 After a one-year hiatus, the Open Championship is back once again this year heading out to Royal St. George's Golf Club for the 2021 Open Championship. It's going to be a fun one. We're going to break things down from a DFS perspective and let you know who you should target for your DFS contest on FanDuel. Welcome on in to 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 as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the managing editor for Numberfire.com. Brandon, the Open Championship is coming up teeing off on Thursday. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. I always like the Open Championship, not the British Open although I'll sprinkle that in a little bit here and there, but it's like specifically not the British Open, but it's just a different style of golf than what we typically get to see. And frankly, especially coming off like the John Deere, I'm just like, give me something a little different at this point. So this is going to be a really tough test. We'll break down the course, but Royal St. George's is tough even by Open Championship standards. So I'm always a fan of that. By something different, I hope you don't mean a non-Lucas Glover winner because we are pro Lucas Glover wins on the heat check. So something different, a different route to Lucas Glover winning is what we want, right? I mean, for the bit, sure, but I think it's Andrew Week. I think it's Andrew Week. I think it's Andrew Week. I was going to say we've had this conversation once or twice. Too many times. Too many times. You put once or twice. Anyone point to me one reason not to like Xander Shafley and a major, aside from the fact that he hasn't won. I don't really know what there would be to say. I think that I've probably picked Xander more often than you for our win picks in the podcast. So I can't actually trash talk it. I try to like not do it as often as I actually want to. And usually he makes a lot of sense. So I just do it. I'm like, whatever, I'll take this if Brandon's not going to. Yeah, it's just because he makes sense to pick. It does. And we're going to let you know what other picks make sense throughout the podcast for today. It is at Royal St. George's golf club, 7,211 yards and a par 70. This is the 15th time that Royal St. George's has hosted the open. The first or the most recent time was back in 2011. That was not the first time. But you're going to go back to like 1890. Yeah, it's been a hot second since the first one. But because it was back in 2011, we don't have like course course history. But we do know how the course will play given that long sample. We do know who has done well in previous opens. We'll talk about that in a bit. But worth noting here that the cut rule is a bit different for this week. The top 70 plus ties will make the cut after the first two rounds. There isn't a secondary cut. So a little bit extra wiggle room there, but a lot of golfers in the field for this week. So it's still difficult to identify golfers. We'll make it luckily in a major. There tend to be, you know, some guys who are not true contenders to make the cut. That helps us a little bit at least. So Brandon, when you're looking at both this course and looking at the open, etc, etc, what stands out to use being things we need to emphasize when trying to identify who we want to utilize for this week? Yeah. I mean, I try to dig as deep as I could just because we have to. We also didn't get an open championship last year. The courses will, I mean, it's obviously an event that rotates courses. And yes, they will play differently, but it's not completely drastically different all the time. So we can kind of take an event form, look at things. But if you look at the past five event winners of the open championship, the scores have been 15 under, 8 under, 12 under, 20 under and 15 under. But the past five at Royal St. George's have been five under, one under, 13 under, plus two and four under. So based on that, you think plays tougher and that there's more stats to back that up. The average winning score across all open championships since 1980 has been nine under par, but at Royal St. George's, it's been 4.2 under par, which makes it the second toughest venue that's hosted multiple times. I think actually just in general, even if it had one, if that even exists. But Karnoosti has hosted three times. The average winning score there is three under. So Karnoosti gets a lot of renown for being very tough, but Royal St. George's has been extremely difficult as well. And back in 2011, when we saw the open championship at this course, we saw that scrambling, unsurprisingly, basically all the non-shot link stats. So you think greens and regulation, driving distance, those like basic stats that we all know, but that's all we have for opens. Scrambling was really important. It correlated strongest with stroke differential in that 2011 open championship followed closely by greens and regulation. As far as the driving stats go, we're basically looking at driving it well, whatever that means for you specifically. Driving distance correlated by far stronger with stroke differential in that event than just fairways hit, like driving accuracy percentage. However, good drive rate doubled distance alone. Now greens and regulation are going to be notoriously difficult to pick up this week, but that doesn't mean that we downplay irons. I don't think I've just kind of seen people assume, well, it's going to be wedges putter if you need to scramble. And that's true and you need your guys to scramble, but hitting greens and regulation is not a bad thing. So we don't want to downplay iron play too much. So as always with every single major, I want positive marks in all four categories. So I want it off the tee this week. Looking at either good drive rate or stroke scan off the tee, there's probably a lot of overlap there. Stroke scan approach to the number one, but we want those irons scrambling or stroke scan around the green. I'm going to prefer stroke scan around the green because it doesn't factor in putting conversion, but I also want stroke scan putting on bent grass splits if you have that, but then also bogey avoidance. So I want it all and I want bogey avoidance because you're not going to make a whole lot of birdies and you're going to get a significantly higher portion of your fandal points this week from just finishing well. So it's not about birdies, it's about finishing well, which you're probably going to do by avoiding bogeys. I wound up going with around the green as well over scrambling for the same reasons you mentioned, but also if you look back at, I tested the past two open, so not at Royal St. George's, but like pretty similar in the way that they play in terms of being difficult. Then scrambling there just didn't test super well relative to around the green. It popped more than it usually does, like obviously, but it was still very much around the green raining supreme there. And I think we can understand pretty logically why that'd be the case. So I wound up going around the green as well. As far as the off the tee play, I did go with stroke scan off the tee as opposed to good drives gained. A lot of that was due to if you go to data golf and you look at which stats their course drive the majority of scoring. And it was both distance and accuracy were like equal to normal. So that's why I wanted to go with stroke scan off the tee as opposed to good drives gain. Because I do want a little bit of that juice from distance. And we have seen distance help in previous opens. So that was kind of the tiebreaker for me. As recent opens, distance has given you some juice for sure. And the fact that accuracy and distance both played equal relative to normal. That's what pushed me towards going with stroke scan off the tee as opposed to good drives gained. Yeah, I mean, you just want your golfers to have some semblance of a driver. You don't, you know, you can just kind of hit it out there and still be fine. Like that is okay. So long as you scramble well enough, it's not going to make it necessarily easier. And with the greens or regulation being super difficult, I mean, anytime you see like a really good stat on Twitter, that's probably from Justin Ray. But I think like something to the effect of Royal St. George's has like the lowest greens and regulation percentage among like the recent courses that hosted the open. So it's going to be really hard to hit greens and regulation. So you have to scramble. You have to get up and down and, you know, make save par. But again, the game plan should not be hit it, you know, hit your driver and then hit it somewhere near the green. It should still be who can actually gain some greens and regulation on the field. That's still going to be important. So, you know, we say it every time, every time we have a major, just no holes in your game, which sounds boring, but it's the truth. Yeah. And I think that it's just more important to try to avoid or reduce the number of routes to implosion. That's kind of the way that I want to look at it is, I want there to be fewer ways this guy can totally skewer me. And that is by found finding well-rounded golfers. And I think there's some guys who fit that pretty well for this week at not outrageous salaries. We'll talk about those and talk about golfers who have done well recently at the open as well. 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See full terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER in Colorado, 1-800-522-4700 in Iowa, 1-800-Bets-Off. In Indiana, 1-800-9 with it. For confidential help in Michigan, 1-800-270-7117 in Tennessee, call the red line 1-800-889-9789, or in West Virginia, visit 1-800-GAMBLER.net. Let's take a look here at golfers who have done well in past opens. And the reason we want to look at this is because, like you said, there is an overlap between these courses, despite the fact they are not the same course. And also it helps that the field will always be tough. So we do want to at least look at golfers who have done well in the past and open. So Brandon, when you're looking at that, which golfers stand out as being golfers who have tested well in these tough conditions in the past? Yeah. I mean, I'm just going to list out some names. Usually we identify a few golfers and dig into them a little bit more. But I think maybe for the purposes of how kind of general this is, I'm just going to mention that the guys who are top 10 in stroke skiing at the open with at least nine rounds over the past five iterations of the open. So not looking at golfers with one or two starts at the open, but Jordan Spieth, Henrik Stensen, Rory McElroy, gain an average of 2.5 strokes per round in the open in this sample, which is pretty stellar. Tony Fienow, 2.1. Don't forget about that name this week, despite the two missed cuts entering. Brooks Kepka, unsurprisingly, 1.9. And then five golfers at 1.7 strokes gained per round. Some bigger names that will kind of get some attention. Jason Day, Justin Rose, Phil Mickelson, so three older golfers who have historically been just good major players overall. Sandra Schauffle, younger player who is fantastic at majors. And Alex Noren as well. And Noren's salary is only $8,600 on Fandle. I like him a lot as a value play. But that's the top 10 in strokes gained at the past five opens. Golfers with a made cut in each of the past five opens. This list is Jordan Spieth, Webb Simpson. Lee Westwood, Ricky Fowler, Justin Rose, Danny Willett, Matt Kutcher, Henrik Stenson. And golfers who made a cut, maybe didn't play all five, but made every cut that they started in. Alex Noren, Brooks Kepka, Tony Fienow, and Xander. And I like all of them this week. I want to ask you more of like a process-based thing. And you're talking about the guys who have done well in opens. How penalizing is it for you if a golfer does not have good history? And that's not like, like Abraham answer was very young, the last time he's had an open, stuff like that. Like that, who cares? But like for someone like DJ who does not have good course history, there are good history in opens. And obviously there are other reasons not to like DJ, but like on the broad scale, how much do you ding someone if they haven't done well historically in an event like this? A tiebreaker situation for me. Generally when I look at things like event history, so someone, it's like an inside joke at this point, but I like Xander a lot, but you can make the case for tons of other golfers near Xander's salary. Jordan Spieth as well, these golfers kind of have the right current form and have done well at opens as compared to someone like Justin Thomas, a little more middling in terms of open history. Bryson DeChambeau hasn't had a lot of success necessarily at opens. So whenever we look at most majors, we talk an extra amount of time on the podcast because you have to like nitpick between these guys who have almost the same exact cases to be made. So it's really more of a tiebreaker. That being said, golfers like Colin Morkawa, Victor Hovland, Scottie Schaeffler don't actually have open starts yet. I'm not necessarily off of them just because they haven't played. So I don't want to sort by the best golfers at the open and just play those golfers. So what you're saying is it's not as like from the debut perspective, it's not like a thing like the masters. Like it's not where a situation where if they haven't been there, you are going to be very hesitant with them, whereas we are at Augusta. Not for me as much. Maybe that's dumb because it is a very specific type of golf, but data golf, of course, has a tool that shows this, how important course history is at certain events. And the open's up there, but it's not necessarily an outlier like Augusta or like Bay Hill or some of these other courses. So I mean, if guys have experience on the European tour, if they have even one start, that's fine. But someone like Morkawa, he's not going to be the best course fit because he's better with the irons and the wedges. But like if Morkawa just hits more greens than everyone else, that's the one advantage. So I'm not crossing anyone off just based on their event history at the open. Good to know because I'll be talking about Paul Casey later on in the show for today. And Paul Casey, a guy who is definitely in good form and something we'll talk about in a second. So let's transition now to the current form section here and talk about golfers who have notable form, whether it be good or bad. And Brandon, I'm not sure which side of this John Rom winds up on. Is it just noteworthy form or is it good current form? We're going to have to educate me. But John Rom, the favorite in this field for some reason, I am unclear as to why. So educate me as why John Rom would possibly be dubbed a favor for this event. I think it's officially time that we keep an eye on John Rom. Okay, good. Okay. Monitors, we've alerted the media that John Rom might be good at golf. It just might be time. It might be his time for Rom to really step it up. But I know nobody needs us to tell them to play John Rom on Fandall. But I think it's really important that we go over Rom specifically because of just how good he's been lately. And not just how good he's been lately, but how good we know he is long term. He has historically been since I've been tracking this stuff for like two plus years, just at the top, if not the top of, you know, an adjusted stroke gained database. So Rom over the past 20 rounds across all tours has a true stroke gained average, which is data golf suggested strokes metric of 3.1 per round. No other golfer in this field is better than 2.2, which is Victor Hovland, who I also like this week. But that's almost a full stroke per round better than the next hottest golfer in a really recent sample. That's like really hard to kind of wrap your head around. I track a very similar metric with some recency adjustments as well. And it's, it's rare to see a golfer get up past, you know, 2.2 or so for a larger sample, even in smaller samples like this. It, you know, it happens, but like this is as hot as we really have seen. And if you look at the actual finishes, like we could be looking at three straight wins. He was seventh at the Scottish open last week, when he gained 3.13 strokes, Tee de Green with nobody else above 2.5 and lost 0.5 putting. So he's basically gone eighth at the PGA championship, would have been a win at the Memorial if he didn't have to withdraw because of a positive COVID test, won the U.S. Open, had he been like even neutral with the putter, could have had another win. So like that could be three straight wins that we have for Rom. And the thing with Fandall, like I cannot bet anyone in a full field at, what is he, plus 750 now, but at a salary of 12,300, that's not shifting based on how hot he is necessarily. He's, that's where, that's where he's set. But I think everything starts with John Rom this week and how we feel about him. So what are your initial thoughts on Rom and how, you know, how much of your lineup exposure will be tied to John Rom? I mean, you can get to him pretty easily because there are a lot of golfers in the mid-8000 range who are really good. And I think that's interesting. So I feel like there's really no need to get off him from a salary perspective. You're talking about like, I would, again, I bring this up a lot, like I talk about this for NASCAR, like find the best way to get a financial exposure to someone. If you're playing DFS or betting, just like find the best route. If you don't want to pay plus 750 for Rom, just use them in DFS. And I think you can do that very easily this week. The one counter, the one downside with Rom is that it is a high salary. And I really like a balanced approach for this week because we have some awesome, awesome golfers in the 10,000 range and the high 9,000 range. And I want to be in that range pretty often. If you do Rom, you can get back up there, but you're kind of, you know, it's getting a little hairier for sure. So I think that for Rom, we hear a lot of times where people don't want to be, even wait with the field on a golfer. I'm actually pretty comfortable being even with Rom this week, like 40%, I think. And I know that, like, that's not going to give me an edge there, but I will have an edge elsewhere. I can guarantee you that, like, I will be, I will be overweight and other people, just not him specifically. Because I think that, like, he deserves to be where he's at. He deserves to be as popular as he'll be. But I also do have enough rosters with different construction where I'm deviating from there to benefit in case Rom doesn't win. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. I think I want to be even with the field on Rom and deviate elsewhere. What about for you? Yeah, I mean, in the event Rom doesn't win, which sounds like a lock at this point, but my win simulations haven't been 8%, so 92% of the time he does not win this week. That seems very fair for where he is. That's 8% is really high in the field this tough and this big. It is. And next up is 5.5%, so it's a pretty big jump over second place. I think you probably know who that is, but it's Xander, just because the long-term form is kind of unmatched aside from Rom. But I think this might be a good time to talk actual draft percentages from recent majors quickly. I pulled the past three for this year and looked at fandal draft percentages. Only two golfers got above 30%. That was Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, but that was at the Masters, which is a smaller field. So it's kind of an outlier there. And then we saw Daniel Berger at 29.7% at the PGA championship. So really no golfer in either the PGA or the US Open was above 30%. Now Rom was 29.5% at the US Open and did come through and he's super hot right now. So you said 40%, that could be about right, but around 35% is what we're looking at. So sometimes we get really weak fields and we saw Bryson over 50% just two weeks ago. We're not going to get that high with John Rom, but there are plenty of ways to pivot, but I think you're right where I will naturally just fall somewhere over or underweight on Rom. I will lean underweight just because I know how unlikely it is for him actually to win, even though it feels kind of like a lock. But even in a tournament, I don't think we fade John Rom outright. Yeah, I think that that's, that'd be misguided for sure. But I think that 40% is fair. If it's over under, I don't really care. I think that's probably where I just want to wind up. 60% of my rosters to benefit in case something does go right there. And I think that's enough for me. So I feel good about that. If I have 60% of my rosters that are skewing more heavily towards balance, I'll feel good about that heading into Thursday morning. So let's move now to Louis Westhason. And if it's not Rom we're talking about for current form, I think that Westhason probably has to be number two on that list, because it's not often you see a guy going for a third consecutive runner-up and a major. And Louis either trying to continue that or buck that, I guess, depending on how optimistic he wants to be. But either way, he's worth discussing here. Louis was runner-up at the PGA championship in the US Open. He gained a combined 10.8 strokes on approach in those two events. He actually lost one stroke off the tee, but he made up for it with his irons and his short game, which is what we want once again for this week too. There have been other big showings in this span as well. Louis was eighth at the Valspar, sixth at the WGC Workday. And we've seen Westhason perform well in the Open championship. He was runner-up in 2015. He's been top 30 each of the past two playings. So there's definitely a high cost in Louis Westhason at 11-1, but I think it's a fair salary. I don't think it's outrageous that he's there, but Brandon, he's not the value that he was heading into the past two majors. So what's your view on Westhason this time around for the Open? Totally fine. I don't think I'm going to get there personally, just because we are creeping into territory where we're... I mean, he's at a higher salary than someone like Colin Warcow or Victor Hovland who... Like, it makes sense. So it's really unfair to say it that way, but I mean, you want to talk about someone who... We're not on team like Finau and Xander can't win, but with Louis, I mean, it feels like maybe he can actually win a major, but like, I'm not going to talk to anyone out of Louis based on all the stats. Everything lines up to make him a fine play. I think there's just something in my brain that's like... That's a high salary for Louis Westhason. Yeah. And the other thing too is there are golfers right around that. You mentioned Morkawa, but like, it's not just him. Hovland is 10-9. I love Patrick Cantley. Shocker, he's 10-7. I am varying on that as well. So the fact that we're not in a Westhason is not because we're skeptical of what he's done. It's because he's finally appropriately salaried and that allows us to deviate elsewhere. I think that's what it comes down to for me with Westhason this week is I've got other options. I'll use them. And I mean, it'd be fun to watch and do it again, just not in my lives for this week. Let's move now to my guy, Paul Casey, who you viciously stole. However, I will talk about him later. So you talk about Paul Casey right now and I'll talk about him later on. What are you seeing with Casey's form right now? So I was actually looking for a golfer in like this mid-range salary between like 9,000 and like 10-5 who had really good recent form. And I mean, they're like, I'm not saying that all these golfers are in bad form, but to talk about like in an outlier standpoint, there weren't a whole lot necessarily, aside from maybe Scotty Scheffler who I'm going to talk about later. So I didn't want to talk about him twice. And I actually looked, I didn't realize you had Paul Casey. I tried to avoid this snafu, but I think Paul Casey is in a really great spot at a salary of 10,300, which is you want to kind of maybe compare that to Louis. This is an 800 savings in terms of salary, which goes a long way. And the recent form, amazing. 21st at the Valspar, which is Paul Casey's event. Fourth at the PGA Championship. Sixth at the Porsche European Open. Seventh at the US Open. And 36th at the Travelers, while virtually not gaining strokes, putting in any of them, which is not the most surprising thing for Paul Casey, but the irons, the driver, even the wedges are all super hot right now. And putting doesn't necessarily, putting alone is not going to get you a win at an Open Championship. It's going to be part of it. You're going to need to save par, which is the one drawback with Casey. But Casey ranks second in Data Golf's true stroke scan to T-degree metric over the past 20 rounds. He is fourth in approaching that sample, 10th off the T, 25th around the green. It's really hard to knock Paul Casey at that balance salary. You know, and it should work, that game should work at the Open, although that has not historically been the case for Casey. He's been 74th, cut 11th, 51st and 57th at the past five Opens, but does have four top 25s, 12 made cuts in 17 tries at the Open. So current form is great. Sounds like unsurprisingly, you're in on Paul Casey, but maybe talk to me about this, like 96 to 10, 5-ish range and see where Casey lands for the both of us. Well, I wanted to ask you about the Open stuff, because if you look back at his past Open, I don't want to say failings, but his past Open underwhelming performances, like the last two specifically, he's been in pretty much equally good form going into those and still didn't measure up well. Does that concern you that his form now is, well, it's tremendous. It's kind of equivalent to what it was entering those, and he still didn't grade out all that well. No, not really. Okay, cool. So that's fine then. That was, that's the question I had, but like, yeah. Yeah, I mean, like it sounds dismissive, but we can very easily overreact to, and we don't know necessarily without digging back, and we don't have shot link data. So I mean, we can look at all the traditional stats we want, but it's not going to tell us a very good story. People don't, some people don't like shot link, but greens and regulation are not necessarily indicative of how close you were to the pin, things like that. So I don't want to get too bogged down in just the round by round scoring. So for me, I'm not going to look at that and say, no, I'm not in on Paul Casey, but compare him to someone like Tony Finau, where Casey's in great recent form. The recent open form has been bad. You kind of flip those two for Finau, which do you prefer? I mean, it's a pretty close conversation. I mean, honestly, for me, it's going to be Finau just because the long-term form is better. But I know you're taking my approach this week with a balanced lineup build. You can get Tony Finau, Paul Casey. For Canola's Doss. Amen. So I think that I like Finau in this range. If I go back to your original question of this range overall, I would say Schaeffler is awesome, definitely on board there. I would say Matty Fitz is great. I like Finau and I like Casey. And the one guy I am struggling on with is Berger, because the around the green play is not great. And also he is traveling because he was not, he was playing the John Deere classic. So you had travel with like questionable around the green play. I'm probably not going to wind up on Berger, even though I like everything else about him. So it's a good range and I would say if I'm ranking them, it's probably Casey, Finau, Schaeffler, Fitz. Probably for me. So you do have Casey first? Yeah. Okay. I would probably put Finau over Casey, but I would probably have Schaeffler over Casey as well. That might be dumb, but I like what Scotty Schaeffler is doing. What about Schaeffler versus Finau? I think like, so I have a lot of Tony Finau because he's just by his name and the fact that virtually everyone loves the guy, he's going to still be popular, but two straight missed cuts and you have all these other options. Two missed cuts is just not indicative of like what to expect from a golfer when we have years of data that says otherwise. So Finau's my number one in this like 9-6 to 10-5 range. I feel pretty good with that, but I think Schaeffler would be my number two because the like his ball striking is kind of leveled out, which is still leveling out at a very plus number, but the short games trending up, which is what you really want to see for a young golfer. Is a Schaeffler-Casey head-to-head too far for you? I'll take that. Okay. So you have Scotty Schaeffler fandal points. I have Paul Casey fandal points. Yeah, I'm going to curse him now because I never win the head-to-heads. What was last week's? Um, I don't remember and I don't think I logged Danny McCarthy and Andrew Putnam. Don't want to know. Don't want to know. So while you are logging the Casey versus Schaeffler head-to-head, I'll talk to you about Brandon Grace. He is $8,800 and has back-to-back top 10 finishes. That's worth discussing. One of those top 10s for Grace was at a major. He finished seventh at the US Open last month, gained 13 strokes, T to green, lost 2.9 putting to miss that on the good finish there. But at the Memorial weeks before, he actually finished fourth thanks to a combo of good putting and good T to green play. Grace has just one missed cut since February that came at the players. He was 38th the PGA championship thanks to good short game play there. The tough part is that it's hard to be super optimistic about the short game continuing to be good here because Ben Grass is easily his worst surface. He ranks 114th in the field in that metric or the past 100 rounds. So I think there is a chance that Grace trends towards being pretty popular as a result of the short win odds that he has for his low salary. And I'd be okay missing out on him if that does wind up happening. With that said though, I don't think that Grace is an outlandish recommendation and I'm interested for sure. So I want to hear you talk about Grace and your thoughts on him this week. Yeah, I mean, I looked at him because of the odds, but frankly, I don't see enough in the data. I mean, he's gained 0.6 on average in the past five. Opens, he's historically a pretty strong major player. So that's probably factored in a good bit. I mean, it's fine, especially for a value range. And I think it's a lot easier this week to you know, narrow down the studs and pick your maybe five that you like if you're building multiple lineups and then rotate in the values and hope that you hit the right combinations. But for me, I don't think Grace is necessarily going to be there because the win odds are so short relative to the salary. Although I will talk about Robert McIntyre later. So that's not the only reason. Right. And it's interesting. And I think that it kind of goes back to what you talked about where we might not see someone get super chalky this week because there's so many golfers and that might help. But Grace, I agree where if I were more convinced of it and there were more overwhelmingly great data, I'd probably be there. But for right now, I'm not quite seeing that. So let's talk about Lucas Herbert instead. $8,000 is his salary for this week. And you talked about the Scottish Open with regards to ROM, but it's also pertinent here with Herbert. What do you see there after a top five finish for Lucas Herbert heading into this week? Yeah. I mean, honestly, Herbert wasn't on the radar until I looked at the super recent form and saw not just the fourth place like the T4 from the Scottish Open. But I mean, that was a week after he won the Irish Open. Those came from really good putting results, but there was more to it. And again, this is something that I haven't brought up, but it's important to keep in mind. European Tour results are about as like you can compare those to like corn fairy tour results. Generally, it's about the same field strength, a little bit stronger for European Tour results. But like a win is not a PGA Tour win on like it's not the same. It's not really even close. But he has had recent results on the PGA Tour and he finished 18th at Memorial, 19th at the Travellers as well. And those two top fives in the European Tour did come from great putting, but that's a big part of his game. And that's fine to see. There's a difference between putting well to finish well and doing nothing else well and you're just putting well. That's not the case for Herbert. His past four, so the two good European Tour finishes, the two top 20s on the PGA Tour. Those all came with good iron play, positive stroking approach numbers, positive stroking off the team numbers. And I think like, yeah, that form is a little more recent. He was struggling a bit to start 2021, but overall, it's a pretty fair salary for someone who's kind of doing a lot of things right. So again, I was not really in on Lucas Herbert until I looked at the current form for this section. So I'm kind of in. Did he pop for you at all? Well, it's also not like it's just that event too. Like we've seen him in majors before and he's been fine. Like his first major was in 2018, the U.S. Open, Missica, but then he was at the Open in 2018, finished 51st, made the cut at the PGA that year. He missed the cut at the PGA in 2020, but made it at the U.S. Open last year. He made it at the PGA this year, didn't perform all that well, but like, you know, he's good with the short game. And he's also young. We talk about that a lot with guys who've had recent gains is, okay, are they young enough? We can believe this is an actual change in Herbert's 25. So I think it's like, it's pretty easy to talk yourself into it being legit. He's $8,000. If you want to offset wrong salary and allow yourself to bask in that mid-range, he offsets wrong salary almost entirely by himself. So I'm, I think that like, I'm good with it and I'm going to get there. And I'm having a hard time really pushing back. Like I don't want to go overconfident. I don't want to go like heavy exposure. Yeah. But like in terms of putting him on, you know, 20% of my rosters, yeah, I'm fine with that for sure. Yeah. I think he's going to be just kind of a borderline core play at the salary. We have plenty of other options in the 8,000 range. I think the 8, like the 8,000 range almost top the bottom has a little more value-based appeal than the 9,000 range, which is why I'm struggling a little bit to get super on board with just a balanced lineup because I don't care for the low 9,000s that much. But Herbert, like you said, you know, maybe he'll be popular by the time we get to Thursday, but he's going to go a long way toward either rostering ROM or getting a second possibly even third stud in your lineup. So I think that that alone makes him super appealing. Yep. I think that he is really interesting to me. I think that one caveat I would give to the balance approach is I would like to be in the high 9,000 range and the low 10,000 range opposed to and using value plays to get there. So I guess like balance may not be the right word for it, but top heavy maybe, but it's heavy. Yeah, it sounds more like tier two as opposed to tier two. I want a pepper tier two and tier three. That's the right way to say it. Yes. So I mean, that has a lot of appeal because you're going to miss out on whoever you draw the line, like ROM, Rory, I don't have a whole lot of interest in DJ, which is always scary, but Brooks is someone I'll probably talk myself into my Thursday because how can you go wrong playing Brooks? Spieth, maybe Xander. It's like, if you just say maybe like, well, I guess it's 11-6. That's not bad for a balanced build. So if you like lop off the top four, which is ROM, Rory, DJ, Brooks at 11-8 and above and say, Spieth, Xander, that's where you start at 11-6, 11-5 and get three golfers between effectively 97 and there, like that's a pretty strong way to get some win equity in your lineups. Yeah. Sometimes when we talk about having a balanced approach, it's in order to avoid the value plays. For me, it's in order to get more exposure to that mid-range. That's my intent for this week with going with a balanced approach. One guy who could be an exception to, I would say, a mutual distaste to the low 9000 range is Harry English and who better to target in British Open Week than... Harry British. Harry British. Harry's English. We're really rough stretch at the beginning of the winter, but it does look like things are trending back up now. The obvious one was the win at the Travelers, but English was also third at the US Open. He gained 4.6 in approach and 4.4 around the green. English has now gained an approach in forced rate events. He has gained around the green in six straights and he's gained on the greens in five of the past six. The good putting probably going to stick because English ranks third in bank graphs, putting the past one around the lack of distance might matter a bit less on a not super lengthy course. If we look at the past year of play to dilute the issues he had over the winter, English ranks 17th in Data Golf's truest strokes gain query. That seems pretty enticing at 9-2. So I agree with you that that range overall is not very good. I would deem English as being one of the exceptions though. I think that Brian Harmon is in that discussion for me as well. Where do you sit and hear us English for this week? So he is tied for 34th in salary if I have everyone in the field, at least as of now. But when I combine my statistical model, which is giving weights to the stats I think are most important this week, and his long-term adjusted form, I haven't ranked 16th in the field. So I think he's one of the best value plays of the week. And you'd really have to kind of convince me otherwise, because he's just been very good for a long time. And again, had a cold streak, but that's not... If that's not the end of his career, he's going to bounce back to like his baseline. And that's kind of what he's done now. I find no reason to be super upset with him here. I think that I mentioned Harmon as being another guy. I would be willing to consider in this low 9,000 range, but outside of that, it's pretty grim. I will defend Jason Kochrak until he folds with his pocket ace, his pocket queen's pocket king's, but the around the green play is concerned this week. Well, Kochrak's putting has been off the charts lately, if I'm not mistaken. He's the best putter on the planet, obviously. Jason Kochrak has never had issues putting. Over the past 50 rounds, he's eighth in strokes game putting, once adjusted for field strength. I feel like this was an episode of the Rugrats when they were playing mini golf, and who's the dad, Stu, maybe? He had this putter that did this laser lineup thing, had a scope on or something. I feel like maybe Jason Kochrak found a way to implement that, because he does have cards that he's allowed to have in a game of poker. So maybe we got to check out his putter for some technology. We're going to have to strip Jason Kochrak down and look for spider tack. We're going to do all the cheating investigations and Jason Kochrak just to be safe. So to me, I guess if we're going to add Kochrak in, the list is then English, Harmon, Kochrak, and then really hesitant with everyone else in that range. Can I do a... Did I miss answer? Sorry, answer is 9-3. Yeah, can I do an answer over Harmon head to head then? No, I like answer. Answer is in my player picks. I just forgot it. That's right, because yeah, I couldn't... Yeah. No, he's my player picks. Well, yeah. Just for what it's worth, you're up 21-10. Don't mention bobble hats. I was ahead of you going into Sunday. Didn't end up that way. That's only 15-12, although you're running out of time. Yeah, I am. I think it's an okay range. There's not a lot of guys I want to use, and there's no one there I'm like, I want 40 to 50% exposure to, which means that if I'm going to keep that roster or that exposure limited, I have to inherently avoid that range a good amount of the time. Yeah, so I was saying when I was looking at golfers to talk about with current form, I was looking who's got the best current form here. And I mean, Garakiego jumps out to a degree, but we talk about him a lot. But other than that, nobody really popped too much to me, so it's not the most appealing range. Yeah, I agree. But English is definitely a guy I'm good to go to in this range. Let's transition now to take a look at what the bookmakers are saying, and obviously they are saying, John Rom, locked to win this week. He's plus 750, a fan of a sportsbook. Nobody else shorter than 16-1. Massive, massive fall off there. The two golfers at 16-1 are Brooks Kepka and Roy McElroy. Then you have Xander Shafley, Justin Thomas, and Jordan Spieth at 18-1. Dustin Johnson is 22-1, before there is a second fall off down to the next year. Got Louis Westhasen and Victor Hovland at 33-1. Patrick Reid and Patrick Cantley, the Patties are 33-1. Bryce Ndishambo is 34-1. Then Shane Lowry, potentially still hung over from when he won the Open. Colin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood, Tirol Hatton are on the top group. They are all 35-1. So we talked about Rom earlier. Let's talk about the second group. If it's not Rom, who is it going to be? From a DFS perspective for you this week. If it's not Rom, it's going to be Xander. And if it's not Xander, probably going to be Spieth. I have a lot of FOMO with Spieth right now. But I don't have it quite so much with Rory. I definitely don't have it with DJ. I don't have it with JT at the Open. So it's going to be Xander and then Spieth. And it's very, very possible. And I think we talked about this, the Patties. Every major week, I try to keep this in mind. But if you play Brooks Kepka, odds are, come Thursday afternoon, you're not going to regret it. He's going to be like top 10. You're going to be like, well, he's going to make the cut. And then from there, who knows. But I don't want to forget about Brooks entirely. Yes. I think if I were ranking them out, I actually have Spieth 1, give me a Spieth Xander head to head. Okay. Sure. Why not? It's fine. I got to get you to do some of them. That's fine. I like Xander too, but I'll take it because it's action and I'm bored. So sure, I'll take that. It's a Monday. We're feeling frisky. So why not? We'll do that one. I would put Brooks second though after Spieth and then Xander. Give me a Xander versus Spieth and Xander versus Brooks. I'm not doing Brooks head to head. That's the stupidest format for Brooks Capca. But I think that from a DFS perspective, it's what you said, where he can torch everybody, make you feel very good about your decisions. And if I regret it, the odds that I regret using Brooks Capca are equally high to everyone else in the field. So I think you talked about FOMO with Spieth. The fear of getting burned, F-O-G-B with Brooks, I think is higher in our minds, but that's true for everyone. It's golf. It's highly volatile. So I'll take the downsides and be fine with it. So to me, it's Spieth 1, Brooks 2, Xander 3. I mean, I wouldn't argue with that, but those are my top three outside of ROM in that above 11,000 range. And I think that's fair. And that's why it's interesting for me for this week. So when you're not going ROM, what's your overall thought? Like, are you okay going with the using value plays to pepper that second and third tier more often approach that I've been talking about? So I generally always want to feel like all six of my golfers have a shot to win. You either don't get that in a major or you build literally like you hug 10,000 as much as you can. I don't think I want to do that this week. I could build probably one or two lineups that are like almost identical, like being between 95 and 10,000, but that's it. There's not a whole lot of flexibility. I don't love like Shane Lowery, for example, Justin Rose, definitely not even Adam Scott. Like I'm kind of over, but I think for me, I am going to have to embrace a little bit more volatility and go down toward the value range so that I can get back up and get, you know, that the tier two heavy approach. I think we're both kind of on the same page with overall roster construction for this week. I built while you were talking because I always listen to you intently. I built a lineup with Herbert in English and it is stupid fun. And I think that if you have those two value plays, one of which being, you know, maybe it's like two guys in the high 8,000 range or one guy in the low 8,000, one guy in the low 9,000, you can just obliterate. Like we talked about Port Canola's Delos with Casey and Finau, it's Port Canola's Trace. Like it's everyone if you do that. And I think that that to me is going to be my favorite build for this week, a build that I like more than the ROM-centric builds personally. Yeah, while you were talking, I just built a Herbert English stack and I loved my lineup, how it looked awesome. Now, I was doing a bit where I didn't listen to you and then I was making this thing. You repeated what I said. I get it. Clever, clever. I didn't like you on this podcast. It didn't go over well, but it should have. I thought it was good. I thought it was pretty funny. You wouldn't love your line if you did though. Once I explained it. Yeah, I mean, if Lucas Herbert makes... Geez, I'm going to be waking up at 3 a.m. on Thursday morning and just where's Lucas Herbert? I don't know if that's what you're going to be like. You're playing this wrong. You don't realize the optimal way to play this. Never in DFS do we get to wake up to results outside of West Coast stacks for baseball, which only make me anxious. Because it's going already and I'm just very anxious. For the open, unless you're someone who wakes up to actually watch it, which is awesome, good for you, I'm too old to do that. So I wake up and get to see a lot of results. That is one of the most blissful experiences in... You do always talk about this every year. Yeah. You're peeing in the morning on your phone naturally as you're peeing and you get to check what happened overnight. There is nothing better than that. I've never experienced... I've never... Find me one thing better than that from a DFS perspective. Find me one thing you can't. A six out of six lineup. Yeah, but I won't know about that. And I don't get those. I wouldn't know how that feels, Brandon. I've never had a six out of six lineup. Here's who I love for this week. Correct. Take my advice, listen to our podcast, subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Smash that like button. Yeah, smash that like button. Subscribe, baby. But yeah, I think that that's my favorite build for this week is getting in two value plays and then just obliterating those second and third tiers. We do have fun odds movement for majors because Fandall posts the salaries early. They posted these Thursday, right? At the tee off of the most recent event. So we do have some movement over the weekend. Which golfers odds have moved the most recently based on the odds of Fandall Sportsbook? Yeah, so I pulled from... I mean, they've been out for a while because majors have been up for a bit. But I pulled, I believe, Fridays when I'm comparing these two versus Monday afternoon. So we are recording a little bit early, not on Tuesday morning like we usually do. But golfers' odds have shortened. I'm not going to get over who lengthened because that's not as indicative of anything really. John Rom was 8.5 to 1. He is now 7.5 to 1, which is insane for a field like this at a course that's going to play tough. But it makes sense. Justin Thomas, surprisingly 22 to 18. Patrick Reed, 41 to 33. That's a really interesting name because of the way that this course is going to play. Matt Fitzpatrick, Lee Westwood, both 42 to 40. Paul Casey, 41 to 40, actually. Scotty Schaeffler, 50 to 45. Sergio Garcia, Brandon Grace, 65 to 60. Abraham Anser, 80 to 70. Jason Day, Harris English, 80 to 75. Lucas Herbert, 150 to 80. Ian Poulter, 180. And Ryan Palmer, 150 to 100. The Herbert one almost obviously due to performance this weekend. So that wouldn't make sense. The Justin Thomas one, though, is puzzling, is what I would say. Like obviously it's not because Justin Thomas isn't deserving of being 18 to 1, but I'm confused about why he specifically would be one of the guys shortening. The form is fine. History and Opens, as you said, is whatever. But you know, it's kind of there. He was in it last week a bit at the Scottish Open Finish T8, but actually lost strokes with approach, which is really abnormal for him. I was really good with the wedges. Again, like, you know, there's going to be a time, and like, we have so many great golfers that some of them are going to actually go overlooked. I thought Justin Thomas would be overlooked this week. Sounds like maybe not. Which is fine by me because I don't have a whole lot of interest in JT. Nothing against him. Which is like, again, we talk extra time every because I always have to say, I don't dislike Justin Thomas. I need to make that clear. But I just prefer other golfers. And that's kind of where I am this week with JT. Now, what about Patrick Reed? Because we talked about the 10,000 range a lot and he's there at 10-6. I have Cantley over him and Cantley is 10-7. But like, Reed makes sense too. So what are your thoughts on Patrick Reed? Yeah, I like him because it's, you know, going to play tough and he's going to need to save par. He's just probably like the best, you know, I have him in the 94th percentile and adjusted around the green play, but he's probably like the best around the green player that we have on the planet. And he can put like save par. That's really appealing. So I'm not building around Patrick Reed, but it's one of those where it is, it's a big enough jump for me to go out of my way to get up from like 97-ish to get up to Patrick Reed, which I know is a lot, but that's bringing more appeal to someone like Lucas Herbert, guys in like the low to mid 8,000 compared to the guys in the low 9,000. I think that's, you know, I should have had like a 2v2 pulled up. But I think something like Patrick Reed and Herbert versus like, I don't want to say Harris English, because like, but you know what I mean. Yeah. I should have had a 2v2 pulled up, but... No, I think that that makes sense. And I think that if I'm going to be in this range a lot, I'd like to include Reed as being part of that rotation. He will not be the guy I go to most, like that'll be Cantlay. And I'd rather go Finau Casey as well, but like I will get to Reed just because I want to be in this range a lot. So I think he makes a lot of sense. Which lower salary golfers have odds stand out to you? So Brandon Grace is 60 to 1 at 8,800. Robert Mac 5 to 1, he was 50 to 1, his salary is 8,500. Jason Dey is 75 to 1. Christian Bzadenhout, Phil Mickelson, Ian Poulter, Lucas Herbert, 80 to 1. Alex Noran, 90, and Ryan Palmer, 100. And we'll talk about Mac and Tyre later on. So discussion on that will be imminent. But first, let's talk about the weather for this week. And that can be a big topic often for the open. This week doesn't seem to be as bad, though, because things look pretty tame this week. Wind speeds hover around 15 miles per hour, both Thursday and Friday. Doesn't seem like there are big wind shifts between the morning and afternoon, which means that we don't have a lot of peel and stacking tea times right now. There also is not any precipitation currently in the forecast, which is good. The weekend looks even a bit calmer from a wind perspective with no precipitation. So I find that all in the forecast, interesting, and I find that reassuring personally. I know Bubba Watson was hoping for some rough weather, he said, when he had to withdraw because of a close contact. He's not going to get it, doesn't seem like. So to me, I feel we can play things pretty straight here. Any deviations for you based on a 15 mile per hour forecast or Thursday, Friday? No, I think it's going to be just a little too unpredictable from that standpoint and probably not enough. It's just going to be the right process, which I think is the best all-around golfers we can get and guys who can avoid bogies. Well, why don't you talk to Brandon about those best overall process plays? As we move into our player picks for the Open Championship in 2021, starting off with the upper range. Brandon, who stands out to you this week on Fandall? Well, obviously John Rom, but I'm going to go with the mystery man here, so you can guess who this is. You're going to make me guess? Yeah. Okay. This golfer is the only golfer in the field to rank in the 85th percentile or better in all four adjusted strokes gain categories over the past year. He sets off the tee approach around the green and putting 85th percentile or better adjusted for field strength, adjusted for recency. Only one guy can say he does that. Any guesses? Well, if not for a recent bad string of off the tee play, it would have been Cameron Tringali, obviously, good golly, Cam Tringali, but he's falling off off the tee. So I'm going to guess it's not him. Unfortunately. Shout out to Cameron Tringali though, because he's the best. Correct. Probably Xander? Yes, Xander. Oh, wow. Shocker. I mean, that's the thing, because I know I play Xander a lot, especially in majors. But it doesn't bite you, so why not keep doing it? Like, yeah. So you missed the cut at the PGA, which is actually his worst major pretty easily, but that's kind of an outlier because he's had 10 top 20 finishes in his past 13 majors. That's insane. He's also been good, specifically at Open Championships, gaining 1.7 strokes per round, finishing 20th, second, and 41st. Was in the mix last week at the Scottish Open. John Rom's number one, he's a lock in cash games. He is a thousand percent going to be in my bobble hat lineup against you, but Xander is the first place I'm looking outside of Rom. I'm considering not going Rom in cash, just because I get a lot of salary savings and that doesn't matter in cash games. That feels too difficult for me to do. I don't know. I think the salary savings are enticing enough. I think that if you can get to him easily, cool, do it. But I feel so good about the 10,000 range, I also want additional exposure to it from a safety perspective. So I might skip over it, but I still want to get to 40,000 tournaments. Please do. Please do. Yeah, I might. Why not? We'll see. But the guy might go to, if I skip over Rom in cash games is Jordan Spieth. I have not always been a big Spieth guy as long time listeners of the podcast know, but it's impossible to keep denying his form. He's, I think, under salary at 11.6, as you mentioned. He's traditionally done well and opens even when the form is off. But now he's back. He has gained at least five strokes Tee to Green in five of the past six measured events that does include all three majors in the span. He didn't get the great finishes to show for it at the U.S. Open or the PGA championship, but he gained 6.2 and 8.2 strokes Tee to Green in those two events. So his play was very on, even when the field got tougher. Spieth ranks second behind John Rom in true stroke change over the past six months per day to golf. He's a $700 discount. That's a lot. So I just say sign me up for Spieth. I'll take the discount pepper that midrange more. That's not an anti-ROM thing. It's a, I think Spieth is under salary thing and I can't get to both for a cash game. So I'll just take Spieth. I mean, Spieth has the irons wedges and putter going on so long as he does not find himself over all the mounds and in the everything, he's going to be fine. I love Spieth this week. I just don't prefer him over Xander. That's fair. I can understand that for sure. But again, Xander is great too. So no real pushback for me there. Our next three picks are all or X, our next four picks are all next five picks are talking about that really good midrange and the guys we want exposure to and the reason why we are inclined to try to live in that range as often as possible, whether it be a balance or using value place to get back up there. So Brandon, who is someone you are turning to in that range often? Tony Fino, I think we'll get a little bit slept on just because of the two straight missed cuts. And I think that that leads to over reactions, major winners, but I'm not calling a win. So I know Jim will guarantee that I said Fino wins, but that's all I'm saying. Major winners aren't always in like flawless form leading in. I just looked at that to start major season. It just doesn't really, it's not a must. The real issue is that those missed cuts stem from poor ball striking and that's not ideal. But we know the long-term form from Fino is that he's one of the best T-degree engulfers that we have in golf. His other missed cuts lately have been from weak putting, which is a very fair criticism of Tony Fino's game in upside and floor. But overall, he is in the 92nd percentile and adjusted to show scanty to green. We know he's great in majors. Missed the cut at the U.S. Open, which I get, but 12 top 20 finishes in his past 21 majors. And at the British Open, Fino has finished 18th, 27th, 9th, and 3rd. There's that word again. You said the B word. You said it. Rich. Rich. That's not a Harry British. I'm not sure if I can actually do this. But anyway, yeah, Fino's great. No pushback here. I will be there a lot just behind Casey in that range, but I also like to get a little bit higher than that. Go to Patrick Cantlay at 10-7 for this week. He ranks 3rd behind Rahman Spieth in true strokes gained over the past six months. And he perfectly fits this bill, but I want with peppering these ranges. Cantlay ranks 9th off the T of the past 50 rounds. He is 23rd in approach. 6th around the green. He is also 18th in bed grass putting. So well rounded there. Not Xander. No one is, but hey, he's close. Cantlay hasn't always translated that in the majors, but he was top 10 in 2019 at both the Masters and the PGA Championship. He has been 15th and 23rd in the most recent two majors this year. And I have faith that Cantlay can buck the mediocre major history with how well he has played this year. And at 10-7, I want both him and the salary relief that he gives me. So Cantlay to me at 10-7 grades out really well. Brandon, what are your thoughts on Patrick Cantlay at the open? Cantlay might be my favorite win bet this week. Okay. Overall, just at the number. He's one of mine. I've got to spoil the whole section, but he's one of mine. Yeah. And I love him. I love his Fando salary. He is a standout play to me in the 10,000 range. Just it majors in general should bring out the best in Patrick Cantlay because he's such a good scrambler. He's so good at avoiding bogies. 96% tie on both of those over the past 100 rounds, according to Fantasy National. So like Cantlay and Xander kind of go hand in hand for me when it comes to majors. Yes, Xander has done a lot better, but Cantlay, a lot lower salaryed, all things considered and forms good. So Cantlay won my favorite place of the week. I mean, they go hand in hand because they check the same boxes and that they're well balanced. And that's what we want for majors. Really tough courses, really tough fields. They both fit that. So I think that they should go hand in hand there. Let's move down to the mid-salary range and talk about us and guys with a little extra motivation to try to win the open championship. One of whom is Matt Fitzpatrick, Brandon, $9,900. What do you see with him for this week? Yeah, both of my guys are in the upper 9k range, as you alluded to. I would say I want to make sure that like we're really good with Harris English this week. He's not in our player picks, but I think if we didn't talk about him already, he would have made it for one of us, if that's fair. So Fitzpatrick, the major history kind of like started off better and now it's just okay, but it still includes four straight made cuts and you can not hate a made cut in a major. It's going to help get you a six out of six lineup and a six out of six, you know, it has to be a really outlier like lineup. First of all, to be a six out of six, but to be a six out of six and like not be good. So like, I'm not hating on any made cuts in majors. In the long-term form, for Fitzpatrick is good for this specific test that Royal St. George's, which should play really difficult. He was on a really hot streak earlier this year. That's cold off, but there's just a lot to like for the setup of something playing close to like maybe five under is the winning score, three to five under. Fitzpatrick's 87th percentile and Bogey avoidance. 97th percentile and good drive scan over the past 100 rounds. Finn is running up last week at the Scottish Open because of a hot potter, but that's within within his range. He's a good potter. He's a good scrambler. The irons are always not like bankable, but that's a little bit more forgivable this week, even though, you know, I talked about hitting greens regulation, but if you can do other stuff well, you're still in the mix. So you probably have this in your sheet. So just don't look like, you know, put your hand up. Where do you think Matt Fitzpatrick ranks in stroking off the T the past 50 rounds? I think he's actually quite good because he's so accurate. But where? So over the past 50, where did you rank? Yeah, among golfers in this field. Like 20th, 10th. That's awesome. Given that like the distance is not there, but like he grades out so well from how good he is there. That's what we want for this week is someone who can gain strokes off the T without gaining distance. And Fitzpatrick does that. So I had him, like we didn't include him in the discussion between Schaeffler, Finau and Casey. We probably should have though. I think that he's right there with those guys. I think he's awesome. I feel like I know I'm talking about a lot of guys in this range I need to get to, but that just kind of speaks to the fact that I just want to be in this range a lot. Yeah, to me, though, like once you get to Schaeffler, 97, then it drops off. Correct. So we would have naturally a lot of names here because I think it's right before that drop off. So I guess really 97 with Schaeffler up to, can't lay at 10. Well, I like hoveling too and more Cal, but like 97 to 10, 7 is going to be pretty, like if those guys, if like three of those guys finish top six, which could that's going to change everything. Right, exactly. So I like that a lot. I will stick with Paul Casey, my favorite guy though in this range. And usually we go mid-salary to 10,000 and lower, but it's our podcast, our rules. And so I'll stop with Paul Casey here. His history of the open as alluded to is not great, but I still want to get a lot of him at 10-3. Casey is another guy with great recent form. He ranks fourth in true strokes gained over the past six months. A big part of that is what he's done in these tougher fields because he was seventh at the US Open. He was fourth at the PGA. He gained more than 10 strokes, T to green in both those. It also does help that the putting surface is bentgrass because Casey's best service is bentgrass and he ranks 37th out of the past 100 rounds. Casey's top 10s in those majors came despite losing on the green both times. And I think that what that means is even if the greens are not super kind to him, he'd sell the high floor. And if he sinks his pods, which he can do on bentgrass, his ceiling is great too. So I like Casey a lot at 10-3. Any final thoughts for you on Paul Casey? Like him a lot. Not my favorite in this range, but I have nothing bad to say about Paul Casey. One guy you had above him is Scotty Schaeffler. That is our head to head. He's talking about Schaeffler right now. Yeah, the major history for Schaeffler is kind of short because of his career and his age, but it's still really good. Five straight top 20 finishes. Three top 10s, including two straight top 10s. Now this will be his first Open Championship, which is a little bit concerning. It's not something that's going to get me off of Scotty Schaeffler. But for me, there aren't a whole lot of question marks. And he's not nearly on the level of Zander in terms of his balanced approach. But he's 78th percentile and adjusted strokes gained around the green, 17th percentile and scrambling. So that's a big discrepancy that I saw this week. So scrambling is a fine stat, but don't overinflate it this week. And with Schaeffler, if you look back at his trajectory and all four of the strokes gained stats, we know that the driver's always been there. The irons have pretty much always been there, but the wedges and putter were lagging, and now they're trending up. But he hasn't lost the ball striking. And so that's a really great combination for me this week. So Schaeffler, my favorite play in the below 10,000 range for sure. Yeah, I think that I want to use Schaeffler for sure. I just hope he finishes it behind Casey. He can want that head-to-head win, but he makes a lot of sense to me as well. Mention Harris English as being one of the low 9,000 guys we like. Another guy I like, and I think you like, is Abraham Hanser. You like him too? Yep. Right? Yep. Yep. Cool. He's 93, and he is a liability around the greens. That's why we talked about how I like some guys in this range, like Coke, Rack, English and Hanser. And that's the reason why I don't want to go more than 20 to 30 percent on Hanser, because it's a legitimate downside for him. Everything else, it was very good. No. What? What? It's not a legitimate downside. It's not his strength. He's 99, though, the past 50 rounds. According to Fantasy National, he is 67. Negative .06 on data golf's adjusted true strokes gained. Over the past 50 rounds, past six months. Past 50 rounds, he's 67th with a positive .01. 67th isn't good, though. And he has been worse than that over a long term. But you said it's a negative. You said it's a negative. It is a negative compared to other stuff. He's really good elsewhere. Is that the negative? There's a plus sign, so it's not a negative. I just wanted to point that out. It's negative .06. How is that plus? It's a positive .01 if you sort by the last 50 rounds. Get out of here. We like him. Why are we arguing? We both like him. He ranks 14th and strokes him off the tee, despite not he's like Fitzpatrick in that sense. Not long, but he gained strokes off the tee, ranks 11th in approach. Bank grass, very good surface for him. 99th around the green on data or on Fantasy National, the past 50 rounds. But that's still OK. And it does make him a miscut risk. But that's fine. That's true for everyone in this range. And I'll still use it. Good. He was eighth the PGA championship, 13th at the master's November, the November masters. I can't. I don't know. Weird. God, I don't know. Whatever. He was 13th in that master's. So he's done well in majors areas where you do want to emphasize a good around the green play. He's $930. I can live with that risk that answer presents if we deem it as a risk with Brandon seems to not do. I mean, it's not a strength, but it's not it's not as bad as it could be. No, it's not also aggressively good. It's not like good. No. But I mean, it's not horrible. It's not a Miliano Grillo level. OK. So we love we love answer. We love English. Would you deem Joaquin Neiman's around the green play as being a negative over like the past year? No, no, I'm just asking in general. Would you deem that to be a negative? You're trying to trap me. Yes, I am. I would say no. It's probably about neutral. Get out of here. Talk to me about your value plays. What do you like in the value range? Someone with a great wedge play, Alexander Noran or Alex Noran, or whichever one in my spreadsheet I don't have him as. That's what he's listed as. Correct. I change his name so much in my name database. So despite that, despite the X lookup ruiner, I still like Noran this week at 8600. Just an elite short game for him that should help him get out of trouble at Royal St. George's. 91st percentile, Bentgrass Putter has finished 6th, 7th or 6th, 17th, 11th to the past three open championships with four straight made cuts at the event. And his driver and Irons are actually trending up long term, which he's older. So that's not necessarily something that I'm expecting to bank on, but seeing positive improvement long term is very welcomed. And I like the kind of semblance of safety. Nobody's going to be safe below 9000, but I think Noran is one of my favorite plays, if not my favorite play below 9000. I was very close to having him as a player pick as well. So I agree and think that he is a definite rotation option down here. Brandon, would you deem Corey Connors around the green play to be a negative? Now, Corey Connors is a positive everywhere always. Okay. Well, you're not taking my bait. Anyway, he's better than the answer over the past six months. Anywho, I think that Corey Connors is a risk there too, but I still want to use him for this week. He's done well in majors recently, despite the bad short game, and that to me is encouraging here, $8700. The major finishes since the November Masters for Connors are 10th, 8th, 17th, and a missed cut. The missed cut was at the U.S. Open. That was because he lost 4.1 strokes on the greens. That could happen. That could happen again this week for sure. He still has bad weeks every now and then. But the overall baseline of the punny has gotten better for Connors. We know he can finish top 10 as long as he treads water in the short game. He ranks top five in both off-the-tea and approach play the past 50 rounds. He ranks 19th in true strokes gained over the past six months, and that accounts for the bad short game. That's just total strokes gained. He ranks ninth there. Sorry, 19th. I love a very hard time not buying into Connors at 8-7. Brandon, I would understand if you had a hard time getting here, though, given that Connors does have some legitimate red flags. So what are your thoughts on Corey Connors for this week? Yeah, I'm not going to get there myself. I don't think. I just prefer some other golfers. I think he's a very fine play overall. I don't think it's necessarily the best course fit for him. The ball striking is going to help, but the short game itself has not anything I can feel confident in. It's one thing if he were problematic with the wedges, but a good putter, but he's not. He's a terrible putter as well. Terrible nowhere. He's the best. Corey Connors guaranteed to win this week. Brandon, who else do you like in this value range? I am going to stick with Robert McIntyre. I think Lucas Herbert, again, really, really intriguing now, but McIntyre is 85 on Fandall. Now 65 to 1, but that's still kind of an outlier if you compare the odds to the salary. I think he's a good play. He's probably going to be more popular than he deserves to be, because the iron play is just close to baseline, according to data golf, which does include European Torstats. Not really a plus putter necessarily. There's upside because it's such a big hitter. 18th at the Scottish Open last week, 35th at the US Open with positive T-degree in both, but with negative putting in both. I did finish 6th at the 2019 Open Championship, so McIntyre, someone else, I would be sprinkling in pretty heavy in the value range. So I'm giving you a massive, massive edge here. Do you want to do a McIntyre versus Connors head-to-head? What's that a massive, massive edge? Well, because McIntyre, from an outright perspective, McIntyre is 65 to 1, and Connors is like 11,000 to 1. That's not how this works, because Corey Connors has been better over the past six months than Robert McIntyre. Okay, then take my head-to-head. No. What? You said you didn't like Connors, but you're like McIntyre, but you won't take my head-to-head? Correct. You turned down at my head-to-head all the time. Yeah, because I use logic and facts, and you're using spite. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. No, don't let me talk you into it. Don't do that. Let's do it. Don't do that. Hey, man, it's a volume game at this point. We're running out of weeks. I got to get some wins. Okay, fair enough. I'm not going to get to McIntyre personally, but I get it. So that makes sense. So you're not on Connors. I'm not on McIntyre. Can I interest you in a Guido Miliosi? You probably could. Okay, so let's talk about him. We talked about him and the form after the US Open, but I think the Travelers was really helpful in bolstering the appeal for Miliosi. In that one, Miliosi backed up the good approach play. He did it again. Gained three strokes there, but he also gained on the greens. That was the one area where he didn't beast out of the US Open. Over the past six months, Miliosi has just 60th in true strokes gained. That is behind a lot of other dudes in the salary tier, but if you look at the past three months, he does move up. He is near guys like Webb Simpson, Kevin Strillman, Tony Fee now. He's not in the range, obviously, but he's in good company. If you shorten it to more recent form, it's been in tougher fields. So it could be risky because we're not sure if this surge will stick, but he's $8,600 and I'm intrigued. So what are your thoughts on Guido Miliosi this week? Yes, he's 11th in total. True strokes gained average over the past 20 rounds. It's pretty wild. Yeah. Better than Reid between not as good as Harris English though. Just keep that in mind. No, it is. Yeah, Miliosi is totally fine for me. This is just another name down here that there's appeal. And it's not going to be flawless. It's not going to be safe. Don't lock up everything you have on Miliosi, but I think it's going to be a week where we just finalize the studs we like most and then rotate in these values. Yeah. I think that he'll be one of the guys I use when doing so. And then before that, Patrick Cantley is one of my win picks for this week. He is 33-1 right now at Fandall Sportsbook. I'm going to think about my second one here. Rory did lengthen 18-1 while we were talking. So if you want to get that there, obviously, no one else wants it. So if you want it, you can. But what are your win picks for this week based on the odds of Fandall Sportsbook? I love how I won the bobble hat and then you take the first pick and take one of the guys I was going to. No, you can take him, too. Go ahead. I know, but it's not fun for content. Do it. It's not fun. You're doing it for the content? It's not fun. A hashtag content. It's not funny. Well, I'll go obviously Xander then. Yeah. Because he outperforms his Sportsbook odds in my win simulations. So I'm going to go Xander. Are you taking Patrick Cantlay? That's the first time I know it's not. Wait, would it? No, I thought it was the first time you took Cantlay, but it wasn't. Definitely can't be. There's no way. Who is your second guy? I'll let you pick your second one before I go for the hashtag content. I'm considering Morakawa. Despite the fact that it's scrambling heavy, I'm considering Hovland. If it's Patrick Sheffler, I think I will go Morakawa though for the sake of this. Because I think he's undervalued based on his win odds. I don't think he's the best fandal play, but I think for an outright win, hard to hit on Morakawa because he does convert. Okay, so you have Xander and Morakawa, and I will go with Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth as a result of who he's against before, with the overall play being so good with the short game, likely to be stellar this week, good history in the past in the open, even when he hasn't been in great form. He's in great form now. So I'll go with Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay versus your Xander Sheffler and Colin Morakawa. Brandon, any final thoughts for you before we send people off to set their lives for the open championship? Major week gives you a lot of flexibility. So just pick the guys you want because they take the golfers, baby. It's really hard to go wrong. We're not big on Bryson or JT or Dustin, but if you are and Rory, if you see reasons to go for it because they're still the game's best, just not fitting our process necessarily. Yeah, none of those guys are going to be indefensible. So if you have a strong inclination towards them based on your process, go for it for sure. That is all that we have here for today, but plenty more open content coming up here on the FanDuel multimedia sphere this week. I don't know the way to phrase it. We have covering the spread tomorrow. We're going to have some guy named Brandon Gedula on as a guest for that, breaking down his favorite bets for the open championship. That is on the covering the spread podcast tomorrow. And then also tomorrow, Brandon will have his PGA Q&A. Now that is a half an hour later than usual this week because there's no MLB. So we're going to push Brandon back to 4 p.m. And have him talk from 4 to 4.30 about your questions for DFS and betting. So if you have any questions about the open championship for DFS or betting, make sure you are subscribed to the FanDuel YouTube Twitch Facebook or Twitter pages. Get your questions in on Tuesday, 4 p.m. Eastern to talk to Brandon there. And also check out covering the spread wherever you get your podcasts. Brandon, if people have questions for you before 4 p.m. on Tuesday, where can people find you on Twitter? I'm at Gedula13, G-D-U-L-A-1-3. And I am at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcasts. Make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast feed. No baseball until Friday with Tom Vecchio, because I'm out on Friday. We will have NASCAR on Thursday. Believe UFC this week once again. Austin Swain, awesome with his picks this past week. Help me win some money. So check out Austin this week once again for UFC as well. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in. Good luck to you with the open championship. Enjoy your morning pee while you check out the results. And we'll talk to you once again next week. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy Podcast powered by Number Fire.