elevated Genesis Invitational, and a third at the Puerto Rico Open, held at another slow, long, tropical, Paspalum golf course. To provide further evidence of his Paspalum form, Lashley also boasts a sterling resume at Corales, and he finished 11th at this event last year, gaining nearly four strokes on approach. This one is a slam dunk.

• Matti Schmid, $7,000 (Projected ownership: 5.2%): I’m very surprised that the young German bomber is not garnering more ownership at this price point. Schmid is one of only four players in this field to rank top-10 in both driving distance and proximity from 200 yards plus. The other three players are all priced at $7,800 or more expensive. With Schmid, we are getting a player that possesses both of the two more important skill-sets for this golf course. There are very few players in this price range that possess even one. The 25-year-old has shown flashes of life lately, gaining strokes in both ball-striking categories in his most recent individual stroke play start, and he was able to muster a top-30 finish at the Zurich Classic as well. Schmid is the perfect discounted option of the bombers that everyone appears to be valuing so heavily this week.

Chalk Report

• $10K: I have already gone very in depth into the Jon Rahm conversation on my podcast this week, but the long and the short of it is that the recent Masters winner will be coming in somewhere between 40 and 55%. I know that’s a fairly wide range of outcomes, but it just genuinely depends on the contest. There are higher stakes single entry contests where he could be as high as 80%, and in MME, he could be as low as 35 to 40%. I’ve already come out on the record that I willl be completely fading him for the second year in a row, and I quite simply believe that Tony Finau is objectively a better DraftKings play at that price and ownership. I feel fairly comfortable that Finau will come in between 26 and 31%, and those two make up the entire $10K range and up. There is a significant drop-off in talent once we move into the $9K range.

• $9K: The $9K range is healthy this week with only two players in a full field above $10K. Wyndham Clark should unsurprisingly leads the pack here and will come in as the third highest owned golfer on the slate at around 19%. I have Gary Woodland, Nicolai Hojgaard, and Patrick Rodgers all coming in next in the same ball-park of around 13 to 18%. My guess is that the order is as follows: Woodland, Hojgaard, Rodgers, but there will not be a significant difference between any of the three. After that, Byeong Hun A carries a decent discount at around 12%, and Maverick McNealy, Taylor Pendrith, and Alex Noren will all be in the single digits between 5 and 9%. It’s absolutely undeniable that rostering at least one of these three presents significant leverage at the top of your DraftKings lineups, but they are lower owned for a reason and all come with significant questions. If forced to choose, I’d probably roll the dice with McNealy.

• $8K: The $8K range is more loaded than normal this week, which is spreading out ownership quite nicely. There are a whopping 13 players in this range, and I do not have a single one coming in above 15%. The most likely player to cross that threshold would probably be Stephan Jaeger, but I currently have him around 14.5%. Once we get past Jaeger, Ben Martin, Emiliano Grillo, Alex Smalley, Brandon Wu, and even potentially MJ Daffue should all come in between 10 and 14%. Of that group, Smalley and Grillo are by far my favorites. There’s a decent chance that Aaron Rai, Matt Wallace, and Robby Shelton could near double digits as well. In terms of the true leverage opportunities, Beau Hossler, Andrew Putnam, and Mark Hubbard all could come in sub-five percent, which is rare even for an often neglected $8K range.

• $7K: The $7K range is loaded this week and I can honestly say that I do not see any overwhelming or problematic chalk emerging here. I do not have a single player crossing the 13% threshold. As far as the names that I have in the low double digits, Akshay Bhatia, Will Gordon, and Joseph Bramlett should all fall between 10 and 13%. This is certainly a sign of a well done job by DraftKings this week, which of course begins with the fact that they finally placed Rahm correctly. There’s an outside chance that Dylan Wu, Harry Hall, Vincent Norrman, and Augusto Nunez also creep towards the double digits, but I currently have them all between 6 and 10%.

• $6K: There’s really nothing to write home about down here, which surprises me a bit just because so many folks are rostering Jon Rahm. Ownership still always spreads out in the $6K range in a full field. The players that are likely to garner more ownership than their peers include Ryan Gerard, Martin Trainer, Brent Grant, Callum Tarren, Brandon Matthews, Kevin Roy, and Kyle Westmoreland. I still do not have any of those players above 8%. There is an outside chance that Matthews could hit double digits if folks really lean into the driving distance narrative, but even that would surprise me. I would still be cautious of deploying the unproven bomber in extremely chalky Rahm-Clark lineups.