We officially opened the PGA tour 2020 season last week but since it was a 34-man, no-cut event, that doesn’t exactly qualify. That means I am declaring this the first real week of the PGA DFS season with a full field for building lineups. It was nice to get a little preview of what’s to come during the year but a full-field event with a cut is really more of the traditional format we will be seeing throughout 2020.
For anyone who is new to PGA DFS, this is going to be a public service announcement for the early part of the season: remember we are dealing with the new cut rule of Top 65 and ties instead of the Top 70 we are used to seeing. That will continuously make 6-for-6 incredibly elusive and 5-for-6 will have a chance to hang on in smaller fields with only a handful of rosters surviving the cut.
[PGA2020]
The Course
This week, players will be teeing it up at Waialae Country Club which is a pretty unimposing Par 70, about 7,000-yard layout. The first thing you will notice is that the fairways are tight unlike last week and it is going to lend itself to guys who can control the ball off the tee.
This course doesn’t seem to favor one specific type of golfer which makes it wide open for a lot of different playing styles, even with the narrow fairways. In addition to solid course history, I’m hoping to find golfers who are accurate off the tee and prefer Bermuda greens. Since it’s the first full tourney of 2020, recent form is hard to factor in as the majority of the field hasn’t played in a few months, so be careful with recent form stats. There are a handful of guys who were already in Hawaii playing last week in the tournament of champions, which is a boost, although just a secondary factor for me when deciding on players.
In terms of scoring this is not going to test the players much , with the winning score easily live to cross the -20 mark. Players who are able to stay out of trouble off the tee will be attacking pins earlier and often, so fire up some birdie makers and hope that they get in a zone on this short track.
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The Field
This is a full-field event, so we have about 140 golfers to choose from. It is not the strongest field but we still have some top names who decided to stay in Hawaii after playing last week. Justin Thomas is the class of the field and kicks off the pricing, followed by Patrick Reed, Webb Simpson and Hideki Matsuyama.
Since we have a ton of golfers to choose from, we have a lot of different options at each price point, so we aren’t funneled to certain players regardless of build. Last week, that was an issue with only a few guys in each range and that is one of the things I don’t love about small-field non-cuts. Ownership will also be lower across the board with so many options so we are back to getting leverage with lower percentages on certain players.
As always, keep an eye on weather and wind. Check Slack periodically as we will provide updates and break down the latest info we get as this article is written a few days before lock. Also make sure to check out the Wednesday night Awesemo.com PGA DFS show where we will update weather and talk about lineup construction and player pool and take questions from the chat.
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Quick Targets
Top Priced
Patrick Reed $10.8k DraftKings , $12.3k FanDuel Â
Obviously Justin Thomas is the favorite and he should be coming off the win last week at the Tournament of Champions. Thomas takes apart these weak fields and has had a ton of success in Hawaii but he is priced to the ceiling. If you want to bump down, we have Reed coming off a runner-up finish last week after losing in the playoff, so he is also getting a fast start to the season.
Reed finished 13th in last year’s event but we know he is a world-class player who can deal with adverse weather conditions. He putt the lights out last week which allowed him to hang in despite mediocre ball striking, so I still back Reed in a spot like this. He will free up extra salary that will bolster the bottom half of lineups this week and that could mean the difference between 6-for-6 and a guy not finding the weekend. Unless Thomas runs away with things, he will have a narrow path to value and we can look to more balanced PGA DFS builds on a lot of teams.
Marc Leishman $9.2k DraftKings, $10.6k FanDuel
The Aussie has battled injuries here and there with the back but he played in the Presidents Cup last month. I always have trouble with Leishman as he looks like an elite golfer at times, while there are other stretches where it feels like he cannot even compete on the PGA tour. The truth is he is a threat to win anytime he tees it up regardless of field strength and is one of the best players in this weak Sony Open field.
When on, Leishman relies on the irons and isn’t going to be fazed by possibly windy conditions. This course doesn’t demand distance off the tee and that should allow him to hit irons and set himself up well for the second shot. Like most players in this field, we are relying on swing season data or long-term form and that can make it difficult to gauge where guys’ games are. I will be rolling with Leishman in balanced builds and if you want to go aggressive, you can try and pair him up with a top player like Thomas for a great one-two punch.
Mid Range
Brandt Snedeker $8.6k DraftKings, $10.1k FanDuel
Snedeker is always a high-upside option due to his win equity but he also can be a very frustrating guy to roster. He is weak off the tee compared to the rest of the top-end players and relies on a hot putter and craft short irons to get the job done. One positive is Snedeker is a wind specialist and is apt to win both a shootout or a grind-it-out tournament. We haven’t seen Snedeker in some time going all the way back to October when he finished 48th at the Shriners. That is a long layoff and like many in this field, we just have to hope Snedeker gets out of the gate fast and doesn’t have a ton of rust to his game.
Brian Harman $8.2k DraftKings, $9.8k FanDuel
Harman is another guy who is all over the map but he comes to a course he is familiar with and a style that suits his game. He has been in contention dozens of times on tour and was able to hold on for a pair of victories so far in his career. Looking over his history here, Harman missed the cut last year but before that, he had finishes of fourth, 20th, 13th and 13th in the past five years. He clearly likes the setup at the Sony and when he gets it rolling on the greens, Harman is live to win any event.
We haven’t seen Harman since swing season where he was all over the map in terms of finishes. He finished third at Greenbrier and had three other top-20 showings with a pair of bad finishes sandwiched in between. That’s to be expected with the majority of this field and we aren’t going to find guys who don’t throw in a missed cut or two, especially with the Top 65 rule now in place. Look to Harman for a solid mid-range PGA DFS play this week, as he fits in any type of contest structure.
Lower Priced
Emiliano Grillo $7.6k DraftKings, $9.3k FanDuel
I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions but I do have a goal in 2020 to have a better pulse on Grillo. Last year, he cost me by far the most money and his ability to strike the ball while losing five-plus strokes on the greens is unmatched. I am not saying that he suddenly is going to turn around the putter but I will say that he has a better chance of being an average putter than a weak ball striker has of becoming elite off the tee.
Grillo should like the course as he can lean on his strengths but at the end of the day, he needs to make some putts. He has lost three or more strokes putting in the last five tournaments where strokes-gained data was available and that’s impossible to sustain, even for a guy struggling on the greens. I will be buying with this price tag but will also do my best this year to pick my spots in PGA DFS with maybe the most frustrating guy on tour.
Harry Higgs $6.7k DraftKings, $8.3k FanDuel
When we have limited information, one strategy I like to go to is buying a guy for a string of weeks and not trying to peg them for individual tournaments where variance is so incredibly high. There is nothing more frustrating then jumping on and off a guy only to miss it by weeks and buying for a block of events can mitigate that.
I have interest in Higgs during this early part of the season and think he is a good buy at these dirt cheap price tags. Higgs graduated from the Korn Ferry last year and got some experience during swing season where he very nearly won at the Bermuda Championship. It is very early in his career to start pegging him as a certain type of player but so far, Higgs has leaned on his driver and irons to carry what is a suspect around the green and average-at-best putting game.
This tournament is stronger than the Bermuda but it is still a weak field and we are looking for a guy to find the weekend when digging into these lower price points. Higgs has the skills to grab you some placement points for PGA DFS and I will be buying early in hope that he hits the ground running here in Hawaii.
Also Considering – Daniel Berger
Quick Notes
First Full-Cut Event
For people just getting into PGA DFS, this is the first real event of what is going to be an incredibly long season. It is not to say we shouldn’t be excited or can’t confidently play this tournament, but be aware of the long layoff for a lot of these players. Furthermore, there will be guys who are testing new things out before the big events, or working through some swing changes and that could be a work in progress. All we can do is try and monitor as best we can and not overreact to what will be some tilting moments during this 2020 season.
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