 We are just a couple of days away from the first major of the 2022 PGA tour season with the Masters coming up. Teeing off on Thursday at Augusta National is going to be an absolute blast. As always, we're here to break things down from a DFS perspective, let you know the top golfers in each salary tier and get you set for should be a fun event coming up this week. Welcome on into the He Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire. 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 as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the senior managing editor of NumberFire.com. Brandon, it is Masters week. How we doing? Great. That's it? Great. I mean, look, it's a it's an elegant week. I don't need to be superfluous. I don't need to be verbose. It's just great. I hate this. Where do I like press the button to like reset you reset the branded bot? Like where can I, where's the reset button here? I mean, do you want me to be my normal talking himself? Kind of. As weird as that may sound. I know that like, I bristle and don't listen to you ever, but like, that's true. Maybe I'm learning. I yearn for abrasive Brandon. Yeah, abrasive. Yeah, that's the first word that comes to mind as you push back on my brilliant takes and wonderful ideas. That's the first word I can think of. Well, all right, well, I'll try this again. Ask me again. Ask me again. How are we doing, Brandon? Great. Your face, you're gonna say more than you did. I know that was the joke. I know, I know, I know. So this is a lot of nonsense for our master's show, too. I'm just very confused because we have Hideki as the winner last year. We love Hideki. You could talk about Xander today. You love Xander. We could talk about an amazing field. And yet, despite that, despite having a lot of our favorites being legitimate, like actual people, you know, are you saving your words or later on? Is that what this is? Yeah, maybe it was my way of saying like, hey, we got a lot to talk about. So maybe maybe I keep this to a minimum because, you know, for these majors, like, I'm gonna say this a lot. Yeah, I'm cool with, you know, golfer A and I'm cool with golfer B because it's the best of the best here this week. I mean, John Rom versus Justin Thomas and having a lot of issues with that. For a while, I was saying, I'll just play a ramen DFS because the salary of 12 won on Fandle was not that different from Justin Thomas at 11, nine. But for a while, long while, their win odds were pretty separate with ramen. Nine and a half to one on Fandle Sportsbook, JT 14 to one. Now ROMs 13 to one, JT 14 to one still. So that gap's narrowing. Do I, would I rather bet John Rom or stick with JT? A lot of that stuff? I mean, you can't really go wrong with a lot of the like, it's really hard. So for most of the show, it's going to be like splitting hairs. There's not a whole, I know, Rosa knows. So there's not a whole lot. There's just not a whole lot that like, you know, separates these guys and hopefully hopefully we find something. But it will try to find something that helps separate them throughout the podcast for today. We'll give it a shot. We'll give it a shot. We'll break down key stats and then we'll break down Augusta. We'll run through golfers have done well in Augusta in the past, guys who are golfing well right now. And our favorite picks in each salary tier over on fangible.com. But first, sports fans, it is officially that time of the year. Best week of golf. You haven't heard the masters coming up. Wow. Shocker, breaking news. It's Thursday when it starts fadels giving you a chance to get in on the action with an exclusive sports book offer presenting the Augusta winners insurance. All you do is place a pre-live straight or outright winner bet on the 2022 masters. 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I'll get NBA, Tom Vacchia Siles NHL going for a while now, Austin Swain with UFC. I've got NASCAR and first solo shot for baseball that you're coming up on Wednesday breaking down Thursday's opening day. We'll go to the regular schedule beginning on Friday. So solo shot back in just a couple of days to get all those podcasts right as they are posted. Subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. Let's dive in now to the Masters May DFS perspective. We of course are at Augusta National. It is 7,510 yards. It is a par 72. There are 90 golfers in the field for this week. And as always the Masters, the top 50 plus ties make the cut after the first two rounds. They'll stick with the same rule the past couple of years where there will not be the 10 stroke rule, but just the top 50 plus ties make the cut after the first two rounds. Brandon, we know what to expect at Augusta in terms of what stats matter. So I ask you, what stats matter? Yeah, even with no shot link data or realistically we're starting to get some stroke scan data from the Masters. Actually Data Golf has 20-21 stroke scan numbers on their site. So you can kind of check that out. Although that's just sort of pieces to the puzzle. Not necessarily going to be indicative of how golfers have fared long-term at Augusta. But what we're looking at is overall performance basically. That's kind of what jumps out whenever it comes to you. Pick the good golfers. Yeah, just pick the good guys. And I know that sounds dumb and a little dismissive, but it's the case. According to the research I did, which just basically used the Fantasy Nationals Time Machines. Something they offer on fantasynational.com, you can look at stats leading into the past Masters. Over the past five, total stroke scan average over the past 50 rounds leading in explains about 50% of in-tournament scoring. So basically if you just ranked guys who are golfing the best over the past 50 rounds, it's really not a bad place to start. So that is a key for all majors, just overall form for sure. The difference with this major versus the others is that it's obviously at the same course. And so we kind of learn the separation between something like distance and accuracy. And at Augusta it's all about distance compared to accuracy. Accuracy alone isn't going to get you there. It explains about 3% of scoring in the tournament itself. I should clarify, your fairways gained leading into the tournament isn't going to explain a whole lot of how you score. It's basically useless. Whereas again that mark is 3% for fairways gained. It's about 37% for distance gain. So much stronger predictor. Stroke scan off the tee though is at 38%. So a little bit stronger than distance itself. So that's why I'm going to have strokes gained off the tee be my key stat off the tee rather than just distance because you can be a little bit short and still contend. But if you're short you got to be accurate and you probably just don't want to be prohibitively short. And errant that's the worst combo obviously. But it will basically disqualify you from contending. So when Patrick reads in contention it's because the driver isn't failing him totally. So stroke scan off the tee number one. Stroke scan approach very crucial at a second shot course like Augusta and always important at any course. But this week it's basically I think I would feel pretty good ranking guys just based on ball striking more than anything more than really any other course. Along with that though I'm still factoring in around the green play to a lesser degree because it's again important. And it's a week where we can factor in course history. It's the most predictive course in terms of course history according to data golf numbers. So course history matters and I know it sounds like target the best golfers guys who are good with the driver good with the irons good with the wedges and who have had success here but that's basically what it comes down to at the Masters. And as you mentioned 90 golfers in the field you cut off about 10 15 really non competitive golfers. It's almost it's close to a no cut event and so you really got to make sure your guys are getting through the cut. So that's my worry line from last year Brandon. Yeah so you're going to find that with a little bit more of a balanced approach this year. So I want to talk to you about the course history aspects. You mentioned that you do want to value course history and of course knowledge of who want to reword that a bit like people have been here before. How much do you knock down guys like Sam Burns because we talked about this in covering the spread earlier talking about from a betting perspective but DFS is different we don't need an outright winner for them to be good and Sam Burns you're getting because the odds are correlated to the salaries you might be getting a discount because he's probably knocked his his odds are lengthened as a result of the fact that he's a debutant which means he's 10 for maybe if we get him without increased odds because of this maybe he's like 10 6 10 7 somewhere in there so you're getting it maybe a bit of a discount how much do you knock down guys who let's say first have not played here before. So that's it's always a tricky question because you and I have had a pretty clear reversal not reversal I should say but pretty clear stance I'll say on making sure that every golfer in our lineup we feel like can win. I know where JJ spawned when last week at the Valera Texas Open so it really you know I guess anyone has a chance to win but at the Masters not everyone has a chance to win and also it hasn't been since 1979 where we've seen a first-timer win again as you said we don't necessarily need the win and it's not like Sam Burns is not allowed to win because he hasn't played here before he has the game to contend here so I'm bumping him down it's basically for someone like Sam Burns it's going to come down more to like a tie break situation and I really have to have Sam Burns way above someone else similar to him and unfortunately for him right below him is Will Salatoris and Daniel Burger and I can make a much easier case for those guys who have at least played here. Salatoris obviously with the the runner-up last year Burger missed the cut last year hasn't played here since 2018 before that but he's played the course you know in a in a Masters setting that Salatoris has I think it's going to be a little bit tricky to go with Burns over those guys but I'm not going to discount anyone from a DFS standpoint just because they haven't played here but it is a bump down. So what about the guys who aren't in the same salary tier as Burr as we have as alternatives but like if you're bumping down to you know we're talking about some guys who have lower salaries here some guys who are maybe are not going to be have as many key replacements there Tom Hogi $8,200 I've got Taylor Gooch at 89 you've got some guys down there who are also debuting but don't have salaries as prohibitive as someone like Sam Burns you also got Luke List who has not played here since 2005 so like he's not a debutant but like kind of is what about for them for the lower salary guys how much do you care about their lack of course knowledge in that salary range enough because even though I'm not going to go super heavy on a low salary range so you gave me like Tom Hogi as an example yeah I can just probably with so many superstars in the field say I'm going to I'm going to get I'm going to find $300 in my salary to get up to Sioux Cam or $400 to get to Gary Woodland or bump down to Cameron Champ at 79 this is Cameron Champ is a very specific type of golfer he hits it really far he actually puts really well from within 15 feet which is really interesting and he's finished well at Augusta so yeah I think it's still enough even in that tier where you can't just disregard it again we're probably going to see one of the one of the debutants we have a kind of a good number of them Sam Burns Taylor Gooch Shamis Power Cameron Young Tom Hogi Harold Varner Substraca a few I mean I'm not going to name all of them but like those are names that you would look at and maybe say okay do I really like Tom Hogi that much more than Sioux Kim who's kind of been in contention here you know as long as he doesn't shatter the putter again but I mean I don't think it's enough for me to like the gap over Hogi and Sioux Kim if it even exists wouldn't be enough so I'm basically using it as tiebreakers that's not to say out absolutely don't use any of these guys it's just historically you know it's not the best process to load up on on first timers okay so we want to value course knowledge and course history so let's talk about guys who have done well at Augusta in the past starting off with Jordan Speed 11-7 is a salary for Speed and we saw him last week talk about it a bit there but Speed seems like he's someone who can do well at Augusta regardless of his form so let's talk about Speed where he's at right now what he's done at Augusta in the past and how he should handle him at a pretty high salary for this week yeah so last year Speed was entering off of a win and he was sort of rounding back into form last year though his salary was 10,900 this year it's 11,700 so very different there but you know a lot has changed since then Speed's strokes gained average entering last year's masters was 5.6 over his 10 events leading in and 9.7 over his past five according to fantasy national so really strong marks there this year negative point of or negative 0.5 and negative 0.7 respectively that's basically to say that his form is not where it was last year by any means his win odds though this year were 11 to 1 when I when I made this note he's what 14 to 1 now I think so yeah last year 13 so like again not a whole lot has has changed in the betting market but we've seen a huge increase in his DFS salary and we've seen it seen a big decrease in his actual form leading in so that's a little bit of a concern however it speeds at Augusta and we've seen him be relevant even during his downward trend because his form it's just he has a really good game for this course he debuted with a runner-up then he won and then he run it up again and it's kind of you can probably joke that he should have three wins already here but third last year seven top 25s and eight starts in five top threes it's wild speed's current form again not necessarily ideal he's a below average ball striker right now I don't think you can really like rule him out cross him off but it is hard for me to rank him above some other names in that salary tier so what are your thoughts on speed for this week I think it's exactly the way you ended that where you were saying okay you can't rule him out but like we also do need to like draw lines at a certain point because we can't use everyone and we're talking about how you can justify every golfer in the field you can justify speed because of the course history because he popped at the pebble beach program which was not that long ago we've seen upside out of him in like the not terribly distant past but I can get golfers in the salary tier where I'm not making concessions and I'm probably not dealing with that much popularity so I feel like I can get a lot of what I'm trying to get out of speed without using speed specifically so to me that's why I'm okay not being there for this week I wouldn't mind if you want because he's a fun guy to root for so I'm okay rooting for him but I think that when we're going through this process we need to find guys we can cross off not cross off but like not use not include our player pool and I think there are enough things with speed right now where I can say okay I see enough here where I'm okay missing out if he goes off because I can get the positives and speeds without the negatives elsewhere in this tier and I think that's kind of the way I'm going to approach it with him personally you're on mute I definitely didn't meet myself so but I've been Jim Jim knows I've been having mic issues so I don't know what happened there yeah but StreamYard's doing the Lord's work here by muting you for me appreciate it shout out StreamYard well you have yeah you have administrative access on this so maybe I didn't mute you but I would have so I appreciate it um so like if speed was 10-9 this year I'd be intrigued yeah but 11-7 that's kind of too much for me um although last year we're talking about speed being you know really hot led the field tee to green again data golf does have strokes gained for last year's uh masters up on their site but of the 54 golfers to make the cut he was 53rd in strokes gained putting so again could have been really like a fourth win for speed it's scary to fade speeds yeah it is I don't think he's I just don't think he's the best process play we have Colin Moorakawa right above him I think that's a very interesting conversation because I've actually been a little lower on Moorakawa than I think a lot of people and it feels like a lock to have Moorakawa over speed but I just say something honestly so I need to be taken this week so we do like and we have Scotty world number one Scotty Schaeffler right below speed are those guys doing enough to you know get you away from John Rahman Justin Thomas or bumping down to Cam Smith Zander Brooks like I don't think they're on par with Rahman and JT and I think that they're the gap above the trio I just named probably not there either so that's kind of my view on the top of the field I guess that I just shoehorned in here the other portion of this discussion is roster construction because there are some pretty lofty salaries in there we'll talk about what that means later on but let's talk about some lower salary guys first with good history to guess starting off with Corey Connors because back in 2019 Corey Connors had a monster run he Monday qualified for the Valero won the Valero qualified for the Masters finished 46 so you know debutant thing whatever but that's at the table for some really impressive outings for Connors at Augusta he's finished 10th and 8th the past two years here the 8th place last year during the spring came despite typical Corey Connors issues Corey Connors issues around the green he was just nasty on approach the around the green play has been getting better recently too maybe it's variants maybe it's kind of fluky but it's to the point where he has actually gained strokes around the green or we spend positive slightly in five of this past six measured events this is Corey Connors we're talking about here he finished third at the WGC match play that helps alleviate some concerns around some recent miscuts so he's $9,300 has good course history has some decent form in his recent history has very good ball striking talk me out of Corey Connors I dare you I would never never um yeah I mean the issue with Connors always is the putter like that's just and in somewhat the chipping but ball striking is so much more predictive of success here than putting is that you this is one of the weeks where our historical process of just not caring at all about putting probably is uh you know more you say historical to mean that it's in the past it is not in the present we have we have shifted gears since then yeah we we we put some emphasis on on putting now but putting again citing that you know the the past five years leading in putting explains about 12 percent of in tournament stroke scan total ball striking 43 percent so if you just rank guys based on ball striking you're probably off to a pretty good start and that's good news for Corey Connors because over the past year in my database which accounts for field strength and recency 95th percentile in this field in ball striking the putter not ideal 19th percentile but if you like the putting isn't awful it's not like luke list or like tony phenol level it's just not like i gotta get a luke x poor luke just out here listen to a show trying to hang out before the masters and he's catching strays so like you know Connors isn't super long off the tee but still a good ball striker regardless still gain strokes off the tee because he's so accurate and is at least has at least some distance he's not you know at the bottom of the field so i won't talk anyone out of corey connors this week i think he is a fantastic play on fandal he is getting buzz among the lower salary golfers over at fan share sports he's the one with most tags so be cognizant of that but typically you don't see a lot of chalk value plays that's just not the way things work it's typically a chalk upper salary guy so keep that mind with connors that could be one drawback but outside of that i see nothing to really scare me off too much let's talk about justin rose $9500 rose one of those guys who we talked about good overall golfers for a very long time has been in that discussion he's 95 here what should we know about his history at agusta yeah so sometimes like like sometimes like when i'm talking to people about golf uh and they're talking about like their lineups or who they're thinking about um playing at agusta they're like well justin rose always plays well at agusta that kind of stuff and i'm like so maybe that does factor in for a lot of people that wouldn't necessarily i would think to play justin rose just because of his former to gustin but in looking at him i'll at least say there's a little bit more to justin rose at 9500 than i thought so i just i want to say that much jim smirking at me so i'm trying i know like most people you talked to when i was trying to figure out who this was i'm just no you don't know these people sure yeah these these friends they're off in the corner just out of camera shot ha ha i got a lot of friends yeah um i know how much you despise friends you're not fooling me i'm gonna figure who this is i'm gonna mute myself and i'll figure this out uh just say maybe we'll get muted automatically so who knows but justin rose not a name we talk about not a name we've talked about in probably quite some time with the current form being what it is there hasn't been a ton of reason to do that but even last year rose finished seventh with great fairway through green stats prior to that 23rd cut 12th and second over the past five years so three top 12s in the past five years that's pretty nice all things considered and while his current form isn't like classic justin rose it's better than it was a year ago 1.8 strokes gained per event over his past five compared to a minus 0.2 again when he finished seventh it's also better than his form was entering the 2020 masters when he finished 23rd while distance helps here it's not an absolute prerequisite so long as you do everything else well and so rose can still keep it going he has been keeping it going the form while not popping isn't as like bad and rightoffable as i thought so anything for you with justin rose here so i think that like it goes back to your discussion around we want six guys with a shot to win the case you gave for rose is a good floor case can you talk yourself into a ceiling because i can't i just i want to know if you can i mean the argument against that is that he was seventh year last year yeah i mean he putted really well he was kind of yeah he was he wasn't bad teeter green he putted really well but again he knows the course if he can so again out of the 54 golfers you made the cut 24th in teeter green fourth and putting if he can finish 25th 20th in teeter green again which the you know probably still can putts well because he knows the course i can see the i don't see him winning yeah and that's what you're i think that was the only thing i needed to hear i don't see him winning so i don't because like you can get guys who can win in this range like if i told you now that map it's patrick just won the masters level of shock for you like one to ten yeah probably like a like a three so pretty well yeah exactly adam adam scott tearo had hat hat and a little higher because he hasn't played well here but um uh paul kasey pretty pretty hefty um tommy fleawood you're picking the names that would actually would surprise me a little bit but adam scott math that's patrick wouldn't surprise me court conners wouldn't surprise me leechman wouldn't really surprise me surgio okay so there are guys that wouldn't surprise you basically correct and rose would be more like a seven right on scale one to ten yeah seven and a half probably yeah i agree okay so you mentioned leechman let's talk about it mark leechman he's played here a bunch uh dating back to 2010 and he's done well in those trips in nine tries leechman has three top tens and two top fives in the masters two of the top tens were in the past four years so very recent he was 13th in another one there most recently leechman finished fifth last year during the spring at the masters leechman has had some bumps in the very recent sample but he is in what i would need to be acceptable form so what's your read on mark leechman entering this week at 9200 dollars um so this is where it starts to get a little bit tough because all of those names i said for the most part not all not very surprising that they would win mark leechman wouldn't really surprise me if he won um does he do enough to separate from anyone else not really and does he kind of stack up to cori connors or maybe Sergio Garcia or Russell Henley at similar salaries i wouldn't think so like i can't say so um so i'd rather play leechman than like rose or probably abe answer fleetwood especially patrick reed um and web so i'd probably be like fourth here behind connors Sergio and henley okay of fits um well i wasn't really including okay chat but let me let's let's say like hypothetically we assume that we get to wednesday night and you go to fan share pull up the the tags you see that cori connors is shock yeah shawky conners like if we get there is leechman a guy who considers a pivot off of connors of that in that scenario yes okay that's close enough for me where i would definitely take that and as you were going to ask if i had any final thoughts on on uh on this week um at the end of the show and i was going to say feel free to pivot away from chalk because you're going to have options so that's basically a perfect unless the chalk is cori connors right well you can still pivot because we have some other names down there i'm not saying never play anyone chalky that's if you really think that that's the right process um that can be the right process but we have options this week leechman's one of them yep i i believe that he is as well okay let's stop this in current form golfers who are entering with good form and questionable if scottie schaeffler qualifies as being in good form three wins in the past five events it's okay i guess uh he's 11 6 talk me through schaeffler i'll talk about dj and we can talk about this upper range on band yeah i mean took over the world number one spot so i think it's probably safe to say that the form's good uh hard to get there without that um earned that by winning the wgc del technologies match play kind of i'm still kicking myself for not just picking him um at the match play but also on the arnold palmer invitational wm phoenix open other than that t7 at genesis t55 at a very volatile players championship it's hard to do much better than write him off he's a scrub over the past three months schaeffler leads the field and data golf's true strokes gained while ranking 35th off the t which is a little strange for him but kind of being carried a little bit by the putter uh the putting regression data that i now use you can read up on the the process of it on numberfire.com says he's putting way above expectation it's not to say he's a bad putter but you know if you're gonna win three times in five events you're probably riding a hot putter it's not to say you're only doing it with a putter we know that schaeffler's better than that but one thing that gets me a little bit wary of him uh schaeffler has made six straight major cuts while finishing top 20 in all of those and top eight and three straight he has a game that's basically tailor made for majors just a menace t-degree and who can also put whenever things are flowing i know that well i guess i was gonna ask if you treated schaeffler the same as all the other struts i would say yes he's i mean he's world number one it's not it gets no longer egregious to say i was probably getting close to that before all these wins anyway yeah um so talk to me about dj and we'll sort out the top of the field yeah so dj is 11-4 where a schaeffler is 11-6 we'll talk about dj here we talked about him a lot and how underwhelming his form has been recently but we know dj is great in agusta and it's probably worth digging more into his form again this week most recently johnson finished fourth in the wgc match play that came a couple weeks after he was top 10 at the players though we know that things were pretty jacked up there so i don't really care too much about the players personally but you know top 10 is better than not top 10 i guess still dj has played four pga tour events since january 1st he has gained at least 1.9 an approach in three of them and he was stroking it off the t2 johnson has been top 10 five has passed six trips to agusta including his win in the fall of 2020 so it's hard to ignore him at 11-4 but we do have good alternatives like schaeffler like the guys we discussed before so where does dj stack up for you compared to schaeffler and how are you doing this upper tier in general straight up i'd probably just go with dj over schaeffler okay is that factoring in expected roster rate or is that straight up you just prefer dj i think i've seen enough from dj to to get back there and i mentioned that schaeffler is putting really well but what what i mean by that is so my data has him at a negative 0.03 expected strokes gain putting per round so basically just below baseline he's at a 0.18 um i have dj at a 0.56 an actual strokes gain putting you would think obviously he's got to be worse than that no he's actually very good from within 15 feet 95th percentile so he's actually underperforming by a tinge with his putting and his putting if you use like the actual the expected putting that i use just a top five putter in this field um we know what he can do t to green whenever he's logged in obviously is one here in the past in november so i don't know how people feel about that but if i'm going dj or schaeffler i think at this point i'm just going to be in dj which sounds weird because i don't i would assume maybe he's a little bit less chalky yes scotty schaeffler's getting yeah lots of schaeffler will be popular yeah so i don't i don't think i'm going to lock in either of those into my any main lineups because i'm really keying in on cam smith zander and brooks right below this tier also i love jt and john rom so i'm probably going to be a little bit lighter on moorakawa spieth schaeffler mackleroy and dj yeah that's how i'm viewing it what are your thoughts i think i'm in the same boat because of salary because we'll talk more about this later on but i really want to strive for balance this week because i think basically what i want to do is give myself more darts at potential winners and i don't mean like oh i want everyone to have a chance i want four guys to have a legit chance like that's kind of the way that i want to do things like legit legit chance and that's hard to do if i go you know john rom plus let's say cheffler uh rom plus cheffler puts me at 90 75 left i'm probably not getting two legit winners in there whereas if i go cam smith at 11 2 plus brooks is at 10 9 that's 94 75 left i can make that work so i think that my mindset is i need to be fully fully in to buy into a guy who has a higher salary dj actually doesn't quite count to me as having a high salary at 11 4 that's low enough especially relative to speed etc that i kind of think he's not off the map i would consider budging on rory for a similar discussion i prefer can smith like baseline can smith will be above them i think for a cash game i go can smith is my highest salary guy but i will consider bumping up to rory and dj because 11 5 11 4 is not actually that bad given that i think they've got legit legit win odds maybe worth a tiny bit less than the bottom end so i think to me the area i want to live is optimally 11 2 and lower but i'll budge up to 11 4 11 5 at times as well yeah and with with cam smith at 11 2 understandably getting a lot of buzz yeah if we get a buzzy cam smith and a buzzy scottie sheffler while we there the field isn't huge so like all these numbers are going to be inflated from a normal like full field event if we get a lot a lot of popularity on those two specifically we'll probably still see a lot on either drawn rom or jt or if you just combine them because they're sort of the two standout favorites and with cam smith being the you know tied for second and win odds at 14 to 1 but the salary being low i think those three alone will or those four alone will eat up a lot of popularity leaving a lot of options just to pivot i think that's going to be zander brooks possibly more kawa i think he's always a little bit more popular than i would put him just because of how i view more kawa i love him but if the potter's not there then it's hard to win same for jt but jt's t degree in game better so i think basically the answer to your question is i'm if you've been asking your question um you said cam smith at 11 2 is a great starting point i think like zander or brooks at 11 109 great starting point as well so that honestly might be where i end up so i can get as many realistic winners as i can into my lineup yeah i think if i were to deem it something i'd say like we'll call them pivot prospects guys where i think there's a possibility they go a bit lower roster than they should be i would say brooks on that list dj kind of on that list i'll probably get some because he's dj but like if both cheffler and cam smith are popular the guys between them can't be that popular like they're just kind of you know you can only have rostered so many guys so dj is a pivot prospect brooks i think patrick cantley is on that list as a guys who might go more overlooked than they should we've got weird history here but like whatever um i would say those are the guys rory as well are the guys i'm looking to is like i want to keep tabs on their their their buzz this week and if they are going to be nearly as high as other guys i'm very okay pivoting because i've seen enough to to feel good about them so i think that's the the list i'm looking at there is guys keeping a close tab on as we get closer to thursday let's move now to some other guys with lower salaries of the good current form start out with billy horschel horschel is nine a thousand dollars what do you see with him recently yeah he's a really interesting case this week because the the form is there he's ripped off five straight top 16 finishes in events that he finished he withdrew from the players horschel notably t2 with the arnold palmer invitational t6 at the wm phoenix open and the irons are actually partially what's carrying him which is very interesting because it's not typically billy horschel's game he has struggled historically at augusta since last year t50 t38 t56 missed cut in his past four he just it's hard if everything's not clicking and you don't have the distance off the t which he really doesn't um it's hard to to contend so he's got to have everything else locked in to make up for what he's losing off the t that distance is not going to be there all of a sudden he's got to be super accurate put it everywhere he wants and hit the irons well and get up and down whenever he misses so it's a narrow path for these guys who aren't long to contend horschel has the all-around game to do it initially i will say i was more drawn to horschel but the lack of a format augusta does scare me a bit because again it's just if you're not going to be able to gain a lot of strokes off the t everything else you just your room for error just is so so small so i think while i was initially drawn to horschel the the prospect uh and is probably akin to the justin rose conversation too if he finishes t 50 or t 40 at nine thousand that's not enough you need you need more than that so it's not moving the needle for dfs i think for me i'm kind of out on horschel after all despite the good form so any thoughts on billy horschel for this week so i agree with you broadly the one pitch i would give in favor of horschel is this is the best form he has had entering the masters ever uh if you go to fantasy national look at their then versus now form analysis his previous best most recent five events heading into a masters was back in 2016 he was at 3.3 strokes gained per event in his previous five he's at 8.1 now in his previous six he was at 0.6 versus 4.3 now so much better form now but that was his previous best he finished 17th in that one so when he was golfing well entering the masters most recently he did come through pretty well with a 17th place finish the question is is 17th his ceiling and i think that's kind of what you were getting at we're like you know we need to make sure we have that juice and like i think the other reason to discuss that here is because again we actually have really good options in that range rustle hemley is nine thousand dollars hemley i think is better upside then he hasn't played here since 2018 i don't think this has been a bit but like he's played here he's not like a totally new to this course you've got guys down there who do have upside so i think there is a case for horschel and i'm not opposed but i think that's the you're right to question the ceiling because of the distance issues that you discussed yeah and ultimately uh with with hemley specifically um at the same salary it's going to be hard for me to to lock in billy horschel too often i like sergio garcia as well probably somebody's not going to get that much talk hasn't really played well here since his win um so i'd probably go sergio well sergio versus horschels is is tight for me but hemley for sure over billy uh for this week yeah i think i'd be there too okay let's move up a bit to ninety five hundred dollars talk about tierle hatton who you dismissed earlier i'll try to give you the pitch in favor of hatton here he has a lot of high end finishes recently that make him worth discussing at ninety five if we go back to the hero world challenge so starting there hatton has played eight events he has been top 10 in five of those eight with no finishes worse than 28 hatton has been putting his brains out though that's the one issue kind of scary but he's been very good on the greens the t degree in play has been fine and bank grasses is worse surface so those are the downsides but it's a long sample of him performing well even against tough fields so are you selling hatton's success because it's been driven by putting or does the low salary help alleviate those concerns for you um it's not like i'm totally out on hatton it's just that i have a hard time putting him above some other names in that range especially with quarry connor's being there again just from a process standpoint not necessarily trying to factor in popularity with this conversation but i would go connor's over hatton and also adam scott and matt fits patrick over hatton because for fits patrick the short game can be just as good as hattons and the irons are really good too right now for fits adam scott phenomenal putter right now uh has distance great irons long term quarry connor's we know his strengths are ball striking so it's not like i'm out on hatton especially if you give me like a casey versus hatton it's going to be hatton bows versus hatton it's going to be hatton fleetwooder hatton hatton answer hatton hatton so like it's not that i'm not in on him it's just he's at least third in that specific salary tier so it sounds like you would take an adam scott versus tierl hatton head to head correct scott over hatton yeah yeah okay i'll do that um i'll take the hatton side there i i think it's just because it's not because i'm high high like higher on hatton than what you said i think i'm just a bit lower on scott personally i feel like it want a party i don't know deal with it um so i think that's the main disconnect but i agree with you like hattons not the top guy in that tier there's some other guys that like more specifically because i'm wary that the putting holds up i just like more than scott that's that's the one difference i would see there personally you said in this tier i thought you're gonna say tierl hatton ha boo let's go to the bookmaker odds for this week at the master's john rom the favorite of vandal sportsbook at 13 to 1 very long number for rom kind of interesting but then we got a cam smith and justin thomas both right on his heels at 14 to 1 scottie sheffler and dustin johnson 16 to 1 you know jordan's beef at 17 to 1 then there is a slight dip after that group down to a group of 4 at 20 to 1 those guys are collin moricowa brooks capca rory mackleway and victor holland patrick cantley is 23 to 1 xander schoffley rounds of the top group he is 24 to 1 so we talk a lot about balanced approach balanced lineups in majors to give ourselves more swipes at a potential winner we talked about it a lot kind of in passing but definitively for you what is the ideal build for this week but about as balanced as we can get which probably honestly starts from the low end to see how low you can go and feel like you're getting someone who let's call it top five sure because to win the masters is its own thing you would not have hated having wills out horse in your lineup last year to finish runner up um i think if we're going specifically top five even you could stretch it to top 10 but it's again a smaller field you really want that top five upside um i think i could sell myself on and i i would have specific odds for this although i don't i don't pull top fives but like if i'm looking at things talking about my expectations i think seawool kim 85 would not shock me to finish top five gary woodland 86 yes more realistically though it might be russell henley at 9 000 so if i plug in henley at 9 000 and then say who else above him could finish top five maybe sergio probably conners um so if i go henley conners that's 10 4 and then if i just had to fill out a lineup with 10 4 for four more golfers i'm going to feel pretty good especially if i don't try to jam in like romer jt um that's probably how i'm going to build my lineup uh for this week i think that's very fair uh and i agree with you on a lot of the names you said specifically like woodland i think i feel good like not good but like i think okay realistically top five within the range of outcomes conners same henley same the problem is it's not a lot of names down there i think in realistically get top five so the issue i'm worried about running into is being overly exposed to those golfers i am more okay with that now than i was previously because i've embraced the mentality of if i lose every lineup that's fine because i'm not overextending myself play responsibly um so like that's kind of a shift in mindset but i also realize most people don't play that way so i'm okay being overexposed to gary woodland and if he finishes you know 38th and does nothing for me that's fine um well the flip side of that the flip side of that though is you play everyone and then the odds you actually have a good lineup go down drastically too because you're just going to have a mix of everyone as opposed to you can't hit the right combos yeah if you're right yeah and and again we're talking specifically top fives and like our perception you might be able to space that back out to like top 15 like leishman uh bubba edegusta obviously is you know in that conversation so like there are names down there it's just more like and one name is looming i understand i'm scrolling in this range a lot with a game time decision tag by by his name we've not said his name yet you do anything to tiger or no i don't think so okay i figured i'd ask i figured i'd ask i don't think anyone else will either that's fine i'd not not personally gonna go there but uh yeah so i think going through that process of i want six guys in my lineup who can give me a shot like i want six darts instead of having three or four darts like that's kind of the way that i want to view this um and that does lead to a more balanced approach now that does not mean i'm gonna ignore entirely john rom if i go john rom i can still get to that lineup what i would do is like if i have john rom i go through the exact same thought process brandage went through i would go rom let's go woodland and then let's go henley if i go rom woodland henley i've got ten one left you can still get a balanced lineup with rom it just means that you're not getting a second like set in there so i would say a balanced approach does not preclude you from using the studs it just means you're going with them kind of by themselves which is fine i'm totally okay with that but um i want to make clear that saying i want balance does not mean to ignore those top top end guys just alter your roster construction after them to make sure you're not using too many guys who realistically don't have a shot yeah and like i could there are names in the lower salary tier who i get the case for cameron champ at 7900 i could make a top 10 case for luke list eric van roijn in both 8 000 what we're basically saying and what where we're settling is it's not the right week to play cam champ luke list and eric van roijn to have 12 000 33 left and just play like rom jt and you know rory or whoever else up there you don't play luke has been coming here since 2005 he's got a win recently great t degree play i can just let's let's just go through this you know i can do it i'll be the guy i'm i'm open to a like one cam champ or one luke list in a lineup but still to go balanced from there if you're at if you're asking of your lineup that three value plays finish like top 15 to make any noise in a tournament it's going to be probably a long week for you yeah i think that is the correct way to view things okay which golfer's odds have shifted most throughout the day monday because they had short odds over the weekend i think to safeguard in case like speak whoop on sunday basically like they had pretty short odds on a lot of guys um so they lengthened things monday who had been the most notable movers there um john rom was nine and a half to one for a long time he's not 13 to one uh it was basically the point of like i'm not like john rom there's not enough value to now he's 13 to one i think that's a pretty fair bet um because i was fully reckoned i was fully planning to to make jt my my first win pick for the show um jt fell from 12 to 14 and now it's like one thing i'll say on rom quickly before we move on um typically we mentioned lengtheners to say the public does not have a ton of interest in this golfer because it means it implies they're not getting betting action rom's still getting a lot of fan share tags so despite the fact he is lengthened i would not take that to mean that rom will go overlooked right so uh yeah i mean i'm trying to keep it to dfs but like my mind this whole weekend was like okay rom and dfs over jt but jt is a bet now it's like they're basically the same it's like i really like jt this week but it's so easy to forget about how good john rom can be whenever he's on and how good he is at agusta so just making that note there but again jt 12 to 14 uh jordan speeth 12 to 17 colin moricala 11 to 20 patrick cantley 20 to 23 xander schoffley 18 to 24 bryce into shambo 29 to 38 uh debutant sam berns 33 to 39 and then hedecky matsuyama defending champ who's not healthy with drew before the players withdrew from the valero 21 to 43 i spent like 15 minutes last week talking about how oh we can assume hedecky's healthy because he's in the field money withdraws so it was a really delightful experience there um moricala is a guy you've talked about being lower on than a lot of people he has the same number of tags this week as brooks as hedecky he has the same number as dj do you think there's any chance moricala goes overlooked with the odds lengthening or no i mean it's possible i think really like really what we find with majors is two or three guys are kind of they separate a little bit and then it's pretty flat and clustered from there and then naturally two to four big names are like 15 to 20 percent and it's like yeah there was at least a lot of leverage there um in the end but we're not getting like colin moricala two percent it's not what we're trying to get at by any means but i do think that he's not going to be chalky and that is enough to make him if you're into into uh moricala this week very interesting i think from a process standpoint they're better plays but um but um that means like indefinitely i'm gonna every year when we do this it's like i'm low on moricala because he's not super long off the tee in the short game's not as good as some other guys like that's a little scary but i think for me i'm not necessarily in on moricala from a dfs standpoint with his salary being where it is okay i agree with that so we talked about everyone who lengthened which means if everyone's lengthening it's not worth even guys do the same so whose odds did not shift or shortened uh in this same time frame so cameron smith 14 to 1 stayed pat i loved cam smith he shortened a bit i don't know i think he was 18 to 1 like last week in the middle of the week trended down to 14 and stayed there love that for cam hate that for me uh for uh scottie cheffler stayed at 16 and will's alatoris stayed at 33 so that's noteworthy but for as far as guys whose odds are shortened corrie connor 65 to 45 very noteworthy matt fits patrick 50 to 46 russell henley love it for ross hate it for me 65 to 48 and then see what came 175 i like see what came a good bit this week but a lot of names that we are talking about conners fits henley see who probably not going to be alone in that but that's not to say that they're going to be the most popular plays in the field it is worth noting that i mentioned conners as far as catching buzz earlier henley is too um he's a fan tags right now so obviously people talk about him fits patrick not as much he's actually he has not gotten much buzz at all so fits patrick odds shortening has a top 10 in his passive augustus despite the fact he's not super long off the t game strokes off the t despite not being long and i interest you in some matty fits for this week yeah that's why like i think i'm a little low in hatton because i'd rather play fits than hatton yeah um among among a few others but no holes in and fits patrick's games uh game and a good putter who is not necessarily just getting lucky on his putts we know that so i like fits this week and just part of that that mid tier that way i feel i feel confident we can pepper i agree okay which lower salary golfers have odd to stand out to you rustle henley 48 to one uh tiger woods 55 to one i mean i don't anything can happen um i mean that yeah if you that's how you want to spend your money that's okay to get a little sweat in i get it i get it just do some responsibly please uh billy horschel 60 seawall kim 75 max homa gary woodland 80 tom hoagie is a hundred to one tether goose thomas peters brian harman 110 um how much peters no uh hey man you're you're the thomas peters god am i yeah it's typically me like saying i'll use him you talk me out of it and then i'm grateful you talk me out of it like that's the peters cycle so is he really my guy i think you could do worse than thomas peters right now um perfect example of making sure you're looking not just at pga tour data though um and the one of the easiest ways to do that is to go to data golf and just check out their stuff look at you know thomas peters one and abu-dabi um 12th in dupai 24th at the saudi international then the pga tour cut 32nd cut 26th and it's almost like the pga tour is a lot tougher than like the dp world tour so but he's not bad when you adjust for field strength the fantasy national like he's not a standout in his tier either yeah he's not bad you know just more of a comment that like a top 12 on the dp world tour is not really equivalent to a top 12 on the pga tour so again you know maybe it's your first year with with golf um i think the pg i think the european tour or the dp world tour gets a lot more love than it probably should from okay from a difficulty standpoint let's talk about weather for this week it's looking like it'll be wet to start things off on thursday morning the rain odds decrease around eight or nine am but they'll likely be playing on a pretty damp track early friday early thursday this is we're talking monday so this could change by then but as of right now it looks like it could be pretty wet on thursday morning that could slow down the greens a bit maybe maybe maybe wind wise it'll go from around seven miles per hour at eight am thursday to 13 miles per hour at four p.m increasing throughout the day so there will be higher winds in the afternoon ways friday is dry but once again winds fees will increase during the day they'll go from seven miles per hour at eight am to 15 miles per hour by two p.m so for both days it seems like the earlier t10s will have an edge i'm not sure which day will hold the edge but there is some creed and seven correlated lineups where you bump up the early crowd thursday versus bumping up the early crowd friday etc etc and for single round slates if you're playing those this week i would favor those earlier t times for both thursday and friday wind in the weekend pretty normal brandon any thoughts for you any takeaways for you on the weather they're seeing that wind will increase throughout the day and we may have a bit of a wetter track on thursday morning yeah i mean i historically shy away from getting too heavy into the weather splits because i i personally feel like i always gas wrong and it just comes back to like haunt me that's not a good process i guess but um i have an issue personally with doing those splits but i think with how tight the the field is you probably could just be fine building some some splits based on or some lineups based on uh t time splits so not the worst week to do it i would advise it more during a major than i would at a regular event whenever the the the pivots aren't really there um there is like the subair system i don't know how how much it's going to rain and how dry they can get stuff they they're going to want it you know as firm as possible but i just i'm always so dodgy when it comes to weather because i always gas wrong yep i would just say check back again on wednesday that's my very firm take check back again wednesday see if there's a more definitive wave that gets a bump and uh go from there in-depth analysis there all right let's go tier by tier now and break down our favorite place over on fan duel dot com for the 2022 masters starting off in the elite tier brandon who up there stands out to you for this week so i'll give the caveat that i think of the 17 golfers with a salary above 10 000 there are probably two i would talk people out of and that's a decky and brison the other 15 i can make a case where i'm not going to argue with anyone but for me because of the way that i'm trying to build my line-up starting majors i'm going to start this with xander schoffley at 11 000 win odds are down to 24 to 1 i think he's a good win bet but i if anyone's listened to this show for a while they know i like xander i've been able to separate that a lot more lately i'm not as big on recommending xander as i typically have but the the salaries lower the win odds are getting longer that's because he hasn't won in quite some time but he's actually expected for some putting regression i haven't been in the 90th percentile and expected putting which means these are really good putter he should be gaining about 0.48 strokes per round with the putter compared to his actual mark of 0.16 that's pretty big more putt should fall for him eventually especially from long range 70th percentile in ball striking and on the pga tour season only he and john rom are top like top 30 in distance and top 100 in accuracy it's a kind of weird with it's it's super rare to be long off the tee and have some semblance of accuracy and right now xander still has that so i have nothing bad to say about xander he does well at augusta i think the salary is is perfect for this year so i'm gonna start a lot of lineups with xander this week this week so i dug into xander earlier today i was trying to decide if i wanted to take a patrick cantley over xander shawflay head to head bet and i couldn't talk myself into it because xander's form is i think better than i thought it was yeah and i think that's that's noteworthy if he's gonna go super overlooked yeah i you know i do some i do some content for golf digest where i give out some fades uh and i over the past few you know weeks that xander has been playing i'm like probably time to fade xander because uh he doesn't win haha but like then i look at his form i'm like it's so it's really good and nobody really seems to notice and he's such a good putter yeah yeah so like basically xander went from being like the silent stats hero uh to being you know considered just as likely to win as a lot of superstars and didn't win and now we're starting to see that finally lengthen so i like xander at 11 000 and i also love him as a as an outright bet yeah i didn't expect to like him i still would rather have like Brooks Kepka than him but i had to get like i thought i'd be in dfs for dfs um so i'm not gonna go against brooks so we'll talk about him later on but let's talk about cam smith as my first high salary guy because i mentioned i would start a cash game lineup with cam smith let's discuss why he's not long off the tee but that has not hurt in the past at the gusta he has played here five times smith has three top tens and two top fives one of those was a runner up back in the fall of 2020 smith obviously won the players despite losing strokes off the tee because he putted like just was unconscious on the greens but he also gained 6.7 an approach and he ranks ninth there the past 50 rounds it wasn't just the crazy long putts he was also gaining an approach and like also he's a good putter like that's not a huge shock that he was doing what he was doing i like the balanced approach he gets me at 11-2 while still getting the access to a lot of win equity i think that smith is under salary and i want to hunt out under salary guys in cash games smith is that so in our head to head i'll use can smith against you um what are your thoughts on him for cash games first and then for tournaments love him for cash games um the like fully transparent my my top well i have four picks in what i would call like the the best of the best here um up on number fire it's john rom camp smith zeander and someone else will talk about in a second so he's definitely in that conversation i have nothing against cam smith um to anchor lineups the only real thing you can point to for for cam at this course is doesn't gain strokes off the tee very often 20 23rd percentile in my database over the past year but that has not prohibited him from playing augustin national well so i'm in on cam smith um and i i know you're playing him against me he might also be in my lineup yeah i think that makes a lot of sense okay you mentioned another guy in this tier who you like who is it and why brooks capca because it's a major so that's but you know i mean like yeah that's that's that's fair analysis though i mean like last year he was not healthy um and it showed and he's getting healthier and we're starting to actually see him play better it non majors third at the wm phoenix open t 16 at honda t 12 at valspar t five at the del technologies match play um 33rd or better in his five made cuts at augusta three top 12s you can play well here he's long off the tease though the irons are trending up pretty strong putter i don't know what you want i want nothing else because he's my second player pick as well and i think that like we can worry about the form you can do that but let's go back to 2019 that is where brooks finished second finished runner up in the masters his previous five events he had been 24th 27th second mist cut 56 he had one second in there uh but outside of that no finish is better than 24th he finished second there he was at 1.5 stroke scheme per event in his previous five events he's at three now previous five here just in the pga tour not counting the wgc match player elsewhere third mist cut 16th mist cut 12 you're not using brooks for floor using him for ceiling and he's shown his ceiling so i see no reason not to love brooks i would expect sentiment to trend up on him as the week goes along so although brooks is middling from a buzz perspective right now i think that'll trend up and i'd expect him to get some popularity but i'm okay with that uh something that brooks kapka really could play for this week one of the guy i'd mention is patrick cantley at 10 seven um i did initially have him here but then i was like okay i can't pass up brooks i think cantley is intriguing too so if you get worried about brooks being too buzzy too popular i think cantley is a fine pivot and i would be okay going there and in addition to to xander i think he's also in that same discussion so cantley shawflay the potential pivots here as if you get wary of brooks being too popular so cantley rates out better than expected or better than his win odds based on my model because he's still really good um i think from a floor floor standpoint i'm okay with that but one name that i think is really getting overlooked here is and they're all getting overlooked if we're not really really focusing on them because that's how the majors work victor hovland really low in fan share tags i have nothing against hovland aside from the fact that his around the green play is really bad um but if he could fake that um if he could just hit greens he's due for some putting regression we know his ball striking is as good as anyone's 99th percentile even though all my data says cantley over vict hovland if i'm if i'm looking at this like camp smith chalk brooks basically chalk i need to go someplace else i think it's going to be hovland over cantley yeah i think that that makes sense um if you look at data golf's true strokes gain which does include hovland being a nightmare around the green he's still fourth there the past six months um above a superstar in sandburns um right behind cheffler jt and camp smith so you're probably right that i am a bit too dispissive of uh ol vic maybe right i'll i think that's worth considering for sure let's move to the mid-range who do you have there um i have daniel burger uh 10100 for the sole fact of i want to i want to be a little more balanced um as i've mentioned and if that means i play xander hovland in burger like as my top guys i'm i feel pretty good with that um burgers winnaughts have fallen they've plummeted 41 to 1 to 55 to 1 um his master's history is kind of peculiar debuted with a t10 in 2016 uh 27th in uh 2017 32nd in 2018 didn't play it again till we missed the cut last year missed the cut because of poor putting but burgers not a long driver he's accurate but he's not long however he still finished top 10 in his past two majors t7 at the us open t8 the open and despite that lack of length 90th percentile and adjusted ball striking the past year i think he's going to fit my process really well um so i'm fine with burger if 10 ones a little too steep uh adam scott as the as the place i book i like burger too was going to talk about him as a top 10 bet on covering the spread today he was plus 460 he was plus 310 when we talked he's now plus 280 so people are into burger at least in the betting public people betting that are probably pretty smart i would i would take heed to that i don't think burger will be like prohibitively popular or anything i think that's just worth noting that people who have a financial incentive to not be stupid are betting day no burger to finish top 10 i think that's noteworthy for sure it's not like burger too uh my first mid salary guy shane lauri he is golfing really well right now his master's history good enough for me to believe in him lauri has gained at least 2.02 true strokes per round each of his past four events according to data golf that has pushed him to 12th in true strokes gained over the past six months lauri is fifth in approach to past 50 rounds he is also 22nd around the green which is good enough uh lauri 25th and 21st the past two trips here he's $9,900 that feels too low for how good he is so i want to be in this range a lot i think that burger will be there for me but shane lauri will be too what are your thoughts on shane lauri at $9,900 like him too um this is the really kind of the tier where we get into like a lot of good names a lot of lower like reasonable salaries where if you just build a lineup with like adam scott shane lauri daniel burger uh maybe maybe fits um get up to hovlin like while you're not gonna have the most win equity from a single golfer you're gonna feel like any of those golfers could win and you're gonna be like yeah that makes sense um yeah so i almost wrote up lauri myself didn't quite get there but nothing bad to say about shane lauri okay who else do you like here in the mid-range i have Sergio Garcia at 91 um for the sole fact that he still got distance off the tee despite his age 81st percentile over the past 50 rounds according to fantasy national 97th percentile and adjusted off the tee play over the past year based on my data irons aren't really there for him which is kind of strange but still managing to hit greens and regulation baseline level putting the the form fell off after the win three straight missed cuts at augusta but if you if ball striking is predictive of success here Sergio is in that conversation i think he is too and i'm okay with him i prefer Corey Connors 93 we talked to him a bit but i think that he's still worth discussing here i think that you probably used Garcia because you knew we'd talk about Connors yeah i know we can overlap but i think we nailed Connors is like the super chalk so too bad so i'm gonna talk about him not a bomber but um hasn't bothered him in the past year again two top tens in the past augusta he's not like short he's 58th in distance and he's so accurate that he ranks fourth and stroves gained off the tee not fairways gained stroves gained off the tee because he's so accurate um and he's not prohibitively short he's not long he's not prohibitively short Connors short game has been improving we know the ball striking will be good 93 to dollars seems too low for someone with his blend of form and course history so i talked about how in a cash game i just want to use dudes who are under salary i think that Connors is one of the first guys i turned through there so to me can smith Corey Connors two cash gamey lockish type guys for me let's go to the value tier who do you have there i have Russell Henley i think Henley and Connors probably the best plays below 95 pretty pretty easily um i liked Russell Henley i didn't know what a salary was going to be i was going to like it so long it was it was below 10 000 and it's 9 000 again his win odds have shortened from 65 to 48 to 1 86 percentile and adjusted tee to green play the past year 97th percentile adjusted irons hasn't played augusta since 2018 but has four top 31s two top 15s and five tries just a great process play anything can happen but i think that if we're if you're trying to find under salary golfers uh Russell Henley is one of them i am um slowly building my head to head against you um one by one henley will be in there because again i just want guys who i think under salaried and henley fits that if you go cam smith kory connors Russell Henley you got 10 1 6 7 left pretty sweet um i have henley as my top low salaried guy i initially had Taylor gooch and i'm a little bit worried because like he is a debutant the reason that i was initially okay with them looking that is he's so freaking good in a lot of important areas he's not going to gain strokes off the tee that's a concern but he's more likely to gain distance than he is to gain fairways so like maybe he benefits from augusta being not for penal on guys who um aren't going to make the fairways he has more distance than he has accuracy really good approach play he's pretty good um around the green as well so although Taylor gooch is a debutant and i can knock him down quite a bit for that although he's not going to gain strokes off the tee and i should knock him down for that i still have some like draw towards him i think this is more so for tournaments than for cash games for cash games just go henley like just don't worry about it and i'm not going to go i probably won't go below henley for a cash game but for tournaments i still have interest in Taylor gooch i don't think it's the best process play but it's like uh i don't know i think i'm going to go there at times it's like one of those like gut based things gut based things don't typically go well but here we are anyway do you have any thoughts on Taylor gooch uh basically everything you just said for the past like three minutes on on Taylor gooch where there's a lot to like there's a lot to be a little bit worried about um with the off the tee play and the fact that he hasn't played here and that's enough for me to prioritize uh henley obviously gary woodland billy horschul um and it's a guy i'm about to talk about seawoo kim talk about seawoo kim then because uh don't need to sell me too much on him yeah uh broke the putter here last year when he was in contention on the second round and finished 12th um but you know for a fourth straight made cut at augusta third top 25 like plays well here recent stats are there 74th percentile adjusted stroking it off the tee and this is a key stat that i it's kind of hard to talk about in you know with a lot of like seriousness because it makes up such a small portion of stats and your stroke scan but 71st percentile around the green play really kind of balanced across the board teeter green and i like that at this core sense probably why he finishes well here yeah i think that seawoo kim is very much in play the guy like a little bit more than him down here though is gary woodland woodland is 86 he's got some giddy up off the tee he ranks ninth and distance the past 50 rounds also 30 second and approach and 24th and bentgrass putting woodland finished fifth at the honda classic and the arnold palmer he was aided by putting there so that's worth noting but he was 24th first of the valve spar because of a really good iron play woodland's history at augusta is underwhelming no finishes better than 24th but his form now is better than it has been since 2019 and he finished 30 second that year so he is fine but i think that woodland does enough made 86 i think the history of augusta is enough where i don't need to like obsess over him and i'd rather go keep henley as being my floor for a cash game but for tournaments i'm okay with some woodland for sure what about you what are your thoughts on gary woodland love gary almost put him above seawoo kim but just stuck with with seawoo kim because you already had gary woodland on the note sheet um it's basically coin flip there between between them but again you talked about the distance major winner and he kind of fell off basically after winning the us open but there's a class at gary woodland sort of back which is you know long off the tee good irons good putting and i think that's very uh it's a very good case to make for augusta okay let's finish up here with our win picks for the masters based on the current odds over at vandal sportsbook i will let you go first because i've not decided and have no strong takes as of yet outside of one person that's gonna be brooks right uh-huh 20 to 1 at vandal sportsbook so that was my that was that's my top pick as well okay so we both have brooks we can do three if we want this week we can give out three but only two will count for the podcast how about that um okay then i mean i've picked multiple places okay that people could see but for this show i would go brooks at 20 and zander at 24 then i'll go cantley at 23 as my second one we'll basically have the same same odds here cantley i mean i just think he's golfing well and if i'm gonna you know prioritize good golfers i think that he grades out well there outside of that honestly not a ton um i think those are the ones that stand out most to me are those two guys uh brooks and cantley but i think that's kind of where i'm at any other uh guys you want to mention just in fun but we'll count those two as for the podcast yeah again i've been really struggling with jt because i anticipated john rom to be nine and a half or like ten now that he's about the same as jt i think i'd probably take your pick on between rom and jt if you're really betting a favorite but those two stand out to me as the favorites even though camps like i love cam smith but if given rough of the same odds with those three i'm gonna go camp smith last um daniel burger 55 rustle henley 48 adam scott 60 would be like the longer shots i would be cool with and i'm really not going to go past that because it's the masters and probably going to see someone 60 to one or shorter yeah don the green jacket so i have to do three outright bets tomorrow for our betting social segments and i might not recommend a guy with odds that are different than 20 to one or 23 to one because i could justify kepka rory vick and cantley i think all four of those guys are actually really intriguing and i could end zander two at 24 to one so like i could justify any of those i might just pick three guys from the hat out of that range honestly i think that's a good range to live in for this week yeah i mean if you could build your dfs lineup out of those guys you'd feel great you could build a betting card out of that and and feel great as well um so so you you blew it earlier by saying what you would say when i ask you final thoughts before we send people off that's the entire reason people stick around is to hear you say your final thoughts to the masters you gave it away so no one's listening anymore but what are your final thoughts before the masters feel free to pivot it's the best but one of the four best weeks of the year to pivot i was i had to think for a long second why it was four but i figured it out be proud of me be proud of me all it's taken is six years of doing this this golf version of the podcast or whatever it's been and i finally figured out that there are four majors in a year coming along nicely that is all that we have here for this week on the heat check fantasy podcast but as mentioned awesome awesome week for dfs because of course we have the mhl continuing nba dig a little slate coming up tomorrow for that as well we have nascar ufc around the corner and the solo shot opening day podcast will go up on wednesday and then the regular schedule begins on friday so make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts and while you're there leave us a rating and review as well brandon if people have questions for you on twitter where can they find you there i'm at goodwill 13 gd ula 13 and i'm at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s you can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today good luck to you with your dfs lineups the masters we'll talk to you once again next week this is done the heat check fantasy podcast powered by number fire