PGA Odds and Leverage for Draftkings - Tour Championship - August 2023

This is the final chapter of the 2023 season. Hopefully you won some money and saw some of the insights come to life in your lineups. We get one more chance to print some money, in one of the smallest fields you will ever see outside of showdown. That means we got little room for leverage this week -> yet big chance you will find it here at DFSed.

Updated: 8:04 pm CST

Odds vs Situations

Afternoon Update: Odds are starting to fill in a bit more accurately and Glover has reached double digits. Scheffler has reached over 30%, and the top guy with the least ownership could be Rahm, who is showing decent leverage and upside and bad recent form -> or Cantlay. There is a dropoff in ownership right at Homa so I am liking that idea. Rory and Xander are still the safest place in the range based on their history here so I'm not avoiding anyone up top. Fun fact: Scheffler started with the top spot last year and finished T2nd to Rory who started like 6th or 7th overall. I am likely to post another update with the handicaps removed at the bottom of this page tonight so check back later!

Previous Update: I assume that most people here are not here for the first time, but note that all images should be clickable to view full screen. We are looking for plays as high as possible, above the green line for value, and as green as possible for leverage. As of now, it appears that theres a chance that Glover is our leverage of the week (although this data is going to update come Wednesday night and that may change). Scheffler has such a lead on the field that it will be difficult for him not to finish 1st place. That doesn't mean he wont be optimal though. Those two names together make some sense to me though if only building 1 lineups. Otherwise we start looking at the tables and noticing that Xander and Rory both lead this field in top 10 performances at this course. We see that Hovland could end up being a high leverage play as well, yet hard to get to when playing Rory or Scheffler. We also see that Jordan Spieth is a high value play due to his price vs upside. In case that scatter plot is difficult to read - I increased the font below due to having a few less player names available. I'll update this later this week with pivot opportunity.

Underowned Pivots

There is still another update ahead, but for now, lets see who might come in underowned. Of this group, I eel like the upper 7K /lower 8K range has some pivot potential ahead. That is, Russel Henley might not be that great of a play at his ownership since others in that space might have potential to go off and bury that chalk. This chart will update again tonight.

Core but leveraged Plays

Only one name hits this list this week and its Jason Day. I dont know if hes trustworthy with how he has played lately though. Figure I'd mention it at least as being here though, granted I'm not all that interested in him as of now.

Actual Wins vs Expected Wins

This is very interesting that not only is Scheffler top of this chart - he is actually 2 wins short of what he should have won now, based on strokes gained this year. Rory has climbed up to 2 expected wins even though he won 3 times and has been one of the hottest golfers in the back stretch of the year.Then we see the gys who are most behind schedule -> Cantlay and Xander, both a win and a half shorter than expectations. With only 1 event left, only one of these guys will get a chance to catch up to their expectations and Scheffler leads in the odds by a mile so theres that.

Course Fits (datagolf)

The last 3 events have been high on driving accuracy and it appears to be extremely important here as well. The fairway width is in the top 5 for smallest width. However putting seems to be one of the easier on tour. That is also good for Scottie who gained like a whole stroke tee to green last week but lost strokes putting to even be considered for 2nd place. With courses like this, we can target the accurate drivers again, but distance players are somewhat helpful too, if they can once again, recover on their inaccurate shots. That means a stat blend of driving distance + scrambling correlates well once again. Accuracy play is a bit tougher to correlate on the surface but those gaining a stroke putting seem to also correlate with top results.

Course history - last 5

Xander has actually gained more strokes in the last 3-5 years than anyone else. He has been playing well so I suspect he will be a good play even as a popular one. Max Homa only has 1 appearance in that span yet is intruiging because of his ability to gain strokes off the tee and putting. This week we want as many top 10 finishers as possible with only 30 players.

Recent Form

Rory has been on fire. I faded him a bit and that did not help me at all. I am happy to see Glover up here in recent form and if his ownership stays down that makes me happy to take a shot on him. Harman and Homa shouldnt be ignored either.

Leverage

The odds at this tournament include the handicaps and so Scottie is way above the field, assume he doesnt collapse. Top scores can range between -11 through -18 range which means birdies will be available.

Last Year's Optimal

Ideally you will find a path to 100 points for all your golfers if possible. The popular guys definitely came through, granted the most popular guys (wise and scott) did not. So I wouldnt go full leverage at an event with high predictability but I would certainly not play the top chalk across the board either. This optimal left 1000 on the board and so maybe leaving some salary makes sense this week with the spread in salaries.

Odds without the handicap

As mentioned, 2 of the last 4 tournaments have had a player (Rory) come from behind the handicap and win, which tells me that we should look at odds without the index, in case the birdies pick up this week. In this model, Cantlay stands out a bit more. Ownership is so flat that it seems one edge (if ownership is accurate) is to avoid the 12k range, since 90% of lineups appear to be reaching that high for a player this week. Perhaps thats what my first build will look like this week.

Check back later for updates!