RADIO
It's not often a golfer ties a course record that was set by himself (and Scottie Scheffler), but Tony Finau once again shot a 62 on a golf course that played more than a stroke over par. The +9.38 he gained today likely is not his best round of golf on tour, as he shot a 66 at Shinnecock Hills US Open, gaining +9.87 true strokes on the field and ranking as the 48th-best round of golf in the ShotLink era. For reference, Wyndham Clark gained +9.88 when he shot 60 at Pebble Beach this year.
With only Scottie, Clark, Theegala, and Zalatoris bolstering the strength of field, the true strokes gained likely falls into the high 8s, but still a remarkable achievement. Regardless of how true the strokes gained are, Finau's 62 gained a full +1.3 strokes more than the 62 he shot in 2022. Scheffler's 62 in 2021 gained +9.16 raw strokes, which Finau surpassed today as well. An incredible round of golf from Big Tone (who we will be fading in the hopes that putter turns back into a pumpkin tomorrow at roughly 30% ownership).
The general logic to showdown has been to target golfers who played well the day before and particularly those who hit their irons well. This makes sense as you want to roster players who are playing good golf right now. These players will be higher-owned and chalkier than golfers in the same price range who had an off day, particularly with their irons. These are the golfers I am gravitating toward, as they could very easily bounce the following day at half the ownership.
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Round 2 Analysis
Winning Lineup
It is always fun when I get to use somebody from the Discord in this part of the article. This week, may I introduce you to Kevo! He just recently won himself $17,000 as part of the RotoBaller Discord using the Showdown model.
Round 2 DK Points Leaders
Round 2 Ownership Leaders
Weather, Course Conditions & Tee Times
Round 3 Strategy
For some reason, we are going off in threesomes off both tees, making the calm weather that saw the a.m. wave thrive early on Friday nonexistent. We will have to find some solid leverage options and build our lineups with thought and ownership consciousness. Luckily, we have ownership projections that can help us navigate the popular golfers this Saturday while leaning on a few less favored options that our points projections suggest we roll out tomorrow.
Showdown Model
Below are the power rankings of the golfers who we have our eye on for Round 3. The full-field model is available to premium subscribers HERE. It includes ownership projections, pre-event rankings, round-specific scoring averages, birdie percentages, weighted approach ratings, projected points, and GPP/Cash Ratings for tomorrow's showdown slate.
***Full disclosure: The ownership numbers are based on the $5 SINGLE ENTRY MAX, which is important to note as ownership in showdown can vary from contest to contest depending on field size and entry fee. However, it should provide you with a guide to who will be the most owned and how those around them shake out.
$10,000+
Favorite play: Scottie Scheffler shot a level par, 70 today. He gained +1.38 strokes on the field and yet, that performance somehow still feels like a disappointment relative to the World No. 1's standards. The weird and wonderful part about playing Scheffler in Round 3 is this. Since 2023, in the 101 rounds of golf he has played, he has lost strokes in only 17 rounds. Of those 17 rounds, 10 were in Round 3. His Saturday strokes gained average (+1.44) is a full +1.5 strokes worse than the +2.92 he has averaged in Round 2, his second-worst day of the four.
At $12,900 and owned by a third of the contest, Scheffler is a crucial piece of the puzzle to get right for Round 3. Despite his Saturday saturations, we are going to hope that his "bad" round came in Round 2 and that we see Scheffler do his thing, gaining three strokes on the field and continuing to roll putts in with his newly acquired mallet Spyder putter. (I was very conflicted about whether or not to play Scheffler in Round 3, but his level of play has just been far too impressive to pass up knowing that he has to chase down Finau, who sits three places ahead of him with a four-shot gap.)
Other options: Sahith Theegala, Wyndham Clark
$9,000+
After rostering Tom Hoge in Round 2 as our favorite play in the $9K range, we are going to continue to indulge in the 45 points that saw him gain the sixth-most points on the slate but fade him in Round 3. In his 37 starts dating back to 2022, Hoge has lost strokes in at least one of his four rounds 35 of the 37 times. Unless he goes on to gain strokes in his next two rounds, defying his historical tendencies of sabotaging any momentum he has built up, we will have to fade him in Round 3 and/or in Round 4.
Favorite play: Will Zalatoris had one really bad day with the putter in Round 1, but went -3 in Round 2 to get him playing some golf over the weekend in Houston. Outside of the dud he produced in Round 1, Zalatoris has been playing some rather exceptional golf, gaining strokes in every round he played after Round 1 of the Farmers Insurance Open, finishing T13, T2, and T4 over that stretch. Zalatoris, admittedly, is a slow starter. His two best rounds of the year have come in Round 3 of the Farmers and Genesis Invitational, which we are hoping for this Saturday as the third-best golfer in the remaining field.
Other options: Alex Noren
$8,000+
Favorite play: Kurt Kitayama lost almost four strokes in the short-game department. He did just fine on the ball-striking front, particularly off the tee. If we can get the irons to fire back up and avoid the disasters on and around the greens, a 4% Kurt Kitayama going off at 8:15 a.m. is exactly what we are looking for to get different in our a.m. stacks, pivoting off of Hughes and Moore. - Round 2 showdown writeup.
He then went on to shoot -2 and make the cut on the number, despite only gaining +0.2 with the putter, which, by no stretch of the imagination, was a vast improvement on Round 1 but still provided tons of room for improvement. All we need is one good round on the greens to capitalize on the +2.5 strokes Kurt gained on approach today.
Other options: Billy Horschel, Beau Hossler, Patrick Rodgers
$7,000+
Favorite play: After losing 17 strokes to the field at the PLAYERS, Cam Davis has bounced back nicely this week, sitting in T28 with two rounds still to go. Davis is one of the most volatile golfers, having gained 4+ strokes in three of his 24 rounds this year. We are due for another random low round from Davis, who, at $7,900, is very affordable for a boom-or-bust option that should not be all that popular at less than 10%.
Other options: Andrew Novak, K.H. Lee, Peter Malnati, Nate Lashley, Ben Silverman, Sam Stevens
$6,000+
Favorite play: On the Korn Ferry Tour, Pierceson Coody had a rather impressive Round 3 strokes gained average, which should see him provide great value at $6,400 and 2% ownership. Coody has been hitting his irons well... You know what? I'm staring at what J.J. Spaun did today on approach, gaining +2.5 strokes. For that very simple reason, we are going to him as our favorite play in the $6K range... You know what? Gary Woodland has gained +6.5 strokes ball striking so far, with Tony Finau as the only golfer in the field to have gained more (+8.64). This is an absolute war zone of a favorite play range, but maybe we like them all enough to stack in a studs and duds lineup or two.
Other options: Emilio Gonzalez (I have no idea who this guy is, but he made the cut, and somebody random finds themselves on the leaderboard tomorrow. Why not Gonzo?), Jhonnattan Vegas
Showdown Optimizer
The optimizer works nicely with the projected ownership from the model. If you are unsure how to work it, at the top of the "PGA Lineup Optimizer" page, there is a video on how to get my projected ownership and/or projected points into your optimizer.
Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.
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