The American Express Wrap Up & Draftkings review
With three holes to go we had 8 guys within one shot of the lead which should have promised a dramatic finish on 18. Instead, Hudson Swafford sticks his second shot on the Par-5 16th hole to 8 feet which he rolled in for eagle. Another 20 foot birdie putt on the island green 17th and a great two putt from 44 feet on 18 took away any drama as Tom Hoge would have had to hole out from the fairway on 18 to force a playoff. The win gives Swafford 3 wins on Tour and 2nd at The American Express as the Georgia Bulldog capped off a great week with an impressive final round 64. Let’s take a look the optimal lineup on Draftkings and see how they matched up with our pre-tournament thesis.
Let’s take a look at our different lineup building specifications and if they panned out.
· The four final players will all be sub 7500
o We were correct here as the players were between 6400 and 7100.
o It’s not often that the winner of the event comes from the 6k range but it’s also not often that a former winner would be priced this low.
· Don’t use any player that finished in the top 25 at Sony
o Of the 6 players, 1 didn’t play at Sony, 3 finished T48, and 2 missed the cut so we got this correct.
· Of the sub 7500 players, pick at least 2 who missed the cut at Sony
o Both Lee Hodges and Tom Hoge missed the Cut at the Sony we have another build pre-requisite that was optimal.
· Completely fade the 8k range
o While no one in the optimal came from the 8k range, Si Woo Kim was still in the top 10 for fantasy points earned. Overall the range didn’t perform very well relative to their price so I would say that fading this range would have been an optimal play.
· Use Jon Rahm at the top and the 2nd player will come from the 9k range.
o This is where we were most off the mark since Cantlay outplayed Rahm and no one in the 9k range made the optimal lineup.
Overall I’m happy with our decisions in the builds even if we didn’t make the correct decisions with the player pool. If we were to have picked the correct 4 players at the bottom, the incorrect Rahm choice and adding either Seamus Power or Will Zalatoris in the 9k range would have won every single GPP on the DK Slate. The power of trying to build optimally is that even if you aren’t perfect, your margin for error can still allow you profit when you make mistakes in your player pool. This week our lineup of Jon Rahm, Abraham Ancer, Tom Hoge, KH Lee, Andrew Putnam, and Andrew Schenk cashed in every GPP even with Schenk missing the cut and the lineup not having the Hudson Swafford in it.
Those who were keen enough to have Hudson Swafford tickets got a massive payout as his odds varied between 150 and 250–1 prior to the tournament while our Rahm and Ancer tickets go unpaid. Tomorrow we begin our deep dive into the Farmers Insurance Open as we search for the keys to building the Optimal Lineup!
