 We have got a bit of an odd duck of a field for this weekend in PGA, DFS. Don't look at me like that. How dare you? We barely just started the podcast. You're just off vacation. That's a real phrase. That's an actual saying. Yes, it's an odd duck. Like duck, duck, gray duck. In Minnesota, maybe? No, duck, duck, gray duck. It's like, it's a very normal. Anyway, odd duck, odd duck. Just go back on vacation. Anyway, odd duck of a field this week in PGA, DFS, because we have legitimate studs, actually good golfers at the top end of this field. And that makes it pretty fun, but there is a very, very steep drop-off at a certain point. Now our job is to decide how do we navigate around that for PGA, DFS? What does it do for roster construction? How do we best tailor our lineups to this specific field because it's not gonna be easy. So let's dive in and get you set. For the RBC Canadian Open, welcome on into the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by NumberFire. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here, unfortunately, once again, by Brandon Gedula. He is the senior managing editor of NumberFire.com. Brandon, I'm not gonna say welcome back. I'm gonna say you are back. It's kinda like the happy birthday with the period at the end. You are back. How was your vacation? It was good. I never really classify the getaways with the wife as vacations because we do a bunch of hiking and sleeping in the car and getting up at sunrise. So not as... I mean, we had some more hotels. We actually watched Game 7 of the Heat Celtics in a parking lot, which was cool. Because if we went back to our campsite, we would not have had any internet access. But yeah, I mean, it was nice to get away. Not so nice to come back to a field quite like this because like you said, we have some great... When I saw the field at the top and I saw the odds, I was like, okay, this will be a good one. And then, boy, the bottom falls out real quick. Yeah, and it's not like anything else happened on the PGA tour or slash in the golf world while you were gone either. Just coming back to truly delightful discourse across the board. Yeah, that was one thing I knew that I was gonna sort of miss out on and come back and see where we are. And I mean, got a lot of news, not really something that we're here to discuss, but a lot of interesting decisions. Yep, a lot of interesting stuff for sure. And we're gonna be feeling the ripple effects of that for a while. But hey, we're here to talk about the PGA tour because it's still kicking. They're offering DFS for that. They're not offering it for other tours. So we'll talk about that. Try to win some money off of that. Starting with the RBC Canadian Open, which will break down in just one second. But first, the NBA finals are here. You can play a free daily fantasy challenge with a $10,000 prize pool. It is a body armor inside edge challenge and it's easy to play. You set your five player lineup and stand at the salary cap, following the fan dual rules with your MVP, your star and the pro position. You also get two utility slots. If your team scores enough fantasy points, you will be eligible to win part of the $10,000 prize pool. The body armor inside edge contest is for game three of the series, which is coming up on Wednesday. So make sure to enter before then. You can sign up for the free contest at fandual.com slash league slash body armor. Again, that's fandual.com slash league slash body armor. Make sure to play this free DFS contest for your chance to win $10,000. Who's your pick for game three? I know you're... I don't care. Like, I feel bad when... I knew you didn't care. I just wanted to see how you would react. I thought maybe you'd throw out like, the Celtics are gonna, but you just went with that. I don't care. Which is, I mean, I respect it. Cause that's... Like we have people on covering the spread and like they give like these amazing insights. And I'm like, okay, cool. Here's maybe a pertinent follow-up. Might be stupid. Like I just feel bad that they give like amazing stuff. And I'm like, I don't know. Remember for the Celtics, because we had Drew Denzik on our show he has money tied into the Celtics and I want him to do well. So let's... I don't want... I lived in Boston for a while and I found people who are Boston sports fans to be decently annoying. So like I kind of don't want to root for it. And I like stuff, but like, I don't know. Well... I love Boston people, by the way. I just don't like Boston sports fans. But yeah, I mean, look, I think it's safe to say as someone who no longer has any affiliations or interest in rooting for a single team, all fandom is... Can lead you to have some blinders on and be a little bit overbearing. So... Yeah. So, you know, it's not about that. Cool am I rooting for Brandon? Tell me, who should I root for this in this thing? In the finals? Yeah. I'm rooting for Boston. Okay. So hardcore Boston fan here, as I always have been, never rooted against any Boston sports team, especially not when I was sending slanderous tweets about Tom Brady when I was like, whatever, 18 or whatever. So, you know, never rooted against him in my life. I had Twitter when I was 18. That's a lie. 19. Yeah. Well, the thing for me, and nobody's going to care about this, if they're listening for PGADFS, but it'll be the final thing. I grew up playing basketball. It's the sport I know most. I just, I never like how the Warriors demeanor, when they're down one, is they're very stoic and not very... They don't look like they're very competitive sometimes, but as soon as they're up by like seven points and hit another three, then it's like a... It's a bit front-runnery for me. And if playing against people like that, it annoys me. So I think that's the energy I'm getting from... So you don't want to play at the local Y with Draymond, but that's not your thing you're looking for. Well, it's like I see Steph hit a three to cut it to one and he runs down a court, and then he hits a three to go up like nine, and then they're throwing a dance party. And I just identify with a Jalen Brown in this series. So that's kind of who I'm clinging to most. Yes, the person I know the best is Jalen Brown. I've used in DFS several times. That's how I know these teams. That's why I like... Look, I like Xander Schoffley and DFS. I like Patrick Cantley, the most boring people that nobody else has interest in. So it's just... The people I sort of identify with a little bit more, that's who I gravitate toward, because I'm not a fan of teams, I'm a fan of players now. It's a lot better. It's a lot better to be that way. I agree. Valtteri Bottas just drew for Bottas, and everything else is fine. Only basketball I played was Snow Rugby basketball, which was no dribbling. Basketball played with a mini basketball in the snow, and concussions were had. So that's my experience of basketball. Were you on the Grey Ducks? No, there was no teams. It was every person for themselves. It's a violent sport. I think people aren't even going to get to the course breakdown of the show and just turn it off. But you know what? We will. Let's dive into the course breakdown. We never do this. We never derailed. Let's talk about the course breakdown here. For the RBC Canadian Open, it is at St. George's Golf and Country Club 7,014 yards. It is a par 70. It has not hosted a PGA Tour event since 2010. So no course history to look at for this week. We did 156 golfers in the field. The top 65 plus ties will make the cut after the first two rounds. So Brandon, we don't have a lot of data at this course. What do we know about it from the limited data we do have? Yeah, so this is a really tough one because my advice based on something like this is not to overreact, but it's also hard not to cling to the few things that we do know about and try to get an advantage that way. So trying to walk that line between figuring out what happened in 2010 and how we can use that. But it is worth noting that there has been a renovation here by Tom Doak and Ian Andrew in 2014. So even since 2010, there's been some renovation here. So it's basically been restoring all the greens to the original profiles is the note here and the GCSA tournament fact sheet, which is just always an invaluable resource. So one thing I'll say, or a few things I can say for sure is that we know it's a shorter par 70. It's about 200 yards shorter than the average par 70 on the PGA Tour with narrowish fairways. If you look at things from a fairway acre per yardage standpoint. And then the green size, I didn't have this when I first published my helper on number fire. And then I saw this morning, but the green size, according to the GCSA, an average of 4,000 square feet, PGA Tour average is 6,000 square feet. So we're looking at smaller greens. These are gonna be some of the smaller greens we have and they're gonna undulate, have some false fronts. So that's gonna put an emphasis for me on iron play, but also getting up and down stroke scheme around the green for one of those tests where like if you do miss it, you have to get up and down. I don't think we're gonna see a 20 under birdie fast. The winning score in 2010 was 14 under by one Carl Patterson. So I think we're looking in that like 15 under range, maybe close to like 16, 17 under because this is a pretty top heavy field with some guys who can pick it apart, but definitely not something that we're looking at 25 under to win, but also probably not like five under or anything like that. It's not gonna be that difficult of a test. But within that 2010 year, we pretty much saw a de-emphasis in stroke skeined off the tee. It was more about your approach play and your putting, but also getting up and down, getting out of trouble. Patterson, whenever he won, he ranked third in stroke scheme, putting 14th in stroke scheme, tee to green, despite ranking 20th or worse among the cut makers and all three of the individual stats. So it wasn't that he had the best irons in the field or the best wedge play and got a lot of luck around the greens. It was sort of a balanced tee to green performance and a good putting showing that. And so for me, what the underlying data really shows is that we can kind of overlook stroking it off the tee. If you had to pick one stat between distance and accuracy, it does seem like it means a little bit more toward accuracy because of the narrow fairways, the rough, a little bit longer than tour average, about three and a half inches. So I think you can kind of make a profile of hit fairways, hit good irons, pot well, but whenever you do miss the greens inevitably because they're small and they have those undulations, the false fronts get up and down. So does that sound like an all-around test? It sure does. And that's why some of these superstars at the top of the field, you gotta take a long look at because they're gonna be very tempting, but then we have to figure out how that impacts the rest of our lineup because if you roster two superstars, you're gonna be digging around for a lot of value a lot of value that may not necessarily exist. So again, my key stats really stroke scheme approach, stroke scheme putting and stroke scheme around the green for this week. So you mentioned the very, very small green is obviously the biggest implication of that is what you discussed where it is going to put a big emphasis on approach. So you can actually stick it on the greens when you, you know, and around the green play, but what does it do for putting? Does it downplay putting? Does it keep things pretty neutral because it doesn't really matter that much. Does it impact your view of putting in terms of importance when the greens are smaller? It's less about the distance of the putting or like your first putt. If you have larger greens, you can make a case probably to look more at like lag putting putting from like 20, 25 plus feet. But for me, what's really standing out is the undulation and being able to read greens. I think that, you know, this is a stat that you can't really, there is no stat for green reading ability. But you would have to think that golfers who have good long-term stroke scheme putting data are the better green readers than those who have the weaker numbers because, you know, I'm sure if you're listening to this, you've at least played some putt-putt golf but probably been out there and golfed a few rounds. The margin of error for putting obviously very small in terms of making and missing but what really separates some of the better golfers, the better putters that you might play with is being able to read those greens. Everyone can sort of hit a putt unless you're just, you know, hammering it, you know, 20, 20 feet past the hole but that's a different conversation. So I think for me, it's less about the green size and more about the undulation but I am putting quite an emphasis on stroke scheme putting for this week. And of course, for me that better look look more at the regression, the underlying data which I'll tweet about later today. So are you looking at overall putting split? Cause I have overall putting kind of because of what you, I read your stuff. I have overall putting in my thing versus bentgrass putting specifically. Is that okay? Or would you stick to bentgrass splits? I think that's okay. I think you can factor in bentgrass putting. I mean, full disclosure, anytime I say like stroke scheme putting on bentgrass is a key stat, I blend overall putting and bentgrass putting because, you know, we're still looking at a relatively smaller sample this season with bentgrass putting. So if you're looking at like current up-to-date bentgrass putting, it's still gonna be a smaller sample. If you dig back too far, you're, you know where these guys putting the same way. So honestly for me, it comes down to, I think putting splits on surface matter but they're never more important than overall performance long-term. Yeah, I agree with that too. Okay, so we're gonna dive into the current forum section now talking about golfers who are on a heater entering this event and that's because there's no course history to discuss outside of that 2010 one. So Brandon, let's start things off here with Matt Fitzpatrick potentially one of the PGA tour members to play here most recently, played here about a month before he enrolled at the greatest university on the planet, Northwest University. What do you say with Matty Fitz here recently at 11 three for this week? Yes, we don't have course history but if we did, we would talk Fitzpatrick because he won the 2013 USM here. That would be the thing that we're, everyone's talking about. I'm sure we'll hear this more throughout the week if you tune into other coverage, read more articles but he also fits from a current. Again, please go back on vacation. Everyone is begging you specifically. From a current forum standpoint, despite a missed cut at Memorial, your current form is not your last event. It's not predictive of much at all unless you think it's the downfall of a golfer who missed a cut or that a golfer who had a good showing will never have a bad showing again. So one event is not enough but in 2022 then Fitzpatrick has played 11 events. He has three missed cuts. The players, the RBC Heritage and Memorial in those he lost at least 2.9 strokes putting but maintained at least 1.2 strokes T degree in those. So it wasn't the T degree and it was the putter that let him down and led to the missed cut. Last week at Memorial Fitzpatrick gained six and a half strokes T degree in according to Fantasy National but lost 7.6 putting, which is, I believe, his worst since as far back as their database goes, 2012 over 2013 at Fantasy National. His second worst also was at Memorial. So maybe it's just something about that course that doesn't really fit his eye with the greens but in those 11 events otherwise, he has five top tens and over the past three months he ranks fourth in data golf, true strokes gained T degree metric. We still think of Fitzpatrick probably as a great putter but his iron play, his ball striking has gotten a lot better recently. There's a lot to like about him despite not having like the true star power that you'll see at the top with Scotty Schaeffler, Justin Thomas, Roy McElroy, Sam Burns, Kemp Smith. You could maybe say Shane Lowry's in that bucket at the bottom of that bucket but then you get to fits and you're like, it's not quite the same as those guys. So I think he's a really fascinating case because we have at worst, we have five studs at the top and we got to figure out what we want to do with them but a big part of that answering that question is how we value the second tier and you're actually going to talk about someone else in that second tier. So I say, you talked to me about Tony Fienow. Was that Rosanna? She loves Fienow and fits. So she's excited that we're talking about them right now. So let's talk about Fienow here as well. And then dovetail that into the discussion you discussed about the second tier. And I do think there's a fall off at a certain point. There are probably actually two tiers like the top five you mentioned, top five or six you mentioned and then the second fall off at some point. The question is whether Tony Fienow is before or after that fall off. His salary is 11,000, which does seem high but some good finishes recently. Fienow was runner up at the next fall open. He was fourth at the Charles Schwab wife. I was sipping my coffee and I lost my train of thought a little bit and it sounded like you said Tony Fienow's salary is 7,000 and that's high. And I was like, he's not that bad yet but I know people do want to write him off. I mean, I did before the PGA championship. He finished 30th there. So, you know, actually golf pretty well. Tough field there. But the two top five for Fienow are the only top 10 finishes that he's had in a full field since the swing season started. So, September, like it's been a hot sec and the short game numbers have been getting better and they contributed to the good finishes but obviously not his strength. He is still not a guy. I'm like specifically targeting it at, you know short game type courses. So, I'm a bit hesitant on Fienow. I like that, like fits a lot more. I know that at 11-3. I think Fienow is not quite someone I'm comfortable with. I don't think that the fall off occurs at him though. I think that Tiro Hatton at 10-9 is still interesting. I can definitely be okay with that. HV3 at 10-4, I don't mind. So, even though I think Fienow is before the second fall off occurs he's probably still not gonna be in my lineups. Where are you at on Fienow? Where do you, how do you view the second tier? Yeah, the second tier is a real hit or miss for me. We have, I think you'd probably say like 10,000 to 11-3 which sounds like a big range but that's like nine, it's 10 golfers in that range. So, it's not that many golfers overall but I think with Fienow the real question comes with how are you factoring in off the tee play? Do you think that it won't matter as much like back in 2010 or do you think that the game has changed, this course has changed enough where having a lot of distance, being able to gain a lot of strokes off the tee is going to be relevant? For me, I'm kind of on the fence about it and I'm starting, I'm just kind of taking a stand here because we don't know a whole lot and saying I'd rather bump up the golfers who typically don't gain strokes off the tee or as many, or as consistently because those golfers in theory should have worse performances at courses where that matters more. Therefore, they have lower salaries for this week and someone who jumps out to me in that regard is Tio Hatton who isn't bad off the tee but he's not, that's not his forte. It's his sort of weakest of the four strokes against that. So, if you give me like Fienow versus Hatton straight up I'm going to go with Hatton, absolutely. I would go with Fitz over Fienow. I would go Corey Connors over Tony Fienow most likely as well. The difference there, Connors worst with the wedge game than Fienow. Fienow's pretty good with his wedges though, just not the putter, but the big difference there is the driving accuracy. We know Fienow, that's not his strength. It's not Hatton's strength either to be clear. I don't want to sound like a hypocrite in that regard but Connors going to hit every fairway basically, Fitzpatrick going to hit every fairway. So between those four, between 10, nine and 11, three I do have Tony Fienow rank the last personally. I would as well. And it's partly because I like those guys but also partly because I'm still skeptical of Fienow. I think it's both things contributing here for me. So I'm okay being lower on him. And I think that actually for me, despite the fact that I like Fitz a lot and I like Hatton a lot, I do kind of want to jam in two of the top six or whatever it is, wherever Lowry is. Lowry is six. So I do want two of the top six, I think because I do think there is, like I put Fitz above Hatton. I think he's actually a tier above him for me personally. So tier above Tirol, yeah. He fits a tier above Tirol, Fitz fits a tier above Tirol. Anyway, I think that I might consider some fits in there but I do think that for me there are benefits to jamming in two of those top six. I know it will leave me a bit handstrong elsewhere but I'm okay with that just because I really want to get there this week. Yeah, I really like Lowry this week but I went with Hatton as a primary play over him just due to the savings of 500. And 500 goes a long way because as we're about to get into some value range options or at least one value range option, like we're talking about the where does the drop off occur at the top? And we can nitpick that. Like is it four after fee now? That kind of stuff. But there's a drop off that occurs a little bit lower than that. It might be after Harold Varner at 10,400. I think so. But after that we're really... Chris Kirk, I would say is the, for me. Yeah. I could view it as like a... Yeah, I could view it as like a he's the guy below 10, four. So it's really not like... Yeah, the one guy. It's not a tier. It's just he's the guy hanging out by himself. So let's jump into Adam Long here because we got to figure out... I know we're... I know we spent some time on the NBA, but this one's really about roster construction this week and how the field's shaken out. So Adam Long can be rostered at a salary of 8,600. And that's enticing because the bottom of this field is just really bad. And so if you're looking for flawless form at a value price, you're not gonna find that. That is the case for Adam Long who has missed six of 14 cuts in 2022, but that does include four top 35s and two top 15s in his past six starts, the other two being missed cuts. But even with a lot of missed cuts in his profile, Datagolf has him ranked 16th in this field and true strokes gained over the past three months. That's not just T-degree and that factors in putting. That's gonna sort of ding you for overall bad performances that obviously lead to some sort of a missed cut. Of course, we don't necessarily look into a missed cut and see if it's on the number. We treat them all the same. That's really not how we should do it. There probably should be a stat of like when you miss a cut, how much did you miss it by? That'll get smoothed out over a larger sample if you're looking at overall data anyway, so it's not really something that I'm trying to look into but I would imagine that if the overall stroke gained is that good, he hasn't really had like top three finishes but just top 35s, top 15s, like probably golfing pretty well. He can find fairways, which I think, again, it's the right play off of the T this week. You're looking a little bit more at accuracy than just distance. They're very, very good putter. So that might be like the right value recipe. A lot of guys are gonna miss screens anyway. That's not to say you should neglect iron play. His iron play is okay. It's not great. It's a little bit below field average over the past year, but if you're gonna miss fairways, or sorry, if you're gonna miss the greens and you can get up and down, maybe make those par saving putts, that could be enough for a value salary. So my question to you is, I think we're both okay with Adam Long. Are you seeing any other like, can't miss values probably below Chris Kirk? Because if not, like, what does this mean for roster construction for you then? So I'm not looking for can't miss values. I'm looking for can hit values. Like that's what I want. And like it's tough to find that. So I think that to me is the biggest indication of where this field is, where there aren't a lot of value plays. I feel good about either from a floor or ceiling perspective, much less bold. I think Long is solid. I'm on board with him. But like I would probably put Mark Hubbard in like that can hit bucket. But like it's not a lot of guys who are there. So that's what's tough for me. And that's why to me, I had this conflict because I do want to jam in two of the top six, but also if I do that, like let's say, I just put in Scotty, Chef or in Ken Smith, I'm at 90, 75 left. I could put in Long and Hubbard, but I'm still at 95 left for my final two slots, which means either putting in a third value play to get back up to the Kirk or HG3 level, or I'm putting in two mid or inch guys, which I don't want to do. So I think that the way I do it is a bit counterthetical to the way we typically view things, where you might think traditionally cash game line at more balanced. I think that for me, the cash game build, well, sorry. You might think that you want to jam in like the top end guys for cash games. I think I want to lower down that salary more in cash games. So I'm more okay with a Tirohattin for a cash game because I just need to save and avoid that range. I'm more okay with the Matty fits in the cash game because I need to avoid that lower end range. Whereas for tournaments, I will take shots at a Chef or Smith lineup because I think that the upside they bring is really, really good. And I'm okay taking more swipes at the guys, like Long, Hubbard, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't know. I think to me it's a bit different than I typically would have viewed it. We're like, oh, you just go with the Chefler type guys in cash games. I think I might be more balanced in cash games this week just to avoid being too heavily in that mid range, which is not a place I want to be for cash games this week. Yeah. So in building my head to head lineup against you, I would just say I've started out with Cam Smith and Tirohattin. And I feel like those are the two best value studs that we have this week. I threw in Adam Long. And then I was able to get back up to, with one other value play, not even in the 8,000 range, which is one, one golfer in the 8,000 range with Adam Long, I was able to get back up to that Kirk level. And I feel pretty solid with that kind of lineup for a head to head game. The issue that you brought up with upside is we're not going to get a whole lot of upside from the value plays. Like this could be won by someone a little bit strange because we do have, let's call it 10, really strong golfers at the top of the field. But in my win sims, and I seem to be a little bit higher on the top guys than some other models I've seen, but I'm in about 53 to 54% win equity from just the top five alone. These guys are a lot better than the rest of the field. And I don't think that this is such an event where it's going to be like totally random. Do you think it's due to like course uncertainty? Like is there more variance baked in with it being like a course or not a lot of data or what would lead to that, do you think? That that's definitely possible. It's also possible that I just overrate the better golfers because I factor in recency. And we have a lot of very recent good performers like Scotty chef or JT, obviously, Rory's golfing really well, Sam Burns, a lot of wins there, Cam Smith. So it could be that I factor in that recency a bit too much, but it's historically worked well enough for me, so I'm not really changing that. It's just, okay, we have about, let's call it even 50% of the time, one of the top five wins. You want access to that in tournaments. So I think I'm with you where a little bit more balance like a Cam Smith zero hat and start and like a head to head, a double up sort of format, but being okay, just having some low upside guys in the value range just to get access to where the upside is. And that really does seem like it's the top five or six because I would not be surprised at all if Shane Lowery wins this week. So he's very interesting to me as well. I agree with all that. Okay, so we're on the same page there. Let's talk about Chris Kirk, the guy in mid-range we actually do like, or at least I liked it this week. He's 98, he did cool off this past week, finished 53rd, he also finally got his salary jacked up to 98, but I think he's still worth that personally. Kirk's rough, quote unquote, rough outing last week was mostly due to approach. He lost 5.1 in strokes there, but his events before that had been pretty solid in that arena. It was the first time Kirk had lost strokes in approach since the American Express back in January. You've shown that we should ignore one event blips, some of the client to just do that here with Kirk. He ranks 25th in approach to the past 50 rounds. He is second around the green, 76th in overall playing. Kirk is 11th in data golf's true strokes gained the past six months, but ranks 19th in salary. So I don't think that we should feel too bad about Chris Kirk despite the increased salary, despite a non-stellar event last week. I think he is kind of that one guy in that range I like. Where are you at at Chris Kirk this week at 98? Yeah, I love Chris Kirk. He's gonna be a bit of an anchor play because he does work as, if he's my third highest salary golfer because I go a little bit top heavy, I'm fine with that. If I'm just getting back up to him even in a more balanced build, I like that. And yes, one event's worth of data for approach play. While one event of, if you take the four granular strokes gains stats, one event's worth of approach data is more predictive than off the tee or around the green or putting, but still not predictive enough. You need about at least three straight events of like bad approach play to start to worry. We don't see that, we see a lot better approach play from Kirk, which is why we talk about him a lot. The around the green plays been pretty solid as well. So I got no issues with Kirk. I think he's a bonafide sort of lock for a cash game lineup for me this week. Same for me here. Just because I think he's under salary and that's what I want is to stockpile guys who are under salary and cash games and he fits for that for sure. So Kirk works, fits, fits and TIRL tiers. That's what we got here so far for this week. Let's dive into bookmaker, our odds for the RBC Canadian Open where Scotty Schaeffler is here returning a fan to a sports book. He is plus eight 50, Justin Thomas and Rory McElroy are both plus nine 50. Cam Smith is 11 to one before we get to Sam Burns at 14 to one. Matt Fitzpatrick and Shane Lowry both 18 to one followed by Corey Connors at 20 to one. Tony Finau is 25 to one with TIRL Hatton at 27 to one to round out the top group. So let's just finalize this roster construction discussion right now. Final thoughts for you and how you want to view things from a roster construction perspective given the wonkiness of this field for this week. So in our head to head, I feel confident saying I'm starting my lineup with Cam Smith and TIRL Hatton. You talked about wanting to find the golfers who are under salaried most. I think that's probably those two. Cam Smith was 15 to one, which we'll get into. And I was surprised by that because I didn't see why like Sam Burns would be a better favorite than Cam Smith. When you were gone last week, I had to do the quick pick segment for you, the betting segment for social. I did Cam Smith and I was pretty excited after Friday and then was less excited as weekend woulda wonk. Yeah, I also would have talked up Cam Smith. I talked him up this week on quick picks as well as Hatton and Harold Varner and all of their eyes just shortened. So I mean, I guess it's good, but yeah. Very actionable content when it comes out later this week and the odds have all moved. Love making betting content that is relevant for five minutes. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's part of the struggle. But yes, roster construction, I'm going a little bit more like a modified balanced where I'm going lower in the tier one and tier two for my studs. And then yes, playing some values, but not like golfers in the 7,000 range or multiple or three, like three, 8,000 guy. Like that's not the way I'm going. That's more for tournaments. Whenever I say look, I think that Scottie Schaeffer is gonna win this week or I think JT is gonna win this week or I mean, we haven't even really talked about Rory at all. Right, like where are we Sabatini? He could definitely come on the win this week. Why are the other ones brainwashed? So I don't know, should we use him if he's brainwashed or is it better if he's brainwashed? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, but maybe he's, well, he's Rory McElroy and he's remembered that. So he's playing some good golf now, but yeah. So for tournaments, I do think that we have to be more cognizant of the upside and probably, I guess maybe a better way to say it is like the downside of not having heavy exposure or some exposure to the studs. I know the studs are gonna get exposure. So now my question is, is this the kind of week where you're saying, okay, I got 10 lineups. I'm gonna figure out between the, we'll throw Shane Lowry in there in the mix. Say I wanna build around, I think you said two of the six was kind of your sweet spot this week. I like that, but is this kind of week where you're saying, okay, I'll play Adam Long and maybe one or two or three, four other values, but then I wanna rotate in the studs because I don't know who among the studs is gonna hit this week. Or are you saying, look, I got a good feeling about Rory and Cam Smith this week. They're the guys I'm gonna anchor my lineups around and then I'm gonna shuffle in value plays because I don't have a good feel. What are you more likely to do this week? Probably commit to the value plays, which is kind of scary, but like, I think it's a very like, I do a lot of NASCAR and I get this, it's a NASCAR type event where I wanna have combinations of studs. Like I wanna have, okay, I think that Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney dominate this race in this lineup and then rotate to the value plays, but then keep them being the core. Next one, it's Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, et cetera, et cetera. But this one, I think that it's kind of what you said, where I rotate through those guys and just have exposure at all six. But I would say like, if you're doing limited lineups, you're doing like three lineups, then I would say just pick your studs. And I would say I have a bit more of an inclination towards the bottom end of that top tier than I did initially because I do want the salary saving. So like, I love Schaeffler. Schaeffler is in my player picks right now, I'm gonna change that. Cause I think that the value of every $100 you can save is pretty high. So like the $200 gap between Schaeffler and Rory, that actually does kind of matter to me now. And I think that's kind of the bigger takeaway for me is save everywhere you can to make it less difficult on yourself while still being in those tiers. I think that's also true for like HV3, Harold Verne of the third versus like a Finau. Maybe not versus the Hag's, I think that that $500 actually does do decent bit of a difference there, but like I want to save salary. And I would also say from a roster construction perspective, I would like to get back up to HV3 from my third golfer. If I have one lineup for single entry, I would like to have two in the top six plus HV3. That's going to lead me very strung out on the bottom end, but I think that's worthwhile trade off personally. Yeah, I mean, this is always going to be a little bit field dependent, but it's probably better to lock in like a core of value plays in case they hit because if we're looking like, let's just say we're trying to maximize the odds that a six of six lineup gets through. Let's say you have, I just did this quickly. I think the math's right here, but I'm an English major. So just bear in mind in case I do it wrong, but you should be able to, assuming this is all independent, but there's some interconnectedness here because if one golfer makes the cut and another golfer in theory doesn't make the cut, but let's say you have two golfers in the value range with a 50% probability to make the cut, two more with 75% and two more with 90%. Thoughts that all of those guys make the cut, it's about 11%. Let's say, okay, you're taking this stance that one of the 50% golfers does make the cut, that jumps up your lineup's probability to about, basically doubles it to like 22 or 23%. Whereas if you're locking in the studs and you're rotating in all the values, like you say, okay, I'm gonna roster Scotty Shaffer here at 90%. I'm gonna guarantee he makes the cut to 100%. Doesn't really impact your lineup probability overall and you're still playing the guessing game a little bit more with the values. So again, this does depend on the field, but this week with, even though there are no sort of real locks in the value range, I think I'm going locking in the, like a smaller value player pool and rotating in the studs. It's also just hard to define guys that like down there and I think that it misses it too. So that's where I'm at. Which golfers odds have shifted most notably since things opened yesterday? Well, Cam Smith, 15 to one to 11 to one on Fandle Sportsbook, Tiro Hatton, 29 to one to 27 to one and then Harold Barnard, the third, 42 to one to 33 to one. So I moved the needle personally on those three guys with my segment from yesterday. Adam Hadwin, the Canadian 41. Shaking in their boots. They are hacking into Brandon's laptop to get in, to get access to the QuickPix Google Doc. It's like Google Sheets, as they know. I've been JT Burns, almost Cam last week. They're, I would be, yeah, I'd be a little nervous too. Just like two borderline favorites of. No, but they're still like, Cam was 19 to one. Like Burns was whatever, you know, like it doesn't matter if they're the favorites. It doesn't matter if they're the favorites, it's still long odds. So. Yeah, but I mean, like, I guess we can't knock like 16 to one odds on JT. If he wins, then, you know, nobody else wins. And then so, you know. You're Joey Logano with a 16 to one at a gateway, you know. Adam Hadwin moved from 41 to 33. So I'm sure it's a lot of narrative related stuff there. Even the Connors odds where they are are also narrative related. Do you think that he deserves a 20 to one? Okay. Partially, yeah. I think he and Hadwin get that partial bump. And then Chris Kirk, 50 to 45, our guy. So that's been it in terms of golf versus odds of shortened. I think that if you talk to anyone building lineups this week, they're probably interested in those five names is sort of a baseline for the most part. So that's not really surprising. In terms of lengthening, just three that I noticed. JT nine, nine to one to nine and a half to one, which is small, but again, only three golfers odds have lengthened since I've pulled these numbers. Sam Burns 13 to 14 to one, which again, very small, but I think noteworthy because he's now 14 and Cam Smith is 15. I thought that was more appropriate. And then Tony Fiena 24 to 25 again, very, very small, but probably means nobody's really betting him. And so if you want to get a little bit different, you can go for you now, but it's just not the route I'm choosing to go this week. I'm good. Which lower salary golfers have odds to stand out to you? So nobody below 9,000 on Fando in terms of their DFS salary has odds better than 110 to one, which is not particularly a good sign for upside from the value range. But again, maybe this is the kind of week where you're saying the top five or six have like 55% of the win equity and I just need my value golfers to finish like top 15 or top 20 as opposed to trying to win. We're big fans of saying you want all six of your golfers to have the chance to win. The way that I'm viewing it is that the top is even more top heavy than the odds board implies. So that's the route I'm going. But with that in mind, the best odds to win on Fando Sportsbook among golfers with salaries of at least 9,500 or lower. We have Patrick Rogers, Cameron Shamp, David Lipsky, Dylan Fratelli, Nick Hardy and Matt Wallace, all at 80 to one. Emiliano Grillo is 95 to one. And then a big tier at 110 to one with Aaron Rye. All right, Aaron Rye. Aaron Rye, JT Poston, Mathias Schwab, Steven Yeager, JJ Spahn, Nick Taylor, Danny Willett, Rory Sabatini and Tyler Duncan, all 110 to one. So again, not a whole lot of like mismatches with the odds and the salaries. So just keep that in mind for this week. So JJ Spahn is a guy who initially caught my attention, but he did have a recent withdrawal. He withdrew from the Charles Schwab with a back injury. Does that cross him off your list? Or is the fact that he's in the- That's not what crosses him off the list for me. This is JJ Spahn. Yeah, but everyone else in the 9,000 range is bad. Like, I don't know, like- Oh, Nick Taylor, also Canadian. Oh yeah, okay. But like, you know, I'm looking for new people. Will you do Mathias Schwab versus JJ Spahn? No, I just ask you if I can trust the dude because his back's hurt. Having it hurt back in golf seems bad, man. Yeah, it doesn't hurt me much when I go golfing. I started to get like occasional like back stuff and I feel old. I turned 30 this year, last year in 2021, and I'm like, this is the beginning of the end. I feel you JJ. JJ and I are basically the same person. That's my conclusion here. We're all the same. Whether for this week could be very gross, which is delightful because weather in Toronto will likely hit me in CRQs. So thanks guys. It'll be very wet Thursday morning. Not sure if they'll even be able to play and it'll be soaking if they do. I hope for their case they don't. Winds will be around 10 miles per hour all day long. No rain Friday, but winds consistent at 10 miles per hour all day. It's potentially moist again over the weekend. So I wouldn't say tea time stacks are necessarily in play unless you think that they try to play through and it gets really gross, which they could. So you could potentially stack tea times as a result of that, but I wouldn't be shocked if they get moved around. So like that makes it tougher. I think with the chatter of some of the reasons that people might have wanted to leave the PGA tour for a different opportunity was protection. So maybe these guys waited out and play in better conditions. So I would kind of lean that things get postponed until the conditions are nice and fresh. I would say if you want great weather, go to London. Definitely the first place I think of when I think great weather, good choices guys, but it's gonna be bad weather this weekend. Potentially Thursday specifically, I'd check back on the weather forecast there to see how that impacts things, but yeah. I mean, with the US Open lurking, I wonder if some of these thuds, if they're facing bad weather, if they're gonna phone it in a little bit. Don't put these bad vibes in the universe. Hey, it's just a thought, just a thought. Cam Smith's not gonna care. Cam Smith's not gonna care. He's gonna play through it. He's gonna try to win, so. Speaking of which, let's move on to our player picks here for the RBC Canadian Open, Brandon at the top. Who are you targeting on Fadwell for this week? Cam Smith. Wow, shocker, I had no idea. So I think if we're going the route, if we're okay going the route of downplaying Strokeski and off the tee, then Smith is probably the best golfer on the planet. If you just look at Strokeski and fairway through green, he's the best golfer in this field over the past year with my recency in field strength adjustments. He is in the 55th percentile and adjusted Strokeski and off the tee, but best in approach 95th percentile or better in both of the short game stats. So I like that for Smith, 81st percentile scrambler. I think that's gonna come into play, getting up and down, making those putts, watching him line up the ball with the line horizontal in front of him rather than helping him line it up. I don't know why he does it, but it's like the most baller move you could ever make. It's like, yeah, I have the line, but I don't need it. It works. Why does he have it? I don't know if he uses it off the tee maybe, but he has it and then he just puts it in the front horizontally and it's so sick though. It works. Yeah. I also have Cam Smith as one of my high salary guys. So I'll talk about him now. Obviously the weekend, this past week, he's been disappointing for those of us who were financially interested in Cam Smith, but it's hard not to be back on him here. He mentioned we could downplay potentially driving. He should always be first in the list when that happens because he leads the field in the approach to past 50 rounds, eighth around the green, second in overall putting. The short game was on last week too. So he just, he lost two strokes off the tee and that, you know, that can happen for sure. He trails just Sheffler in true strokes gains and I want as much access this year as possible. I mentioned before I might rotate through studs. The one guy I might commit to is Smith just because he is towards the bottom end of that tier and I don't think he should be. So maybe it's a commit to Cam Smith, rotate second stud and then commit to some value plays. Maybe that's what I do for this week. Maybe it's commit to Smith and Long, rotate through the rest. I don't know. I think there are routes doing it, but I like Cam Smith a lot. Who else do you like in this upper tier for this week? I like Tiro Hatton and then I want to get your thoughts on someone else after we finish up the high end section, but Hatton is very similar to Cam Smith in their regard of like phenomenal golfer if you don't necessarily put a lot of emphasis on strokes off the tee. The big issue still is that neither of those guys are hyper accurate off the tee. And if it does prove very difficult if you're missing these fairways, then I just picked the wrong stat set. But based on what I know so far, I think we can just mitigate off the tee play a little bit, look more for those guys who are going to get up and down, get out of trouble whenever they do and inevitably get into trouble because of the greens being small. But if you look at strokes, he had approached through putting Hatton 99th percentile in this field over the past year, trailing only Cam Smith for me, three top 30s in his past four starts, fantastic putter. I think he sets up really well for St. George's. Yeah. I do like Hatton. I do like the salary savings. I think that for cash games, pretty intrigued by him for sure, want to get a bit above him for tournaments. I initially had Scotty Schaeffler as my other high salary guy outside of Cam Smith. But the more I think about it, the more I do value the $200 savings down to Rory McElroy. So talking about Rory as being the other stuff I want to build around for this week, Rory leads the field in strokes off the tee, obviously that may not matter as much this week, but also 13th in approach, 17th around the green. He is fourth in bank graphs putting the past 50 rounds. So if you want to look at that split specifically, Rory has been pretty much lights out there. We know the form is on points as well. Rory has been playing really good golf. So I think the more I think about it, I do want the $200 savings, but I also would be okay with like a Cam Smith, Shane Lowry lineup as being like my start, just because it is the lowest salaried way to get two of those top six golfers in there. I think both of those guys have legitimate shots to win this event. So I would say Smith is a guy I commit to and I'm okay, we'll see with the rest of it. Who is the guy you were going to ask me about? It was going to be Rory, but now it's going to be JT. I think process wise, like stats wise, JT is by far the best play this week. That's not a Smith? I like Smith more because of the savings, but if I had to pick one golfer just straight up, it would be JT, the reason I'm not higher on JT is just because he's coming off of the PGA championship win and heading into another major. So I don't know if he's going to be as engaged as he could be, but if you want someone who does everything well, it's JT. If you want someone who does everything well and has upside, like if you want someone who does everything well, the three guys that really come to mind are JT, Kent Lay and Xander. If you want a guy who does everything well but has true, true upside, that's JT. For me, it's more like the narrative situation where I don't know if he's going to bring everything he has this week, but again, we can't play them all unless we do just lock in the values and rotate through the studs, but someone's got to get the axe out of the top five. You can have exposure to probably four of them if you're voting enough lineups, but let's say she have her time, do you think JT is the least likely? And I love JT, like always. It's just, I think that for the reasons you mentioned we're like, is he going to be super locked in this week? Maybe, I mean, he could golf well without being super locked in, so that's not necessarily a one-to-one thing, but I would probably be most likely to lock him off, unfortunately. Yeah, I think for me it's just Schaeffler as the favorite and the highest salary. Let's move to the mid-range. Who are you targeting there? Chris Kirk, just I think he's the guy under salary below 10,000. If you look at that range specifically to 10,000 or lower, nobody really messes with Kirk's spike week rate. He's got about 43% of his events over the past year where he puts forth an 85% tile adjusted T-degree in performance. The putter is a low upside proposition always, and that's the only thing holding him back, but he's got 97% tile wedge play, good out of the sand as well. And you wanna see that upside T-degree rather than the putting because while putting doesn't necessarily, it's not random, and it's not to say that bad putters can just randomly lead fields all the time in stroking and putting, but the T-degree in game elevates the floor, elevates the ceiling, and if the putter is a little bit on, that's a good recipe. So for me, I'm gonna have a hard time not being overexposed to Chris Kirk this week. Same with me. Talked about him before, so I would just put my same approval on him, but I'll talk about HV3. Now HV3 is not really a mid-range play. He's 10-4, but I do wanna get in three guys of HV3 or higher in my tournament lineup. So let's talk about HV3 here and why he's on that list for me. He is another guy who benefits if we downplay off the T-play. He is 94th in strokes gained off the T the past 50 rounds, but sixth in approach, sixth around the green, 34th in overall putting. Varner has gained at least five on approach twice in the past five measured events. He has had spike weeks with the short game too. I think he makes a lot of sense at 10-4. Where are you at on HV3 this week? Yeah, like I mentioned, he was a win pick for me. I loved him at 42-1, like I'm a little bit less or a lot less at 33-1, but it's again, it's a matter of I'm downplaying driving numbers this week and that's the one big issue for Varner. Used to sort of be the putter, but now it's sort of the driver that's taken a step back and that's fine for this week because he has the right game to play well. So I'm in on Varner for this week. Who else do you like in the actual mid-range, non-HV3 edition? Pat Perez on 9600, we're both in on him this week. Not the highest upside golfer 2D green, about 9.5% of his events over the past year have been an 85% performance, but it's about 29% with the putter and that's fine because nobody down here is going to be perfect. And if you exclude the off the tee player, which I'm looking at, he's in 94th percentile golfer over the past year. Love to see that if the recipe ends up being hitting fairways, getting up and down, making some putts, that's something that Pat Perez can do. I agree with you on Perez, 96, so I think it makes a lot of sense just in that range. I'd like to avoid this range if I can, but like let's say I already have Kirk in there and I have 96 left, I'll put Perez in there. I also don't mind David Lipski at 94. I think that he's the second guy to consider. I'm not like super, super high on him, which is why again, I don't like this tier, but like again, if I need someone here to fill it out, also I could go with a, Matt Fitzpatrick, David Lipski, Luke Donald, Northwestern stack, that is the other option on the table. Don't shake your head, you know, right? I think that's the other route we have at our disposal over this week, but really it's Perez. If I can avoid this tier, sweet, would love to. Potentially could avoid it by going at some value plays. So who are you looking at in terms of value for this week? I like Mattia Schwab well enough at 9,000. He's got a particular weakness in his game. I don't know if you could figure out which one it is of the four strokes game stats, but it's off the tee play. Wow, shocker. Given the rest of the tone of the rest of the podcast, this has come out of nowhere. Please explain yourself. It's like whenever you have a win pick of a guy we never talked about. But he's got like okay irons, but really good short game. And that's enough for me this week. If you can just hit those fairways, hit about field average greens, and then get up and down or make those birdie pus whenever he does get them. I like that. And so for me, Mattia Schwab, kind of a borderline cash gameplay for me, not because I love him so much, but more because there's enough there for me to sort of plug him into like a more balanced lineup and feel okay with it. So that's kind of where I am with Schwab and the values. Which is a cool band name, Schwab and the values. Schwab and the values, love it. Potentially on the bass in that band is Mark Hubbard. That sounds like a bassist name. So I'm gonna go with him as my top low salary guy Hubbard. Gets a lot of section in the corn fairy tour, but as you've shown, the corn fairy tour pretty equivalent to like the Euro tour in terms of competitiveness. So good finishes there do still matter. And Hubbard has been at least decent in the PGA tour when he's played here. He was 52nd to Charles Schwab, 32nd to Byron Nelson, 51st to the next to open. And that's without being good off the tee. He ranked 16th in approach, 18th around the green, 36th in the overall putting, the past 50 PGA tour rounds. I think this could be a spot to be in on Hubbard to potentially get a bit more upside than he typically has. So I like Hubbard 87. Looks like he is in your player picks as well. Yep. I think he long and Schwab kind of like the best value plays for this week. He's got good irons and he's a good scrambler and like out of the sand. So I'm cool with that. You know, you mentioned the corn fairy stuff, but it's doable if you adjust his performance, which you can, well, dry do personally, but data golf also does a really good job of that. So if you use data golf like true stroke, true stroke skiing query stuff, like you'll get a good idea of how to account for golfers who don't play every round on the PGA tour. But yeah, Hubbard for me. And then one other name I'll just kind of throw out there while we're talking. Wesley Bryan, 8100. This is a name I've not heard in a very long time. I love it. Just like good golfer, just not off the tee. And if that's the route I'm going, if I'm okay just sort of playing some value plays who I don't think, I don't think a value play is going to win this week. I guess it's going to be some of the least in like the 96 and above range, which is not like a hot take, but some weeks you don't know who's going to win. Some weeks you kind of know. So I'm not looking for a win. I'm looking for a mid cut with like top 30 upside, top 25 upside. And for the salary for Wesley Bryan at 81, I think that could work out. I do too. Adam Long was my second player pick. We talked a lot about him, but the reasoning just being, he's a legitimate PGA tour player and that's kind of hard to find down here in this range this week. Decently decent short game, not the best, but like decent good approach overall or a good ish approach overall for this range. So I do like Long at 86, probably my favorite value play this week with Hubbard being number two there and Schwab I definitely think makes a lot of sense at 9,000 as well. Let's finish up with our picks to win for this week based on the odds over at FanDuel Sportsbook. Before you talk, I want to lock in Shane Lowry at 18 to one. He's the one guy I feel best about at their current odds. So give me Shane Lowry at 18 to one. Who else do you like? Yeah, I mean, I won the most recent bobble hat, but it's cool that you get to pick first and then put the pressure on. I had a good week last week in DFS and you weren't here. So I chose not to enter a lineup so I couldn't clown you and beat you by 600, but. So, okay, I like, again, my three sort of main picks this week have been Cam Smith, Hatton and Varner, but they've all had their odds shortened. I'm going to go and Lowry was fourth on that list. So I'm very interested in him, but I will start off with Teal or Hatton. I still like odds at 27 to one. Okay. Second one of me is HV3, 33 to one. I like the non-off the tee numbers. And we know that like, he hasn't done it recently, but like there is good off the tee play somewhere deep in Harold Varner, the third soul. And if he could tap back into that, could have an upside showing. So I'll go Shane Lowry and Harold Varner, the third Shane Lowry, 18 to one. HV3, 33 to one to win for this week. My instinct says to stick with Cam Smith. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. Can I change from HV3 to Rory? No. I meant to do that. No. I forgot. I forgot each one. I don't care, man. I care. I care deeply. I would say. I mean, you need to make up some ground. So you might want to stick with HV3 though. No, this is value. This is not to win the game. I want to give good bets that I think that I don't know if HV3 can beat all these dudes at 33 to one man, like 42, cool, 33 bit tougher. So I'm going Rory and Lowry. You had burns as your win pick when he won, right? I did. Terrible. He was like 30, he was 29. Brutal, rough stuff. I was convinced that I had him and I listened back to the podcast. Like, I think I had some birds. I had burger, like a dummy. You did. I did. You finished 20, 30, you signed. And Cam Tringoli. He missed the cut by like 16. It was great. Yeah. Fun stuff. Also, if you're doing your Northwestern lineup, Dylan Wu. Oh, OK. What's his sound? It's only four, but. Dylan Wu, OK. So we got Dylan Wu, Luke Donald, David Lipsky, Matt Fitzpatrick. Should I use our head to head? Yeah, you should. I'm going to. OK. This is this has been locked in. So it shall be said, so it shall be done, as are we done with the Heechech Fantasy Podcast for this week. As always, make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast team. We have not just PGA podcast, but also MLB podcasts every weekday, UFC, NASCAR, all in the same place. So hit subscribe and if you like what you hear, leave us a rating interview. Brandy, any final thoughts for the good people before we send them off to fill out their lineups for the RBC Heritage Open or the RBC Canadian Open? The RBCs are all everywhere. Also, yeah, never mind. Yeah. Unlike Dustin Johnson, I will not ignore the RBC this week. Yes. Yeah, I think it's not the most exciting field after the top 10 or so. But these are the types of fields where you can really get a leg up if you dig in. I'm really thinking about the lineup construction. I think lineup construction is going to dominate this week. That is the key thing for me as well. So think long and hard about being in the right tears, living in the right tears, whatever you got to do to get there. I think that's the key thing for this week. Can people have questions for you on Twitter? Brandon, where can they find you there? I'm at Godula13, G-D-U-L-A, 1-3. And I am on Twitter at Jimsonus, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDual Podcast Network at FanDual Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for this week. Good luck to you. Your PGA, TFS, Lannis, and Hati once again next week for another major should be a fun time. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy Podcast powered by Number Fire.