RADIO
Welcome back to my PGA DFS lineup picks for the CJ Cup on DraftKings! Many golfers barely miss out on being mentioned here by a fraction of a percent, so if you have any questions about a particular player from a PGA DFS or PGA betting perspective, you can contact me on Twitter @Teeoffsports.
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PGA DFS Rankings Wizard - CJ Cup
We have a special treat for all you RotoBallers and golf enthusiasts. In addition to this article, be sure to also check out Spencer's PGA DFS Rankings Wizard - a powerful and interactive data spreadsheet that allows user inputs to create custom rankings and models for golf. If you want to create your own spreadsheet, you will need to make a copy under "file." We hope you enjoy!
Congaree Golf Club
7,655 Yards - Par 71 - Greens Bermuda
We saw Congaree fill in as a replacement venue during the 2020-2021 season, and I thought the track showed magnificently well for the week. The course played as one of the toughest on tour all season, producing a scoring total just under par at -0.26 shots, and a lot of that had to do with the wasteland areas off the tee that created difficult lies for those that went wayward or came up short with their first shot. Now, I do want to make it clear that wide fairways and virtually no rough will benefit the bombers, which we see with driving distance averaging 20 yards above expectation, but the forced carries over waste areas aren't always a given because of the 7,655-yard layout of the land.
Greens are on the larger side of things, and while that can sometimes diminish approach play and around the green metrics, I believe Congaree might turn into a bomb-and-short game contest because of the firm/fast putting surfaces protected by undulation and bunkers located above and below the greens. Those two factors will enhance sand save percentage and short-game metrics, and the ability to putt from off the surface will make three-putt avoidance another tangible way to attack scrambling. Proximity from 200+ yards is my preferred way to put in approach game metrics since 27.9% of shots occurred from that distance in 2020, and ball striking isn't a horrible look since it will be vital for golfers to attack pins from the correct angle since it can become difficult to hold the greens from specific directions.
Overall, players that can gain an edge over the field with their length and short game will be rewarded, and a complete tee-to-green skillset shouldn't be overlooked since 14 of the top 16 players in that category during the last iteration finished inside the top 25 on the leaderboard.
Let's Look At The Stats
| Stat | Congaree | Tour Average |
| Driving Distance | 302 | 282 |
| Driving Accuracy | 68% | 62% |
| GIR Percentage | 63% | 65% |
| Scrambling Percentage | 55% | 57% |
| Average Three-Putts Per Round | 0.70 | 0.55 |
Key Stats
Let's quickly run through how I built my model.
Weighted Tee-To-Green (30%)
SG: Total Difficult Courses (10%)
SG: Total Fast/Firm Conditions (10%)
SG: Total Long Courses (10%)
Weighted Par-Three + Par-Four (15%)
Weighted Par-Five (12.5%)
Fairway + Greenside Bunkers (12.5%)
I will dive deeper into what went into these totals later in the week on my podcast. If you aren't doing so already, you can follow Bettor Golf Podcast on Twitter.
Fantasy Golf Lineup Picks for DraftKings (PGA DFS)
We have tons of great weekly PGA articles, DFS analysis, tools and DFS advice. Be sure to read our other fantastic articles regarding this week's event.
High-Priced DraftKings DFS Players
***There are four players priced above $10,000. Please remember that my DFS article is always a first look at the field. Opinions might shift as the week goes on, and I am more than happy to discuss anyone further on Twitter.
Early thoughts on the group: I am trying to get this article out earlier today than usual, so we will go without ownership for the Monday piece and clean it up on Wednesday when we discuss the official player pool in my final article.
I don't believe it is outlandish to say that around 35% of the event's win equity is going to come from these four names in the $10,000 section, so it is just a matter of figuring out where the best leverage can get created in GPP contests and is anyone standing out from a statistical perspective? We can answer the popularity question on each in a few days, but let's deep-dive into the stats and begin our quest for gaining an advantage on the surface level.
The first massive takeaway I see is that when we remove sand save numbers, Rory McIlroy ($11,100), Scottie Scheffler ($10,400) and Justin Thomas ($10,200) each qualify inside the top 10 of every statistic that I looked into for the week, and it is Thomas that is the only golfer to make the cut in every category.
To me, that means Rahm will have to generate a substantial amount of leverage to overcome the multiple misses and lack of top-end results, and it is Thomas' six top-two recordings in my model out of the seven categories that will have me most bullish of the group on using him in this no-cut contest.
If we look at this from an ownership-agnostic standpoint, I rank the four as Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm, but the top three are some of the most decisive statistical plays on the board and should be treated as such when you are considering your options for the week.
As of Monday:
Early Group Ranking: Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm (All in consideration).
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Mid-Priced DraftKings DFS Players
$9,000 Range
Early thoughts on the group: Assuming that this section gets random surges of ownership leaking into the group, we will have to do a solid job of weighing out the decrease in win equity from the top four names and the increase in traction in this area. I'll be intrigued to see if any players slip through the cracks for the week.
Matthew Fitzpatrick ($9,800) - Some of the weighted proximity is going to look funky for Matthew Fitzpatrick when you model this out, but his top-eight grades in strokes gained at challenging courses, strokes gained on fast/firm conditions and recalculated par-three/par-four scoring will be enough for me to keep him on the shortlist of my player pool on Monday.
Fitzpatrick's non-weighted tee-to-green metrics place him sixth in this field, and I think it is one of those spots where the proximity will be less impactful when he has the short-game prowess and accuracy off the tee to clean up most of those mistakes. There are a ton of ways I can run this marginally different to move him into my top five or six names - which is always important to me to make sure one version doesn't overly affect a golfer, which I think is taking place here on his initial ninth-place grade.
Sungjae Im ($9,600) - Sungjae Im's lack of perceived win equity tends to hurt the price tag in these events, and while I am not sure where he should have been priced on this board with the amounts we were given, maybe the answer would have been to have more $10,000+ golfers on the slate to give him a natural boost in that fashion since the exact landing spot of being the sixth choice is fair. Overall, the price is just too shallow, which we can say makes everyone near the top more of a value than usual.
Sam Burns ($9,300) - I am speculating here, but I think it is likely that Bermuda Burns will go off the board as one of the most popular plays of the week. I don't dislike him, and I do believe the surface narrative does help his upside, but if everyone is saying the same thing for that answer, it means that the ownership will catch steam. I usually try to avoid those options when the upside metrics aren't grading off the charts, and Burns has a ton of middling results in his profile, including a less-than-ideal output at longer courses. We will see Max Homa have some of those problems in a second, but the higher-end statistical finishes and my perceived lower popularity total is where the difference comes into play.
Viktor Hovland ($9,200) - I am going to include Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa in the same section here because there is a little WGC-Concession that I see in this course, which helped to propel Morikawa to victory in 2021 and likely should have had Hovland as the true victor if it weren't for his disastrous quadruple-bogey where he found the palmetto bushes twice at the end of his Friday round.
The problem with all of that is both have an around-the-green game that ranks outside the top 60 in this field, and it doesn't help matters that the bunker play will follow the same suit of volatility. I do think Hovland is the better play between the two because of his distance and iron combination, but the floor is lower on each than most of their counterparts if we don't get a heavy reduction in popularity for the week - something that I will keep an eye out for but will almost certainly be on the other side of for Morikawa. Hovland has a chance to work his way into my player pool if the ownership does show as a steady output, but it will be a numbers game for him.
Max Homa ($9,100) - Max Homa is not a guaranteed lock for me that he makes my player pool, although his removal might have to come from one of two factors. For starters, I could see him missing because the popularity goes nuclear, and secondly, there is a chance someone like Viktor Hovland could overtake him if leverage indicates a pivot. I like Homa's high-end output totals in my sheet, but there are red flags in multiple areas.
Collin Morikawa ($9,000) - (See Hovland)
As of Monday:
Group Ranking: Sungjae Im, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Max Homa, Viktor Hovland, Sam Burns and Collin Morikawa.
Mid-Priced DraftKings DFS Players
$8,000 Range
We will get more into this group as the week goes on, but Jordan Spieth ($8,800), Shane Lowry ($8,300) and Corey Conners ($8,000) grade as the three best values in this section, according to my model.
As of Monday:
Low-Priced DraftKings DFS Players To Consider ($7,000+)
The list removes all players outside the top-40 in overall or upside rank + negative totals against their DraftKings price, upside and ownership. We will break this list down more as ownership continues to trickle in over the next few days.
*** The names showing would be my early leans that I am going to take a deeper dive on over the next few days.
Sub-$6,000 Options To Consider
All the players below were inside the top-50 in one of the two iterations and positive during either the differential against DraftKings price or ownership. You can use my model to get a complete field breakdown, but this condensed things nicely as a first run.
Early Lean For Favorite Player in Each Range:
$10,000 - Justin Thomas ($10,200)
$9,000 - Sungjae Im ($9,600)
$8,000 - Jordan Spieth ($8,800)
$7,000 - Aaron Wise ($7,800)
$6,000 - Diving deeper so I don't say Webb Simpson. The answer would likely be the lesser-owned option of Kirk/Woodland.
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