 After a long, long hiatus of four weeks, the PGA tour season is back. I say that a little bit sarcastically, but it's actually quite a lengthy break for the PGA tour of four weeks. The tour is out in Hawaii for two weeks before the five-week West Coast Swing, and this week we've got a strong field for the Tournament of Champions. So welcome on in to the FanDole PGA Q&A. I'm your host, Brandon Gadoula. I'm the managing editor over at NumberFire.com, and I will be breaking down the Tournament of Champions field, the course out at Capalua, looking at the best betting odds on FanDole Sportsbook, some of the best values on FanDole for daily fantasy, checking out some of the best golfers based on my win simulation model. Now not everyone here in this field is technically a winner. All these guys who are qualified, they're not necessarily here because they're a champion. The PGA tour had to open up the field a bit to winners over the past year, plus the top 30 golfers who qualified for the Tour Championship. But nonetheless, it's a really, really strong field with no shortage of good options. There have been three withdrawals so far, Roy McElroy, Tyrell Hatton at the top, and then Jim Herman as well, leaving us with a 42 golfer field for this event at Capalua. Feel free to hit up the comment section on YouTube to ask me some questions. I'll do my best to give some insight. But for now, let's take a look at this field. At the top on FanDole Sportsbook, we see Dustin Johnson at six and a half to one, Justin Thomas, seven and a half to one, John Rom, eight and a half to one, followed by Bryson DeChambeau, and Xander Schoffle at 11 to one. That's the big five for me this week. Patrick Reed, Hideki, Patrick Cantlay, Victor Hovland. I mean, the list goes on, Webb Simpson, Tony Finau, major champion Colin Moricala. So again, lots of options to pick from to sift through. It's, you know, betting a no-cut event is always a little bit tricky. The number is always look a little bit lower than we're typically used to. And historically, no-cut events, they favor the best of the best over four rounds. Over 72 holes. The past winners at this event have been pretty much, again, the best of the best in the PGA world. Speaking of that, I want to dig back into the past history at Kapalua, going over to data golf.com, looking at some past information from this course at Kapalua. Last year, Justin Thomas won in a three-man playoff over Patrick Reed and Xander Schoffle. The year before, Xander beat out Gary Woodland and JT at the top, Dustin Johnson. Before that, Justin Thomas again in 2017, Jordan Spieth, sort of back in his prime 30 under par. And if you go back and look at these winning scores, 30 under, 22 under, 24 under, 23 under. And last year, not quite so much a 14 under, but you are going to need golfers who make birdies if you want fandal points and if you want to hit the winner. The reason I love this page on data golf is because they have this little tool here that shows what drives variation scores across the four Strokes gain metrics. I like to compare the event average to the tour average to see what stands out most at a particular course. And as we can see here, Strokes gain putting at this event on these Bermuda greens is about, it explains about 39, almost 40% of the scoring, which is higher than 36% at your tour average stop. But approach is down about 1.5 points, percentage points here. And off the tee gets a little bit of a bump up, but Strokes gain around the green, not necessarily the most important at this almost 7,600 yard par 73 actually, with just three par threes, four par fives. So it based on that yardage, you probably think you need to hit you need your golfers to belong off the tee. And that actually does check out according to data golf course fit tool. What this does is show us a radar plot of the stats that matter most at a particular course relative to tour average as well, driving distance way out ahead, driving accuracy, not that not that important overall. And if you look at the most similar courses to Kappa Lua, we have Tory Pines, we have Riviera, we have Augusta National, those are the top three corollary courses if that's something that you like to look at. And this is a little more just something to keep in mind. But I bring this up mostly because we have a golfer who just won at El Camaleon in this field, Victor Hovland. It's not a very similar course to Kappa Lua, so more of an accuracy course, less of a distance course. So keep that in mind specifically for this week, but also anytime you dig back and look at recent finishes, make sure the courses are somewhat similar whenever you're whenever you're doing your research. The key stats that I've come up with for this week are stroke scan approach because it's always the most important stat for any course. Even if we look back here, it is depressed a little bit, but it still matters more than stroke scan off the tee and stroke scan around the green combined. So stroke scan approach is number one for me this week. Stroke scan putting on Bermuda is very important, driving distance is number three. But overall my five key stats for this week are driving distance, stroke scan approach, putting on Bermuda, par five scoring and birdie a better rate. So that's just a quick overview of the course at Kappa Lua, and I want to break down the top five studs and start there for this week. Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, John Rom, Bryson DeChambeau and Xander Schoffley are the five betting favorites. They're also in a tier of their own to a degree on Fando in terms of their salary. My win simulations do prefer Dustin Johnson at about 10.7% likely a win. Justin Thomas, 10.1 Rom, very close behind. Xander not that far behind at 8%, but someone who's lagging is Bryson DeChambeau and why might that be? Well, my betting model is based on course fit. And again, I mentioned that stroke scan approach is very vital for this course and Bryson DeChambeau not necessarily the best iron player, what he does well is drive it long and he putts very well. So my model is always kind of low on Bryson, but overall, there are no red flags among the key stats for any of these golfers. And I do actually have red flags if a golfer is in the 25th percent or 24th percentile or below in any key stat, it'll pop up with a red flag. There are none here. Anytime we have a course this good or a field this good, we have to nitpick. There are a lot of golfers who are in play and we see that again this week. But if I had to pick one golfer to build around, it's going to be Justin Thomas at the top, at least out of the top three, the reason for that. He has two wins here, which is a big help. Dustin Johnson has good form here as well. But JT, if you look at the long term adjusted strokes, this is field adjusted strokes gained since the start of 2020, according to datagolf.com. JT is in the 98th percentile in this field, trailing only John Rahm. But JT is the field leader in approach when adjusted for field strength since the start of 2020. He's very good around the green. Not necessarily the best Bermuda putter, but that's really the only blemish that JT has in his profile. Again, not necessarily great at gaining fairways, although none of these golfers particularly are, but that's not super relevant for this week. So I think JT out of the top three is my pick for Fandall. And if I had to bet one of them, I think I might actually just prefer JT at seven and a half to one to DJ at six and a half to one. But I think Bryson and Zander are very much in play as well. If you look at Zander, the reason I like him a lot is that he's very well balanced. Look at all this green here. No red flags and hardly anything below the 75th percentile. Bermuda is not his best surface. It's actually his worst surface, but he is still in the 61st percentile over the past 100 rounds in putting on Bermuda. There's just again, he does everything he gains on par fives, which is vital. He is the field leader in stroke scene on par fives over his past 100 rounds on the PGA tour, according to Fantasy National. He gains distance. He gains birdies. He putts well overall. There's just really no blemishes with Zander. And frankly, I like Zander. If I had to make one bet out of the top five, it would be on Zander. And I do think that there is value on his name. I'll show you. Actually, I'll just flip over to my wind simulations here and show you the top. The field is small enough where you can see everything here. But my simulations like Dustin Johnson again at the top at 10.7 percent to win, Justin Thomas, Rom, Zander, and then that's your drop down to Bryson. So again, it's showing some value on Rom actually and Zander at the top. So I think that those both are in play. I have a hard time with Bryson always because I like to let the stats do the talking. And I try not to adjust anything in my model at all, frankly, and just let let things go because it's hard to figure out how much you should be bumping. Dishambo, for example, for his recent performance, his recent distance gain that is factored in to a degree, the course fits factored in. So that does help him out. But even with that with the irons being what they are, not necessarily the best betting value for me. But again, a betting model is not necessarily here to tell us who to bet on. It's not here to tell us who is going to win, I should say, because what this does is say I simulated out this event 10,000 times and Bryson still wins this almost 6 percent of the time. There might be value at different places if you can look around. But for me Bryson, always a little bit overinflated. If I look at the golfers who have the best expected value based on my simulations, it's actually some longer guys with Harris English, Daniel Berger, Webb Simpson who I say is longer, at least in the odds, but definitely not as a driver, which is a little bit surprising that he pops up here. But Webb is always a little bit undervalued and he's a very good Bermuda putter, which does help him out in my win simulations. So again, I think Harris English, Daniel Berger, Xander and Rom would probably be the four places I would look to bet. I think that Xander plus English and Berger makes for a pretty solid top of a betting card. Outside of that, longshot values don't necessarily pop in smaller field events. So for this week, I'd be looking to look at more of those longer guys for top tens, for example, this week. Again, DJ is the most likely to win, but it's six and a half to one. It's a little bit hard to get behind. One name I do like. The number is right at 45 to one, but Adam Scott. He kind of does it all. He's long off the tee. He's got great irons. I'll show you him right here. Scott, again, the long-term form is good, puts him in about the 66 percentile. The tee to green is about middling right now. It's the off the tee that's not specifically great. But again, if you look at what's kind of leading to the off the tee, it's more he's great at distance, not necessarily great at hitting fairways. So he doesn't particularly need that this week. And he is a bad Bermuda putter that is that red flag that I was telling you guys about. So this week, Scott, I still think has value at the number. I think he's a great value on Fandall for daily fantasy at 9,000. Not the most likely golfer to win, but relative to the other golfers in that salary tier, I think Scott is someone that I would recommend looking to back. If you look at maybe like the second tier of golfers and from a DFS standpoint, we have Patrick Reed. Can't lay. We can look at maybe Hideki. Let's throw in Webb, because I talked about him and then we'll do Hovland because he's coming off a recent win. So this isn't this is definitely a good tier overall. But by comparison to the studs, I do think that it's a week to build around guys like Xander and Bryson, try to get up a little more, maybe save some salary elsewhere. I talked a lot about lineup construction on the Heat Check podcast with Jim Sonnis earlier this week. So looking at this second tier, we have Reed who did force a playoff. But what he doesn't do well is drive it long. So he's got to hit his long irons very well. Similar with Webb. These guys aren't particularly long. Can't lay though is is very long. And he's got great ball striking. And he's at least he's about field average, tour average on putting on Bermuda, which is something that can always kind of keep him out of contention. But if I had to play any of these guys, it would be Patrick Cantley. He comes with some pretty good win equity by comparison to some other golfers not listed here. He does everything pretty well. He's a very well rounded golfer. We do have other options in this tier. But if we look at Victor Hovland real quick, because he's coming off a win that was third actually on the European tour out in Dubai, he does a lot of stuff better than average. But he's still, look, he says he sucks at chipping. He knows that we see that here from the long term form. And just not a good Bermuda putter. And again, I mentioned this already, but his win came at a course that's not anything like Capalua. It's more about hitting fairways and going from there. Hovland just in the 44th percentile in distance. So that is a little bit of a reason to be out on Hovland this week. I actually prefer Daniel Berger by comparison. No red flags. Honestly, no black marks either for Daniel Berger. Really good at gaining strokes on the field long term, just in general, 78th percentile there. Good tee to green. Again, just anytime you're going to find a balanced golfer, especially in a no cut event, they can get things done in different ways. They can post good rounds even if their driver's not there, for example, Berger can make up for that. Hovland, again, if his irons aren't quite there, if he's losing distance to the field, he's going to have a hard time contending because the chipping's not there, the around the green play, and the putting is just okay. But on Bermuda, it's especially bad. So those are the things to look out for whenever you're really sifting through a field this tough. Sometimes we have fields that we can get away with more question marks, but I think those are some names at the top who are at least worth considering. Some of the better values I have for this week. I'm going to go with Adam Scott, show him. Cameron Champ, not Cam Smith this week. He's not really long enough to like his salary. 9,400 is a bit high. Coke rack. Sebastian Munoz. And I'm going to go with Lonto Griffin actually. So again, by comparison, these guys are still really good on the PGA tour, but there's not a whole lot of green marks on this aside from maybe Adam Scott because he's, frankly, I think a little under salary just because of the recent performance. But that's the only thing that I'm seeing with Scott to worry about is the super recent performance, the longer term stuff is very, very good. Champ, what he's going to do great for Kapaluah is drive the ball. He's about as long on tour as anybody. He can contend with Bryson on his best days, but the difference between Bryson and Cam Champ, of course, is everything else. Even if you want to look at Bryson and nitpick the irons, Cam Champ is worse with the irons, 27th percentile for him. And then the short game, both red flags. Now he is okay enough on Bermuda to give him that level of confidence. I think he's then one of the better sort of low end plays in terms of salary on fan. Co-crack is someone who is somewhat similar. Mostly gets it done from the ball striking off the T 83rd percentile approach has been a little bit lacking, but definitely a red flag in the chipping department. But again, not a red flag on Bermuda. And anytime you can get Co-crack at a course where you think he might be field average with putting, you can roll the dice. You can take a chance on the ball striking from Co-crack. And again, long off the tee. Munoz and Lonto Griffin, they are not necessarily the prototype for Kapaluah. They're not necessarily the prototype for even making the optimal lineup at Kapaluah. I can show you guys that in just a second. But they are relative to their salaries balanced. Again, if you look at between the two of them, only one red flag. And that's from Lonto Griffin. And that's from Fairways Gain, 20th percentile there. So barely a red flag. And again, Fairways Gain doesn't particularly matter. I'd just like to see it, you know, so I can see who's gaining strokes off the tee from their distance versus from their Fairways Gain. But he's a good putter, good enough putter on Bermuda for especially for a salary of 7,200. Munoz a bit better. So I would really try to find that that $300 in salary to get up to Sebastian Munoz from Lonto Griffin. But I mentioned those optimals. I want to show you those quickly here. Over the past two years on Fandall, the optimal lineup hasn't featured anyone below, I'll blow this up, hasn't featured anyone below a salary of 8,300. That was actually Munoz a year ago. But consistent with my findings in past optimals, no cut events are almost always tough events. And the golfers who put up fantasy points in those aren't the bottom of the field. It's the top of the field. And I think that sometimes we can get a little bit ahead of ourselves and, you know, be overconfident in value golfers. That's not necessarily what shows up in optimal lineups over, you know, dozens of these no cut events over the past few years from my findings. So I would say limit your exposure when you're building a Fandall lineup to maybe one golfer below 8,000, possibly even one below a 500 or so. It's just not how you build the proper lineup. Even if that means something like we saw last year, Xander Schoffley made the playoff a three man playoff, but didn't even make the optimal lineup because you have to have the winner. You have to have Justin Thomas in that. You can get Patrick Reed at a solid price. Patrick Cantley put up a good finish. But these golfers toward the bottom of the field, if we look at their win expectations here, it's just very little win equity, very little top 10 equity for them overall. And you need top 10s. You need birdies. And yes, you're not going to miss a cut with these guys. So you get that level of safety, but you're also doing yourself a bit of a disservice by not building a higher floor lineup, which is also a high ceiling lineup in a no cut event like this. So that's something definitely to keep an eye out for. But I would say this week, Lonto and Munoz and Coke Rack are the three safest values for me this week. I like Cameron Champ. Very volatile. But again, I think a balanced lineup is sort of the right way to go for this week. Jumping back over just quickly to my win simulation model. Again, if I had to make a single bet on a long shot, it's not going to be Kevin Naugh. It's probably going to be, honestly, just Adam Scott at 45 to one this week. But my betting card is most likely going to finalize on some combination of Sander, Daniel Berger, Harris English, and Adam Scott for an outright. And then for the top 10s, I might go with Sebastian Munoz. I might take a chance on Lonto Griffin. Cam Champ would be in play for that and Jason Coke Rack as well. But again, not really the kind of course, not the type of field where you want to take too many chances. Even over a no-cut event, you need your golfers to be contending in all 72 holes. A great way for that to happen is to roster well-balanced golfers such as Zander Shafley, Daniel Berger, Sebastian Munoz at the low end. But you can't go wrong with any of the top of the field for this week. Again, you're really just picking your favorites between the top of the field. For me, that's Justin Thomas between the top three and then Bryson DeChambeau and Zander Shafley, I think, make for a really great pivot away from those top three and help you save salary and help you build a more balanced lineup so that you can be in the range where you're playing two or three of Harris English, Daniel Berger, maybe Tony Fino for the length there. I would go that route, Patrick Cantley as well. But it's a really good, it's a really fun field. 2021 is going to be a fantastic year for the PGA Tour. Lots of great golf coming up, lots of young golfers hitting their primes, lots of golfers in their late 20s still in their primes. So, a fantastic year for golf coming up and it all starts with this week's Tournament of Champions out at Capilua. That's all I have for today. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter, at Kadula13. Check out my DFS content on NumberFire.com. Best of luck this week and let's hit a winner.