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Byron's top PGA DFS lineup picks for FanDuel, DraftKings. The Round 4 showdown slate for the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open
To put how amazing a 17% owned Tony Finau was today (-8) into perspective, he beat another professional golfer who made the cut this week ... by 16 shots. We stuck with Tony after his nightmarish start and it paid off quite nicely in R3. We know for a fact that Finau lost five strokes putting in round 1, and by my math on the shotlink-less North Course he probably lost around 3 strokes putting, yet he finds himself in solo third heading into the final round. Oh, I guess Jon Rahm is sitting in second place after shooting -7 today (sheesh). We are in for an absolute humdinger of a Saturday folks.
The general logic for 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 gravitated towards, as they could very easily bounce the following day at half the ownership. Adding finishing positions to the equation makes it even more fun.
You can find me on Twitter an unhealthy amount of the time @TheModelManiac, if you have any questions, compliments, or insults for me. My DFS style is very ownership-centric, and at times, this can make you feel like an unsuccessful DFS player, but when a sneaky, low-owned golfer comes through for you, it is all worth it. In this article, we are going to break down the tournament's Ballers and Crawlers and use that information to derive a player pool full of upside and leverage.
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Finishing Position Points vs. Ownership
Round 4 showdown adds the element of finishing position points to the mix. It provides an immense leverage opportunity for those of us brave enough to click on names with a T30 associated with them. There is a five-point difference between second place and 15th place, the points equivalent of one extra birdie in a player's round. If somebody sitting outside the top 20 entering Round 4 has an amazing day, making only one extra birdie than the guys in the top five, they essentially nullify the finishing position advantage. Did we mention that they will also come in at a quarter of the ownership?
Ownership in DFS is king. If you are part of the 2% of the field that has John Huh shooting -9, 98% of the field is missing out on those points. This is where money is made in DFS and if we ignore finishing position points for the most part, there is a decent chance that one of the top points scorers is sitting outside the top 10 entering Round 4. There will be instances where the leaders continue to play well, and that is not ideal, but how many times have we seen a 45% owned overnight leader have his nerves get the better of him and shoot over par? In this scenario, you have a major edge over half the field.
Round 3 Ownership Analysis
Round 3 DraftKings Points
Yesterday's article included Tony, Rahm, Sungjae, Bradley, Xander, and Rose. The majority of these guys were great core pieces to sprinkle in other golfers around them.
Round 3 Highest Ownership
We typically try to avoid ownership as best we can, but as you can tell from the below, this golf course is a big boy track and only the very best can go low around this venue. I see a bright green Justin Thomas.
Round 4 Power Rankings
The Power Rankings for Round 4:
ps: Click here for a full field power rankings cheat sheet
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The Chalk Squad
These are dudes who will inherently receive the most ownership tomorrow, but if we look at a few guys with monster power ratings a little further down the board, they could win us a showdown slate tomorrow if things break right. If I were an average Joe playing DFS tomorrow, I would click: 1. Jon Rahm 2. Max Homa ... mmm, maybe I should scroll down the board for a salary saver and click on 3. Sam Ryder and then figure out where to go from there. There will be thousands of builds that start this way for R4.
$10,000: Jon Rahm and Tony Finau. We saw in the graphic above that only a handful of golfers in this field are capable of going deep around Torrey. Only six golfers shot -4 or better today. Tony and Rahm were two of them.
Here's how I plan on playing Tony and Rahm: I will play Rahm in lineups with Tony only. It leaves a lot to be desired further down the board and we are okay with finding a few gems to put into our lineups with the remaining $7,225 we have for four other golfers. I will also be starting lineups with only Tony, as I think he will come in less owned than Rahm and as we saw today, is capable of dismantling this course if he can putt like we know he can.
$9,000: Nobody.
$8,000: Nobody.
$7,000: Nobody.
$6,000: Nobody.
The Pivot People
Nobody is in the top eight. A slate breaker will hopefully be found in one of these names. Starting the round outside the top eight, these nimble non-contenders can still have the round of the day and sneak into the top three, which is how we take down a GPP. We are going to roll out most of these guys, particularly:
$10,000: Nobody.
$9,000: Xander Schauffele and Jason Day.
$8,000: Hideki Matsuyama and Justin Rose
$7,000: Kevin Yu, Jhonattan Vegas, and Ryan Palmer
$6,000: Jimmy Walker (we still see you - 31 points at $6,100 is totally okay by me)
The Leverage Lads
It's our last chance for Tom Hoge and Co. to have that outlier round we have been chasing all week long. By default (score), these guys have landed up in the leverage lads section, but there are several $9K guys in this range who will be clicked on simply to avoid leaving salary on the table, as there are only three other $9K guys in the other sections of this article.
$10,000: In some of the lineups I don't play Rahm with Finau, sprinkling in two VERY explosive players called Justin Thomas and Taylor Montgomery will make lineup construction uncomfortable for a lot of people, which makes our lineups different pretty quickly.
$9,000: We have our core of $9K Pivot Pals that will be in most of our lineups with Rahm, but you don't need Cameron Young or Will Zalatoris in too many lineups to gain leverage on the field. Feel free to sprinkle them into a $9K slot if your lineup gets a little too chalky.
$8,000: Adam Hadwin, Maverick McNealy, and Si Woo Kim
$7,000: Emiliano Grillo, Stephan Jaeger, Trey Mullinax, Cameron Champ, Nick Hardy, Kevin Streelman (if we go heavy with Finau + Rahm/JT/Monty these golfers are going to be key parts to our lineup construction)
$6,000: Peter Malnati, Satoshi Kodaira, Michael Thompson.
Round 4 Matchups
(Will update later if we find any edges)
Good luck tomorrow and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor.
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