Farmers Insurance Preview & Draftkings Optimal Lineup Analysis
The PGA Tour continues its West Coast Swing as it leaves the Coachella Valley and heads to the posh playgrounds of La Jolla, California for the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. Players at Torrey will be greeted by ideal scoring conditions in North San Diego as weather is expected to be in the low-mid 60s all week with winds staying under 10mph. Since Torrey is located on the coast, we’ve seen the event altered by wind, rain, and fog throughout its recent history. Unlike most weeks on Tour, the Players will be starting their first round on Wednesday and ending on Saturday so the event’s exposure does not get overrun by the NFL Conference Championships on Sunday. This scheduling wrinkle may affect those preparing to play Torrey for the first time if they made the cut at The American Express but as we will discuss here, our focus will likely be on those who already have history at Torrey Pines.
Prior to Thursday’s cut, all players will be playing one round at both the North Course and South Course. While both courses were designed by William Bell, Rees Jones renovated the South Course in 2001 while Tom Weiskopf renovated the North Course in 2016. The two biggest differences between the courses is the North plays about 500 yards shorter and the greens are Bentgrass as opposed to the Poa grass on the South Course. While it’s possible to have a hot round at the South Course, 3 of the last 6 winners were more under par at their 1 round on North than they were cumulatively on the other 3 rounds at the South Course. If you are looking for any edges regarding tee time waves, keep in mind that all players have an early round one day, and a later tee time on the other day. This could be meaningful if there was any concerning weather coming in but this should not be the case this week. One possible variable to consider is that the consistency of Poa’s greens deteriorate throughout the day while Bentgrass is more resistant. There might be a small advantage in having your South Course tee time early so you get those greens are their best and play the North later when it doesn’t make much a difference.
OPTIMAL BUILDS
These edges may seem minuscule but when the percentages of getting 6/6 golfers on Draftkings to make cut are around 5%, that may make the difference between making a profit or not. Let’s now take a look at the optimal lineups of the last four years on Draftkings:
One working theory I’ve maintained is that the strength of the field often dictates the amount of money that will be left on the table. Last week at The American Express’s weaker field, we saw that the optimal build left $7000 of salary left over which is even more than the average there of $4300! Here at the FIO, we see that the last 3 years left less than $1000 with 2018 looking a bit more like an outlier year. As Draftkings has grown and learned from their pricing structure, I’m going to believe that the trend continues closer to the previous 3 years. This event not only brings some of the biggest names in golf, those same players also end up winning the event as well. Prior Major winners here include Jon Rahm, Jason Day, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Justin Rose, and of course Tiger Woods. While I’m not confident on who will win this event, I’m confident that the winner will not be a surprising name. The winner will likely come from the 8k+ range, has experience playing Torrey, and is likely a top-tier ball striker.
PLAYER POOL
When looking at the optimal lineups and the top 10 Draftkings scorers at this event for the last 4 years, one data point that nearly all players fell into is their ranking in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking over the last 36 rounds. If we’re trying to trim down our player pool from 144 players to something manageable for building 40 lineups, we have to start somewhere. What I’ve done is first cut off everyone outside the TOP 50 in this category, then eliminated anyone who is playing this even for their first time. I added a few players who were originally outside the top 50 that had both good course history and a top finish in the last 3 events. Lets take a look at my Player Pool based on the previous specs:
Everything highlighted in Green means its an advantageous ranking or tee time position while Yellow denotes a neutral ranking or tee time while those in Red are less than ideal tee times and rankings.
10k+
Once again we are at another course where a decision needs to be made regarding Jon Rahm. Not only did he win this event back in 2017 for his first Tour victory, he also won the US Open here last year. While the US Open doesn’t utilize the North Course, the South Course does account for 3 of the 4 rounds so this is still meaningful. Last week we used Rahm in our single lineup and while he earned us an above average amount of points, at his price point he needs to finish in the top 3 for it to be the correct decision. My only concern with Rahm is his putting and short game just seem to be a bit off but as good as he is, this can all be turned around quickly at a course we know he loves. While I’ll allocate some shares of my lineups using him, I’ll most likely be underweight with regards to ownership leverage. Justin Thomas hasn’t played here since 2015 when he missed the cut but he did finish 10th in 2014. He obviously has the game to contend here but it’s odd that he’s consistently chosen to skip this event. He’ll be in some of my rosters but he’s another player that I’ll likely limit my exposure to. The player I’ll be looking to have the most amount of exposure to here is Xander Schauffele. The ideal player here needs to be long off the tee, have experience playing at the course, and be comfortable playing on Poa. Xander has be playing this event progressively better and the fact that he hasn’t won in over three years should motivate him to get back into the winner’s circle.
9k
While the 9k range is obviously stacked with talent, I would rank Zalatoris at the top followed by Finau, and Burns. Finau has the best course history here, outside of Rahm, while Burns and Zalatoris have the perfect games to succeed here. Koepka and Scheffler have not particularly played this event well in the past but did play well here at the US Open last year. It’s not a coincidence that the players mentioned with good course history have a significantly higher projected ownership but a player in the middle is Sunjae Im. He’s added distance to his tee shots and with relatively good history here, he may end up being my most used player if his ownership stays low.
8k
Another tier where the Projected Ownership is concentrating on the obvious plays. Maverick McNealy and Ryan Palmer have great course history, solid ball strikers who hit the ball far, and have played well leading up to this week. Gooch rates out a bit better in my model since he’s been playing so well recently and had a T3 here in 2019 but my worry is he might have hit a wall when he missed the cut last week and this is now his 4th week playing in a row. So far this year, the player in the 8k tier that has carried the most ownership has gone on and outplayed his price so this may be the time to eat the good chalk.
7k
The biggest surprise to me when running my model based on Ball Striking, Driver Distance, Around the Green, and Course History was that the best player came from this tier. Its always a bit scary when the guy that tops the rankings is someone who’s never won but this week that guy is Luke List! Its not surprise he ranks high in the Ball Striking metrics but what was surprising is how solid his short-game has been. While he’s had more bad putting years here than good, he had one of his best back in 2020. He gave up 3 strokes putting last year and still finished 10th! If he can just be an average putter this week or even gain a few, it won’t surprise me to see him contending come Sunday. The trouble again with rostering Luke List this week is that he is projected to be owned by nearly 20% of the leagues so finding a way to be unique in roster construction will be difficult. My next favorite play doesn’t actually fit the stats models but is someone I’m going to have plenty of exposure to. Cam Davis has made the cut all 4 years he’s player here and while they’ve all been mediocre finishes, his putting and chipping have held him back. Cam has shown some improvements here the last few events he’s played and this feels like a course that he should play well considering his length and experience. Francesco Molinari doesn’t necessarily profile as the type to play well here but as a Major Champion who now lives in Califorina, I needed to take a deeper look at him. One interesting correlation I’ve found is that his play at Torrey has consistently matched his results at the American Express.
If the 6th place at AMEX last week telegraphs another top 10 at his price, I’ll be sure to have him in a disproportionate amount of my DK lineups.
6k
There is no such thing as an easy choice in the 6k tier since they are priced in this range for a reason. Having said that, there is one guy here who seems to fit most of what we are looking for from a talent, experience, and data standpoint. Joseph Bramlett is not only one of the longest guys on tour, he’s started off this year with a 20th at the Sony Open and 33rd at The American which are courses that don’t necessarily suit his game. In his two appearances here at Torrey he finished 45th in his first start and last year tied for 18th after shooting a stellar final round 67. My next favorite play from this tier is someone who nearly won the event 10 years ago had he not put his 3rd shot in the water on 18. Kyle Stanley went on to win the Waste Management Open the following week so most projected him to be a future legitimate star on Tour. This has not been the case, mostly due to an inconsistent if not awful putter. He’s shown flashes throughout his time playing here that he can get the putter going and put up a top 20 finish and after showing his Ball Striking is back with great Tee to Green play at Sony, he’s worth a shot. The last guy worth mentioning in this range has made the cut in both his events this year including a 7th place finish at the Sony Open. While Adam Svensson has only played the FIO once back in 2019, he did play well and finish in 35th. Outside of these three, we are basically throwing darts with guys in this range which will likely lead me to build most of my lineups with just 1 player from this range are be more balanced and skip it altogether.
I will be flying out to Hawaii during the Final Round on Saturday and since I won’t have the ability to make lineups on Draftkings due to it’s lack of legality there, next’s week analysis will focus on the outright betting market. Good luck to all of you this week and let’s get them #greenscreens!
