DFS PGA Odds and Leverage for Draftkings GPP - The Open 2024

One of the final majors in 2024, so we have major tournaments to tackle this week. This tournament starts early Thursday or late Wednesday night depending on how you look at it. Lets start with what we know. I also have some new insight sources in this writeup so read the whole thing and leave your feedback.

Updated 8:45 am CST

Odds vs Situations and Salary

I start most weeks with this view, because it tells quite a bit of story towards who I may squeeze together for value (above the trendline), upside (first table), and leverage (green dots and 3rd table). Eric Cole might just pop out and show em this week. Hadwin right there too with better recent play it seems. The other guys standing out would be the ones below the line on an island like DeChambeau. He could be leverage off of Rory or Morikawa with that ownership.

This is the updated version of this chart, as of 8:25am CST and Xander has rolled up to the top leverage spot if he stays where projected

Expected Wins vs Actual Wins

Xander and Clark remain overdue a 2nd win. McCarthy and Brian Harmon are both overdue a win without one. Morikawa still right about at the line too. On the flip side, Scheffler and Rory have both won over their expectations so if neither win another event this season it wouldn't be a surprise to me.

Course Fits (datagolf)

This course hasn't been played in a while but it seems to favor driving accuracy. There are a few long holes on the course as well so distance should also help, which is normal for a major. With only 2 recent tournaments to pull from, course history alone wont work. I will see what we can pull from similar courses.

Related Course History + Recent Course History

A new approach I'm taking to find plays worth targetting; is using related / correlated course history to see who course fits are, and then comparing to how that player has been recently at other courses in general (yellow). Albany and Olympia Fields are the most correlated courses to Royal Troon. From what I can tell, Fitzpatrick has played this style of course the most, with success. However his average finish recently is roughly 36th so he carries risk. Schef and Rory are more obvious plays who are good everywhere. Brian Harman could be interesting. Knowing he won this event last year (different course, thus why 0 wins), and how he has played well elsewhere and at similar courses, I have to think he could be good for his price.

Odds Vault (historical betting odds)

Shout out to Odds Vault ( https://oddsvault.io) for providing this next insight on how this event plays in particular. I'm all about leverage against the field, and as you know, favorites lead to higher ownership. This site allows me to look at the betting odds of the previous events to understand what type of odds were given to the field last year. To my surprise, the person winning was 100 to 1. 2 of the 2nd place finishers were 110 and 115 to 1 odds, meaning long shots did well at the Open 2023 and odds makers did kinda poorly at projecting winners. So how did the favorites do?

Scheffler - T23rd, then 2 top 10 finishers, and then a bunch of mediocre finishes amongst the favorites. Was this an outlier year? Ehhh maybe so, but we can see that variation is possible. I will say that when spot checking the top 10 at the Genesis Scottish Open in 2023, the top finishers had an overall good correlation to the Open top finishers. One example, would be Harman who finished 12th the week before, and then won the Open. Others just like him, so recent results are helpful this week.

Previous Optimal Lineups

2023

As mentioned with low betting odds, a lot of lower odds were used in creating the optimal lineup last year. Low ownership was also correlated to the building of this lineup. It may be worth researching the conditions of the field to see if weather or external factors produced this result.

2022

The optimal had similar ownership, around 50% overall and better scores. I think the pricing was more efficient as well as the odds that year. Shoutout to Harman for being optimal 2 years in a row at 2 different courses for The Open.

Core but Leveraged

Just a couple of names who check all the boxes statistically. Rahm's play and injury are real concerns so I wouldnt play him unless you know he is healthy. If so he does have the type of upside that Aberg showed last week.

Underowned but Optimal Plays

I circled the guys I think have value when putting it all together. It is shaping up like last week, where I do believe the top guys will do well. You cant fit them all, so finding good cheap plays makes sense. I will keep an eye on names like Harman and Niemann who showed up in a few charts this week. Definitely dont squeeze yourself out of money trying to overfit!

This is the updated version of this chart

Price Range Pivots

10K+

There are only 6 plays in the 10K range. I see Schef as the highest priced, highest owned, and highest odds. That means he could be played but shouldnt be played at the same time (i.e. you take a stand and go one way or another, but I am fading and hoping he doent top 5). He has not finished in the top 5 of the open yet and therefore I'm ok with the hard pass. Now Bryson Dechambeau is a guy who doesnt have great value, but does show as next highest odds at single digit ownership. Hes going in some lineups. Xander turns out to be the best of the leverage plays on the chart as of 8:33 am CST.

9K

Brooks is always an issue when it comes to majors but I am seeing he has the worst odds in this range with Cantlay who has been injured so I am fading those two in favor of Morikawa. I mentioned earlier that playing the week before at Genesis and finishing in the top 20 is a good indicator of who might do well this week.

8K

Tom Kim has the best odds in this range per my system while Finau has the highest ownership. Finau turns out to be negatively leveraged this week to my surprise. Fitzpatrick is intriguing to me for having the most leverage in this range so I will make sure I play him.

7K

So the 7K range looks like it is where lineups are most likely to die short of 6 of 6. I see pivot opportunity left and right. Aaron Rai has the highest expected ownership down here. Niemann has the highest odds but priced up a bit. Immediately seeing him as a potential pivot off Rai. Harman and Noren both look good too for pivot reasons. Noren being closer priced than Rai so I am paying closer attention to him as a result.

6K

I do believe folks are going into the bag with the 6K range, which leads to Sungjae and Lou, who are likely both mispriced and therefore no leverage to be seen by playing them. You dont need 100% leverage or pivot as that kills lineups too, but you do want to pick your battles. This range is a bit dicey so I am likely to see what I can do to avoid the chalkiest of even this area and hope for the best.