The Approach – Hero World Challenge (FREE)

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The Hero World Challenge

The final DFS tournament of the calendar year is upon us. I wasn’t expecting contests so large on either site, but DK and FD aren’t messing around with a chance to get that rake money.

The course

18 golfers head over to Albany, Bahamas for the to the Ablany Course, a par-72, 7,385 yarder, with bermudagrass greens, featuring five P5s and five P3s (Hello Dustin Johnson*). It’s a links style course who’s main defence is wind. There’s not much wind in the forecast for Thursday, but it does pick up over the weekend.

*DJ was first in both P3 and P5 scoring last year, no other player in the field finished in the top-13 in both categories.

Slate strategy

With 18 players and 6 spots to fill out, there are roughly 18,500 different combinations to choose from. With GPP sizes reaching 30,000 that means a lot of duplication. In order to avoid said duplication, you’re going to have to leave a lot of cash on the table, and/or fade the chalkiest plays.

The good news is, the majority of the best players in the world are here, and you can easily construct a roster with thousands of dollars left on the table that still looks pretty darn respectable. I have one that I don’t hate so far with $4000 left over.

I also like opting for some skill-set builds this week. Try out some lineups with some historically good links players (Noren, Stenson, Reed, Matsuyama) or some historically good wind players (Matsuyama, Day, Noren).

Key stats:

We don’t have a lot of data to go on at the HERO, so I’m looking at birdie makers, long term scoring average, OWGR and Vegas bargain ratings to gain an edge on the field. With so much time off between events form is harder to predict. There are some players that scored the swing season and FedEx Cup (Woodland, DeChambeau, Cantlay), so we definitely have to take that into account. I’ve inserted a handy little chart below that will let you compare some of the various values on each slate.

Ownership

With such a strong field, I’m going to use ownership as the main deciding factor in roster construction. Outside of the top and bottom of the salaries, there simply isn’t enough difference between these players to warrant huge discrepancies in ownership, and as such, opt for, perceived slightly worse plays at lower ownership over slightly better plays at higher ownership. Take a wait and see approach until Awesemo’s ownership ranks drop this afternoon.

The Value Play

Justin Thomas: Grades: A, A, Values: D, D

Thomas is priced $2,000 below the likes of Justin Rose and Dustin Johnson on DraftKings, which feels like too much. His weighted scoring average is just .1 off of Justin Rose’s, but still distinctly ahead of the golfers below him. He’s a BoB machine and he scores on P5s. Thomas isn’t known for his excellence on links golf, or his play in windy conditions, so hopefully that lowers ownership.

The Fade

Keegan Bradley: Grades: DraftKings: D, FanDuel: E, Values: A,A

Really bold call, fading the worst golfer in the field, I know. But Keegan stands out at the bottom — it seems like there’s actually a dropoff between him and the 17 golfers ahead of him. He’s the only player in Awesemo’s ranks with a ‘D’ grade for points on DK and an ‘E’ grade on FD. I’ll find the extra $500-$700 and pay up for Matsuyama or Cantlay. Of course all this depends on ownership.

Birdie or Better Best (2018)

1)Dustin Johnson

2) Justin Rose (8th on Euro)

3) Justin Thomas

4) Jon Rahm

7) Bryson DeChambeau

Birdie or Better Worst (2018)

74) Keegan Bradley

96) Henrik Stenson (48th on Euro)

146) Alex Noren (82nd on Euro)

[table id=1060 /]

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