 The final event of the 2022 PGA tour season coming up this week and a whole lot of cash going to be doled out at the end of it. It is a tour championship out at East Lake Golf Club. We're going to break down the unique format for this week, break down the course, break down our favorite golfers age tier and much more to get you set, which should be a fun weekend of some golf. Welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by NUMBERFIRE. That's right here on the fan dual 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 of NUMBERFIRE.com. Sorry, senior manager. I had to snub you one last time. Brandon, final event of the year. How are you doing? Yeah, good. A little bit scrambled still. I know we just talked on a different podcast that I know you'll discuss in a little bit more detail here, but with Will's Outdoors withdrawing from a 30 golfer event, that has really affected my mood. So I wanted to kind of answer, you know, just about me talk about myself a little bit, but I can't pretend that, you know, that that is not affecting how I feel right now, because I feel I felt prepared and I still feel I feel prepared now. I've had some time, but it's pretty impactful to have someone who's like 9% likely to win an event with the net scoring that we have this week just withdraw and then we're down to 29 guys and then you can't just be like, I'll just play straight from there. Like you got to kind of adjust. Yeah. And not only is it that, but also when we're talking on the betting side of things and covering the spread, it's also, you have two separate markets you can bet. You can bet the with the strokes versus without the strokes. I just deleted Will's Outdoors from my spreadsheet and it messed up some of the conditional formatting, whatever I'll do a bit later on. It's a mess, but we get down to this final event and it is a very unique format. And I don't know, we talked about this in the past, how it can be confusing, but I'm generally of the mind that things that are confusing are probably good for people who pay attention from a DFS perspective. So I kind of like this format in the sense that if you put more work in, if you prepare really hard, you should be okay. What are your thoughts with regards to that when it comes to the format for this week? Yeah, I was, I pitched to you, like should we go over past optimal lineups for this event? It's something that we do every time we get something, not every time, but like when we get a weird event, we'll look at it a little bit more. And I'll go over some trends in the three optimal lineups we have since this new format. And I think it was pretty eye-opening because on this podcast, we acknowledge that, yes, when you find a golfer in this 7,000 range on Fandall who finishes top 10 in a regular tour event that it's great and it really helps your chances to win, but that you're kind of applying a lot of, you're sort of overestimating how likely that is, how likely you are. Predictable that is? Yeah, how likely you already pick that one guy who really plays above expectation, but I think that looking at the past optimals here, I think they will learn a little bit about how to approach the 7,000 range for this week. Yeah, we'll talk about that later on. We'll talk about the format. We'll talk about starting strokes. We'll talk about golfers who like each tier and much more throughout the podcast for today, course history at Eastlake as well. And also, if you want more betting thoughts, like I mentioned, we had Brandon on covering the spread today to break down that. That is posted up on the Covering the Spread podcast. So you quick reminder to make sure you're subscribed also to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast because we have not just PGA, but also MLB UFC NASCAR. It's a PGA one takes a bit of a break as we have this weird part in the schedule NFL coming up. So a lot of good incentive to make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, let's dive in here to Eastlake Golf Club. It is 7,346 yards and a par 70. It is, of course, the final event of the season. It's a 29 golfer field following the withdrawal of Will Zauhtoris. Cameron Smith currently in the field after withdrawing last week. Sounds like he should be good to go. Zauhtoris, though, will not go. As mentioned, it's a staggered start here with advantages baked in based on where guys were in the FedEx cup standings, entry in its events, the Scotty Shaffler starts at 10 under, Patrick Cantley 8 under, Xander 6 under, stuff like that. So if you're looking at course history, make sure you're accounting for where golfers started the past two years because their finishing position may not represent how they golfed. So keep that in mind when it comes to this week, the winner gets 18 mil. So motivation gonna be pretty high for this week. So Brandon, we know what to expect to Eastlake Golf Club if they've been coming here for a long time. What stands out to you when you look at the data? Yeah. So I'm just going to combine some like new tour championship setup and course information here just because I think it's relevant to go over. But I'll start with the new, still new, I guess is the fourth year of it, the tour championship setup. But when you account for the winning strokes, understandably, the chalk has been pretty good. And two of the past, well, in the past two years, we've seen the leader who started at 10 under go on and win. Patrick Cantlay last year and Dustin Johnson in 2020. So what happened in that first year, Rory McElroy did end up winning. He started at five under, shot the lowest gross score of 17 under. So he really went out and got it. That also means that the few guys ahead of him did not necessarily convert on their lead over him. But the chalk is the chalk for a reason always and especially this week because you're not just giving random golfers some strokes on the field. You're effectively giving the best golfers over the full season strokes on some guys who are clearly a tier below, you know, down in the, you know, 20 to 30 range for this week or 20 to 29 range, I guess more specifically. But it's noteworthy that in these past three years, we've obviously had 10 golfers each year in the bottom 10, just two of those guys have actually climbed inside the top 10. So it's not necessarily a week where you're going to get a lot of value out of those guys starting at even par or one under. So that's kind of some key takeaways here from the format of the event. But as for the course itself, Eastlake, it's going to reward driving accuracy. It's got narrow fairways and the rough is pretty problematic. Once you do miss it, Data Golfs course table lists Eastlake with the second narrowest in the fifth, second narrowest fairways in fifth most penal rough that we get on tour. That's over like 78 courses since about 2016 or so. But it is one of the easier places to put. So I think that kind of levels the playing field in some capacity based on the research I've done, but it's there's a lot of variance with putting either way. Irons are going to matter. So, you know, what are the key stats that we should be looking for? I would say stroking it off the tee in one capacity or the other, whether you gain distance or accuracy, you can kind of get a little bit of a leg up. You still want iron play because you need to score the gross scores that one so the best 72 goals course have been 1800, 1900 and 17 under the past three years while these guys have played in the modified format. So still going to need to make some birdies. This is not about just saving par. So someone like Scottie Schaeffler shooting even par four rounds is not going to get it done. So all these guys are going to be a little bit aggressive. So birdie or better rate is well along with those two ball striking stats are really the key stats for me this week. And I think the birdie or better gain birdie or birdies are better gained birdie or better rate, whatever you want to go with is especially important for golfers who don't have like the best starting squirks. You need to make sure they have upside to be mobile from where they're starting going back to the off the tee stuff you mentioned going back to last year looking at golfers who gained the strokes on the field versus those who lost the ones who gained their average ranking for the fullest pgh or season and driving distance 55 average distance average rank for those who lost strokes and distance 67 for accuracy it was 92 for those who gained 88 for those who lost. So that could make you think that it's a distance course, but to back up what Brandon said those who gained strokes their average ranking and stroking out the tee for the full year was 31st average ranking for stroking off the tee for those who lost 66th. So I think that that makes it very, very, very clear and very obvious. We need to prioritize stroking off the tee by whatever means necessary. I don't care if you're accurate. I don't care if you're long. I just want you to gain strokes. And I think that's kind of what you were looting to. We can shade towards accuracy because it does matter, but just gaining strokes. I don't care the route you get to go in there. So to me, I want guys who are good off the tee. I want guys who can make birdies. Obviously that's going to lean us towards just the best golfers, but it doesn't be that more much more complicated than that, honestly. Yeah, the tougher the field the and especially in a no cut event which produces invariance, you want better golfers. That's just the reality that we face. This is not a low tier PGA tour event with no studs in it, where things get crazy and it's really, really hard to predict. I'm not saying this is so easy to predict that I know who's going to win, although it's about 30 plus percent like that it's got each other, but it's just it's similar to a major where the the best are going to separate and they're already separated before this thing even tees off because they just were the best for a full season and so they earned PGA or FedEx Cup points. So yeah, and that is how it is. We'll talk about what that means. We'll talk about who we're keying in on and some past optimals to get a read on this unique format in just one second at first. Hey, college football fans, the 2022 season is about to kick off and Fanduola and DiGiorno are joining forces to make your college football Saturdays that much more exciting. Introducing the Saturday Slice Challenge presented by DiGiorno, a free-to-play daily fantasy football contest centered around Saturday's biggest college football games. 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Yeah, so these three lineups are posted in my helper on numberfire.com. I would recommend you check that out because it's hard to talk about 18 different golfers and see where they started, see where they finished, that kind of stuff. But the key takeaways from these past three optimal lineups, obviously, you have the three winners because you need to have the winner in every lineup, but especially whenever you have fewer and fewer chances to outperform the winner with other golfers. You're going to see the winner here, but these reflect ultimately the top 10. We've had 18 golfers and just one finished outside the top 10. That was McKenzie Hughes back in 2020 when he finished 14th. That year though, Dustin Johnson, again, we can get into this anytime you'd like, Jim, held on to win. Yeah, he did. And I called it. Bold call by Jim. Well done. But his salary was $14,400 that year. And that's not what we see this year. But if you require $14,400 in salary for the winner, the guy who's earning the most fandal points, it speaks to, you're more likely to have someone who was just 14th, just sort of good, not great. Hughes started even part of that year. So that goes a good climb from the bottom five that year. But in the other two years when we've had more realistic, more comparable salaries for the, just the highest salary golfer, the guys who ended up winning, the entire lineup did finish inside the top 10. Again, to go back to something I mentioned before, not a whole lot of golfers climb from the bottom 10 in the standings to the top 10. Yes, there's only 30 golfers, but they're all good. Aside from, I mean, they're all great, obviously, a few of these names that we know are not necessarily in the same tier. It's like the mid tier this week. So you really are going to have a hard time finding the right value play. That being said, each of the three optimals has had effectively a minimum or near minimum salary golfer. In 2019, we had Chezz Revy at $7,100, make the cut. McKenzie Hughes again, minimum salary finished 14th. That was a bit of an outlier year. But then last year, we had Billy Horschel finish 9th starting at even par. He was minimum salary, but also Kevin Naugh, who tied for the top gross scorer with John Rom. He was $7,800. That was his salary. He started $200 par. But again, you're looking at kind of outlier performances with Revy finishing inside the top 10 back in 2019. Hughes probably doesn't really apply necessarily. And then last year, you effectively had an outlier performance where Kevin Naugh was, he had the best overall score tied with John Rom, and then Billy Horschel finishing 9th was enough. So it is definitely more top and bottom heavy. It's definitely not a balanced build. And the reason for that primarily is because you need to have the winner. You need to have second place. You really need to have third place to have enough fantasy points to take down a tournament even in head to heads. You want that upside. So I'm going, based on this, I'm definitely going much more top and bottom heavy than I typically would. Going balanced is probably not going to get you enough win equity overall to get those really, really high scoring lineups. I think the way that I would think about this is if you're thinking about a lower salary golfer like a Horschel last year or Hughes or whatever it may be, I know this would not be the case with Hughes, but ask yourself, do they have the upside and the juice to finish top 10? That's kind of what you need from a golfer in that range. Can they get enough birdies to make up ground and finish top 10 from where they're starting? Whereas if it's a guy on the higher end of the scale, can they win? That's kind of what you're looking at there. So ask yourself those questions because that's what you need in order to have a winning Escalada. If you don't think like, let's say you're looking at someone, let's go with Kim Hoon Lee. He's $7,000 minimum salary. Ask yourself, can KH Lee get a top 10 and use those top 10 odds to decide if you want to use them or not. I could ask that same question there and wise and say, yeah, I think you can finish top 10. So I'm okay using Aaron Wise. But that's the question, the thought process you want to go through in terms of identifying whether or not a golfer is worth your time from a DFS perspective. Also, I would say, I did this a lot in NASCAR, but just play the assumption game, pick an assumed winner. Like wherever you think you'll win and put them in your lineup. I don't care where they're starting. I don't care their salary. You put them in your lineup no matter where they may be. Pretty good chances as you've alluded to that that's Scotty Schaeffler. His salary, I don't think it's high enough to account for the advantage he gets in terms of starting strokes. So pick your assumed winner, ask yourself if the lower salary guys have the juice to finish top 10 and use those guiding lights as a way to fill out your lineups. Are you okay with that being kind of like the nuts and bolts takeaways here? I mean, yeah, you need the winner any week. If you don't have the winner this week, it's not going to be particularly great. But that's also with Schaeffler specifically, or we're saying like, okay, well, I don't think Schaeffler wins, but then you also have to say, is he going to finish outside the top five? Is he going to be that bad this week? Very unlikely. So this is kind of a week where you can play the chalk, you can play the favorite and have him not win because you can still hit the winner and have Schaeffler in your lineup because the salary of 12.9 is definitely not like that prohibitive. But yeah, I think that makes sense for this week especially. Okay, so keep that in mind when you're filling things out. Check out the starting scores and stuff like that and ask yourself those questions. As you're filling out your lineup, let's dig into course history here at Eastlake and we're doing this through the lens of total strokes gained because again, finishing position is tainted based on the starting strokes. You could look at Sony 2 whole scoring, which is kind of what we're doing here anyway. But let's dig into golfers who have excelled at Eastlake in the past and Brandon, I feel like this is made for you because the headliner is going to be your boy Xander Schaeffler and nobody else really that close. What has Xander done to be so good at this place? Yeah, so if you look at just total strokes gained at Eastlake according to Fantasy National as far back as their database goes, we see Xander Schaeffler over 20 rounds gained 1.9 strokes per round on the field. That is by far number one. Roy McElroy is next up at a 1.29. But Xander in this modified format has finished a runner up twice in fifth over the past three years. He won an outright in 2017, which is obviously great to see, but he also had the lowest score in 2020. So effectively like two 72 whole wins for Xander if you look at it from that perspective. So he's like the number one guy, but that's also very much reflected in his betting odds for this week. I think he's a little bit pushed to his brink in terms of value because of how well he's played here, but also the form that he's in. And obviously he's just one of the best golfers on the planet. But Roy McElroy, again, did come from behind at 500 back in 2019 to win this year. He's starting 400. Does have another name out of the field in front of him in Rosalatoris. And I think a key this week is something that Jack Nicholas mentioned when like talking about the masters. It's not really so much how many strokes you're behind, it's how many guys are in front of you. And I'm not again, not really saying like this is Augusta and this is like the same pressure, but it makes sense because it's not necessarily that that Rory can't overcome a six shot deficit. It's like, how many guys are in front of him? How many, how many people do these guys have to like run down? But then also you give Patrick Cantlay, like let's say Scotty Shaffler falls back and we're playing that narrative. We're locking that in like Patrick Cantlay has four shots on Rory as well. So like it's kind of how many names that are in front of a particular golfer for this week. But yeah, Rory created these like two outright wins for him. Justin Thomas, I think could be a little bit of a forgotten guy. Obviously finished as well over on the FedEx Cup standings. But over the past three years, he has finished top four in each of the uh, tour championships and he is actually third in outright total strokes gained average at this course. John Rom is also, you know, fared well at this course. He's gaining 0.9 strokes, but Billy Horschel was actually above him at a 1.0 over his 20 rounds. So I think it's a pretty interesting list where it's kind of the usual suspects, the guys who have played here plenty because obviously you have to be good enough to play here. We do see a few names that have not performed particularly well at this course. Joachim Nieman is one that jumps out. But I'm kind of writing that off because I like Nieman and I want to hear, I want to justify what I want to do. So his iron play wasn't very good and either of his starts, he also didn't put particularly well. And we know that Joachim Nieman at his peak and sort of what we expect from Nieman is that the irons are good. So it's very possible that this course is just doesn't fit his eye. But it's a matter of current form versus course form and current form always wins out. So, I mean, it's kind of a lot to get into here. I can rattle off the guys who haven't played here. But I think that the real standout is that Rory and Xander are probably the guys who will get the most attention. But that Justin Thomas and John Rom and obviously, or also like Victor Hoff and Scottish chef have played here well, but they're not going to get that kind of same level of attention in terms of East Lake form. Justin Thomas's odds are currently locked on Fandle. I'm not sure why. A little concerning, I guess we'll check back on that later. I don't think anything happened, but just caught my attention. But if you're looking for a way to be different without being dumb while getting exposure to a guy who has been good here, that could be your guy, JT, in that department. Let's dig into some current form and talk about some golfers who have been on the rise as of late. You're going to look at data golf and what their numbers are saying. Who's popping in terms of current form entering East Lake? Yeah. So just over the past three months, according to data golf's true strokes game query, we have Rory McElroy sitting number one at a plus 2.83. Next up is Tony Fienow at a plus 2.57. So it's a pretty sizable gap for Rory over anyone else. And then there's another name in that tier at a plus 2.47 on that Sander Shuffle. Then it drops down to a 2.21 with Matt Fitzpatrick. So not only do we have the East Lake narrative for Rory and Sander, they are just statistically over the past three months, two of the three standout plays. Tony Fienow though, pretty interesting. I don't think he's going to get as much attention as he probably deserves. I believe his odds have actually, I think he's lengthened despite the withdrawal yet. So I had Tony Fienow at one point on Monday at 16 to one early on. He is now 20 to one. Despite the Will's Albatross withdrawal, basically everyone else shortened. He did not. He lengthened. I think that's very fascinating for this week. That could be a name to monitor for DFS tournaments again. We're going to be looking for ways to get different without being silly and playing the guy who's in the second best form over the past three months. Three months is not as predictive as 12 months by any means, but it's also Tony Fienow that his long-term form is. This is not just a fluke that he's playing well. It's a little bit fluke that he's playing this well, but really interesting name there. And then to round out the top five or six here, again, Matt Fitzpatrick, I think, might get a little bit forgotten. It's been a minute since he's been at the forefront of everyone's minds. But then Patrick Cantley and Scotty Schaeffler right there just below those guys around a 2.05-ish for both of those guys. And so you give them shots on the field. It's no wonder that their odds are shortening and were shortening even before the Will's Albatross withdrawal. And then the last thing that I'll mention here that's really, really fascinating, Cam Smith. He is still at a 2.02. And we saw him withdraw before last week with his name, yes, amongst some rumors, but apparently had a hip issue. I think it was a hip issue. But if he's going to tee it up this week, you think he's healthy enough. And so I would say my model, which I don't adjust for like potential injury scare, my model shows value on Cam Smith. If you think he's healthy, if you think he just kind of withdrew last week to get out of the heat, he would be, you know, a Cam Smith, Tony Fienal combo seems like it would be very, very, very smart for this week. Why do you think Fienal lengthened, despite having the withdrawal? Because like that's a lot of win equity. You said 9% for his odd towards that's a lot of win equity to open up and have someone like Fienal lengthen. It's, it's, I would say it's just odd. I do think it's odd. I can't quite put my finger on it because his recent form obviously is fantastic with how he's played. It's, I'm not saying I love Tony Fienal, but if I'm going to let game theory dictate a lot of stuff this week, and if we can roster Tony Fienal at 11-5, while everyone else is just enamored with the other names, I think that's probably what it comes down to, right? It sort of has to is everyone else has been bet down, you know, Sheffler is now two to one, Patrick Cannelly plus 380, Zander went from eight to one to six and a half, Rory's down, John Rom's down, Justin Thomas down as well, 26 to 20. So I think that, yeah, if I was ranking this, what, like seven names there, I would rank Fienal last. So it's probably just a matter of that, I would guess. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. And they're trying to get action people. It makes sense that they would lengthen. I don't think it's a red flag in terms of anything, but noteworthy for sure, in terms of potentially finding someone who may go a bit overlooked. Speaking of those odd, let's dig into what the bookmakers are saying for this week based on the as a fangirl sports book, Scottie Sheffler is now two to one to win this event. He is the favorite Patrick Cannelly starting at eight under is plus 380. We got Zander Sheffler plus six, 50, followed by Rory McIlroy, nine to one, John Rom is 14 to one. Then we have four guys at 20 to one, depending on where Justin Thomas reopens. He was 20 to one. Tony Fienow is also there with Sam Burns and Cameron Smith. Sung Jae M, did not discuss him yet. He is the final guy in that top tier. He is 27 to one, followed by methods Patrick at 33 to one. So Brandon, how are you viewing Sheffler versus Cannelly? Do you view Cannelly as being a worthwhile pivot off of Sheffler? Given the way things shake out, do you want to jam in both potentially? How are you viewing those two guys at the top of the player pool? So I have them combined now with Zalatoris out. And again, with these strokes applied, about 50% likely combined to win. I would very strongly say that in our head to head, I will play both of them, especially because we're kicking out Zalatoris from the consideration set and he was seven under. So we'll be looking at Sheffler's two-stroke lead over Cannelly, but now Cannelly has a two-stroke lead over everyone but Scotty Sheffler. So that's really, really enticing. Well, the one question I would ask is, I think the answer to this is yes, but can both these guys pay off without, with one of them guaranteed not to win? Yeah, because if the other finishes second. And so it's not like they're both, if Sheffler and Cannelly were like, let's say, Sheffler was 14,000, Cannelly was 13, five, and then everyone else was kind of where they are. It'd be a little bit harder. Correct. That's what I wanted to do on, was I think, I don't think their salaries are high enough for us to be worried about the loft, like the concept that one of them will not win if we use both. Yeah, so I think it comes down to salary from that perspective. And really what's going to happen is that the names that are most overvalued, again, the bottom 10 guys don't have a lot of upside in terms of top 10 odds. So you don't have to go just clinging to like complete minimum salary, but the guys who are going to be sort of most overvalued is like the mid tier, because they're not going to win. They're going to, let's say, in the theory, in the exercise where Sheffler, Cannelly, one of those guys wins, the mid guys aren't going to win, but they also might not climb enough to sort of outperform the names just below them. So I hope that's not confusing, but if the upper 8,000 or low 9,000 guys don't come through and win, there's probably not a whole lot of difference between them and the low 8,000s and upper 7s, because the finishing position is going to be pretty bunched up between the two. So that's kind of how I would view it. Yeah, I'd agree with that as well. Okay, which golfer's odds have shifted most notably? Obviously, the Zalatoris withdrawal kind of, there was everything in a blender, but what's been the most noteworthy women outside of the FINA one we already discussed? Yeah, I would say with Xander already at 8, for him to shorten even more to six and a half, I would say jumps out as noteworthy. That's a pretty steep number for, look, it's Xander. I love him. I think combined, we both love Xander, but he went from not winning, but being kind of overvalued or valued as much as a favorite to falling back down the odds board eventually, then he started winning. And now he's like a pretty heavy favorite for where he's starting. That's pretty substantial to me. Sam Burns not moving from 20 to one, I think is noteworthy. So any guys who are relative favorites and did not shorten or lengthen, or I guess shorten, I should say, noteworthy. Sam Burns that I think makes some sense this week, he is someone who will get glossed over, but he's starting at 5 under. So we have, obviously, Schaeffler at 10 under, Cantley at 8 under, Xander at 6 under, and then it's Sam Burns alone at 5 under. Sam Burns can go out and win in this kind of field. I think he's kind of appealing, but it is noteworthy that he did not shorten, but also that he did not lengthen. And then I will say the last three names that kind of really jumped out to me, Cam Young 33 to 41, pretty surprising. I think he's an interesting name for this week. He has field leading opportunities, gain numbers, according to Fantasy National, over the past 50 rounds, he can definitely go low. So he's a name that I find interesting, although I don't necessarily say there's value on him at 41 to 1, with him starting at 3 under, that there's still a lot of names above him. And then the two other that I wanted to get to, Colin Morricala and Joaquin Neiman, 50 to 1 to 65 to 1, kind of different games off the tee. But if we want a course that rewards accuracy, good iron play is kind of easy to put on. Colin Morricala has been drawing my attention. The issue, especially in terms of outright betting, is that he's starting at 1 under. So that's problematic. But the salary of 97 is also kind of elevated for me, starting at 1 under. So he's a name that I think is at least appealing or interesting to think about if he can hit all the fairways and then just hit all the greens. Yeah. And we even talked about him in a while, it feels like. So pretty much off the radar for other people as well. Which golfers with lower salaries have odds to stand out to you? Yeah. So if I just make the cutoff 9,500 in terms of Fandall's salary, the names with the best odds are Joaquin Neiman and Jordan Spieth at 65 to 1. Spieth also a name that we haven't mentioned. He's probably not someone I'm going to be enticed by, even at a salary of 9,300. Corey Connors, Hideki Matsuyama, Scott Stallings all 95 to 1. They are in the upper 8s with Connors right at 9,000. And then Max Homa and Sepp Straka are 100 to 1. Of those names, I like Neiman, Connors, and Homa kind of a lot. And I will say one of the most, I think I've probably used the word intriguing like three times in the past two minutes, but one of the most intriguing plays is Sepp Straka because he does start at four under, but he also is probably not deserving of being like for what he's done. Yes. But if you prognosticate from here, I don't know if that's enough to like say he's going to hang on to that. So he might jump out to people as well. He's starting at four under his salary is only 83. So obviously, there's like some value there. I think he might be like the biggest trap play of the week. Where the value is not there and he ends up finishing toward the bottom of the player pool despite starting at four under. Yeah, Straka $8,300, which like you said, is pretty low for where he's starting. But outside of the past two weeks, not a whole lot there. I will say that his ball strike in the past two weeks has been good. So it's like at least he does support the good finishes, but before that it was hideous. So Straka's probably not a name I'll be turning to either. Whether for this week, it's actually pretty wet throughout the day on Thursday. The first tee time is not until 1125. I think 1145 is the first tee time. That's right around when the rain picks up. So it's going to be wet for everyone, I would assume on Thursday. And the DDD, the rain, they're going to go an inch, like it's going to rain pretty hard. The problem is the guys seeing that rain are the guys who are starting out at the bottom of the odds pool because they're going to reverse order. So like the guys starting at even are going to tee off first while Cantley, Schaefer will tee off later on. So the guys who are going to get the worst of the rain are going to be the ones at the bottom end of the leaderboard. So not sure much of a takeaway this really is. Thursday or Friday is a bit more normal. And then we get no wind at all throughout the weekend. So keep in mind that those with the really tee times Thursday may get the brunt of the weather before the rain starts to chill out a bit. Maybe that means they just start later. But just keep that in mind for this week. Nothing I would say in terms of impactful takeaways for the weather. So with that said, let's dive into our player picks here for the tour championship based on the salaries at FanDuel.com. Brandon, who are you turning to at the top of your pool for this week? I mean, it has to be Scotty Schaefer. The salary is just not prohibitive enough to gloss over him. The real game theory play is saying Schaefer is not going to win. But Schaefer, his like top five thoughts are crazy. It's like, I don't want to miss speak, but it was very short. I'll look them up in a second here. But I think Schaefer is just too good of a play not to talk about first. He is, you know, obviously having that two-shot lead over Cantley, but then now four shots over anyone other than Cantley with Zander at minus six. The next best score. He's a good putter on Bermuda. Obviously one of the better birdie makers that we have on the planet. And despite being long off the tee, he's got about average accuracy, which will come in handy this week. So I think he should probably just be able to hit fairways when he needs to, you know, gain distance when he can, use those irons to, you know, get himself into position. And he can weirdly play it safe, but also be a little bit aggressive when he needs, like when he needs to be or is allowed to be. So it's really hard to see Schaefer falling substantially, especially because he is always in the mix somehow, some way. So you give him that kind of a lead. Yes, you have to account for the unexpected, but I don't know what, what happens to Scotty Schaefer for him to finish like six or seventh this week. I don't think he's ever played that poorly over the past year to finish that, like that bad this week. The top five odds you mentioned minus 340, which is 77.3% implied odds, pretty high. And you talked about during the optimal section, the importance of finishing position, even if it's not first, finishing position matters a lot. So I think Schaefer has to be your top guy. I don't think the seller is high enough to dissuade you from that. And I think he's kind of somehow undervalued this week. He ranks third in birdies are better gained. He ranks fourth in approach to pass it to rounds per fan. It's national decent on Bermuda. He and Rory McElroy lead the field in true strokes gained the past six months. So the form is great. Stats are great. Started positions great. Odds are great. I find nothing to push back on with Schaefer. I do agree with you that I want Cantley and Schaefer in a cash game lineup and five for tournaments too. Maybe you get a bit more, I think I'd rather do it in a cash game than a tournament, but I like it for both. I think that's where I'm at for this week. Who else do you like in the open? Well, doing that gives you 8600 left for your four golfers and easy. It might feel like you're foregoing upside, but again, you're getting like 45 to 50% of the win equity with those two. So just do it. Yep, I agree. And you're getting four strokes, six strokes over everybody else in the field combined because Schaefer has four strokes over everyone not named Cantley. Cantley has two strokes over everybody else. You're getting six strokes over everybody else. That does matter quite a bit. Who else do you like here in this upper range? Alexander at 12, four. He's probably going to be a bit chalky. I would probably feel pretty safe saying he'll be more popular than he deserves to be because people will try to get different without going just for Schaefer and Cantley and that Xander's played Eastlake so well. Honestly, when I think of a golfer who needs to be accurate, but also long, I think of Xander because he just is so balanced off the tee. The irons are fantastic when you adjust for field strength and recency. Great putter, great underlying putting data. He's got the no-cut narrative. So I think that Xander is going to be chalky, yes, but there's really not a reason to dislike him. Yeah, I think that Xander makes a lot of sense at 12, four. My second high seller guy is Cam Smith assuming that he's healthy, assuming that he stays in the field here. But the thought process is we're giving Roy McElroy a lot of steam justifiably. He starts at four under. Cam Smith is also four under, but he's $1,200 lower salaried than McElroy is this week. Smith ranks second in approach, second in birdies are better gained, first in Bermuda Pying, and he's been at Eastlake the past two years, didn't golf that well, bit below average in both those, lost strokes in the field in both those, but he's 10-9. We know what he can be and what better send off potentially, allegedly, for Cam Smith from the PGA Tour than to go in that bag. So just tumbled down, baby. Get all that cash. I think that Cam Smith is a really intriguing tournament play. You look back at those optimals. There were a lot of guys in the four and five stroke range who wound up popping in optimals. If you assume that Cantley falters or Schaeffler falters, one of those guys falters, that's a lot of room for these guys to move up. So I like Cantley as my number two for cash games. I might go Cam Smith as my number two for tournaments for this week, even though it is very risky due to the potential alleged hip injury. What's your read on Can Smith from a DFS perspective this week? Yeah. I mean, it's there's some risk, allegedly, with the injury. You know, I hope he's not hurt, you know, but if he's going to tee up this week and play like Cam Smith, he's a fantastic value. He is not getting nearly as much buzz as the other golfers that we named. Obviously, Xander and McElroy being the super chalk, especially on Fandle with how the salaries sort of break out. I think that's noteworthy, but there are plenty of ways to pivot. I would say Justin Thomas, Tony Finau, probably the two. I mean, it's such a good field. All these golfers are great, but I would say like JT, Finau and John Rahm probably not going to be as popular as they should be. So if you're looking for pivot options, you have plenty, but process wise, I think we feel pretty safe in the top two guys being the top two guys. And then from there, would you agree that Xander and Rory are like three and four process wise? Process wise, yes. For DFS though, probably not. Just because I think that I agree with your read that they'll probably be like crazy, crazy chops. I think I'd probably go Cam or JT next in terms of DFS for tournaments, because that's what we're talking about here. JT would be my first sort of preferred pivot. Yep. I agree with that as well. Who do you like in the mid-range this week? Victor Hovland, salaries 9,600. He's starting two under, just another one of those guys who I think of when I think of like, who's long off the tee, but also not just sprang it everywhere, and so he fits there. Also, I think his putting gets a bad rap because the chipping we know is so bad. So people lump that I was like overall short game, but he's got like great putting stats, great underlying putting data based on his distances. And he was T5 here last year. He's gained strokes in all three tee to green stats in both of the starts here. So I think he's set up for climbing into the top 10, but I guess like top eight-ish. So I think Hovland is really a name to watch this week. Do you like Hovland? I think that he makes a lot of sense here. My approach though is that if I'm going to be like, if I'm going to go with the Ken Smith approach, where I have a bit more salary flexibility, I want to use that on Matt Fitzpatrick at 10-1. If it's Patrick, also like Hovland fits the gain strokes without being short, what'd I say? We're talking about Fitz. You said Fitz. Yeah, he's Fitz. Oh, he fits Fitz. I get it. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Fitz fits that approach of finding guys who gain strokes in large part via accuracy without being short. And he's starting here at three under. Fitzpatrick ranks fourth in the field in True Stokes game in the past six months. This is his first trip to Eastlake. So no course experience here, but that's kind of the only red flag I've gotten. Fitzpatrick right now. He's $10,100. Also, I will be in the UK during this event, watching Northwestern play and Matt Fitzpatrick from the UK ish. I think I don't know. Whatever. I don't know the UK works. Went to Northwestern. I feel like Narrative Street says I've got a ride with Matt. He fits this week just because of that, right? It's geography, international politics. You can just save just a lot of time and just say like, I'm going to, I went to Northwestern so I'm going to play Matt Fitzpatrick. But there are other reasons, right? Do you like him or no? I don't dislike him. I mean, frankly, there might be like three or four names in this field I don't like because it's such a good field. But yeah, I mean, it's fine with Fitz. I just don't know specifically if I'll be there. And I think I'd probably prefer Cam Young. Okay. That's fair. From a true upside standpoint. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. Who else do you like in the mid-range? Joaquin Nieman. The reason for that is it is not a lie. I started to eat more avocado. So I like Joaquin Nieman this way. So I feel like my reason was better. Bad history at Eastlake. I think that might get people a little bit off of Nieman who's starting 200. It's out of 9,500. But yeah, finished 27th and 29th at the Tour Championship in his two starts. So it's possible. It's just not good for him. But 83rd percent, our time with percentiles, because it's just 30 golfers this week, but 83rd percentile and adjusted Tee to Green this week. It's like the one week where ranks probably make more sense. But great Tee to Green golfer. We know that good putter, he's just got a great all-around game and someone who can go on birdie runs. I've got Nieman too. I think you mentioned this maybe last week or whatever the last Bermuda event was. But Nieman's numbers on Bermuda are really, really good right now. He ranks fifth on Bermuda the past 50 rounds, which is really nice. Gain strokes off the Tee. He can be accurate when he needs to. So yeah, the history at Eastlake is pretty concerning. But I also don't care. Do you prefer Nieman or Hovland this week? Don't make me pick. I'm making you pick. That's the whole point of asking a question, Brandon. Because I like them both. I think I'd go, I'd go Hovland. You want to specifically trust the putter more? Sure. Yes. We got one. I forgot to ask earlier about any of them. So we'll do this one. Two guys I love. My two loves you made me pick against one of them. That's the whole point. I want to make you strain. Again, I don't get to like, we don't have a PGA podcast for this. I got to make you squeam, squirm a bit. Sweam, sweamish, squirmish. Got to make you squirm a bit. Is that a word? Yeah, it is, right? Squirm. Yeah, right? That doesn't sound like a word. Squirm, squirm, squirm. Anyway, low salary. Who are the values you like this week? That's HOMA 84 starting two under. If you look at the stabilization rate numbers for HOMA, they're good there. He's really good with driver long, but also accurate enough. And honestly, a really good putter and on Bermuda as well. I don't know if there's like substantial top five upside starting at two under, but he can finish inside the top 10 at 84. I can envision that happening. And so HOMA for me, definitely someone I'm targeting this week. I do like HOMA as well and might wind up on him in our head to head potentially. I like him that much, but the guy I went with here is Scott Stallings. He'll start three under, so one stroke ahead of HOMA, $8,800. I think that's a good combo. Stallings, eighth and approach, tenth and birdies are better gained. Sixth and Bermuda putting the past 50 rounds and enters with really nice form, even against tougher fields that have gotten tougher. He's not going to pick up off the tee, but the rest of the profile is pretty solid for Stallings. And then even 88, what's your unit on Scott Stallings for this week? Probably don't see enough there. I'm going to put you down then because you cannot argue this. If you like Scott Stallings more than Max HOMA, even at $400 more in salary, you have to take a bet and I'm the one eating $400 in salary. That's fine. Look at how generous I am, giving you a head to head that you're begging for. Look at how generous I am. Wow. I'm surprised. So you like Stallings more than HOMA? A little bit, yeah. Yeah. It's a huge gap, but I like HOMA. I just like Stallings a bit more. Why not? Okay. We have that one, right? That head to head. Okay. So we have Neiman versus Havan. I have Neiman, you have Havan, and then I've got Stallings. You've got HOMA. We might get a head to head in our final value plays as well. Who are you also liking the value tier? Can we get a head to head out of this one? Is this a joke? Yes. Because it's Aaron Wise. We both have Aaron Wise as our final pick. Aaron Wise versus Aaron Wise is a battle I would pay to watch. Yeah. He started even par, so we've got to keep those expectations in check. But one of the biggest expected regression candidates with the putter, he's gone on Bermuda, field average T-degree numbers, despite being in a low salary of 7600, I think that Wise is the best play in the 7000 range. If you're looking for someone who can climb up the leaderboard a bit, see someone that I'm probably locking into cash game lineups for this week. I have Wise there as well. I think the downsides of starting at even par are obvious, but he can dig out of a hole. 11th and stroking out the tee, 7th in approach, 13th in Bermuda putting, and as you mentioned, potentially do for some regression there as well. Not as many birdies do you like. Maybe that's part of the putting regression that could come, but 15th in true strokes gained. He's 25th in salary. I think he'll score well, and if he does that, he can get some finishing points too. 7600 dollars. I like Wise a lot for this week at 76. He will be in our head-to-head lineup for this week. Very okay with him. Any other guys you want to mention as being like value plays? Because honestly, below Wise, I don't mind a horchlet at 78. I think that's fine. But below Wise, I have a tougher time getting super jasmine anybody else in the 7000 range. They could be viable, but I'm not going to be excited about it. Same here. It'd be Horschel, the second name in the 7000 tier for me, but if people are wondering, well, we've seen someone in this low, low 7000s make the optimals in the past. Who was it most likely to be this year? If I had to pick someone below, Aaron Wise, between C. Cigala, Brian Harman, Tom Hogan, J.T. Poston, and K.H. Lee, that's going to be Brian Harman for me. He is starting one under. He's accurate off the tee. Good putter. I think that he has a chance to go clown with the leaderboard a little bit for this week. Let's finish up here with Winpix. Here's the scenario for this week. I am leading by four and a half units entering the final event. We each pick two winners each week, the way this works. I'm up 4.5 units. The way things break down right now, both Scottie Scheffer and Patrick Kamler are shorter than plus 450, which means if Brandon picks them and they win, I would still win, which means you basically can't pick them, and there's no incentive for me to pick them. There is a lot of incentive for me to pick Xander Schoffler and Rory McElroy. I'm just going to do that. I'm going to take them. It's not the gentlemanly thing to do, but I want to win because you already beat me in the bobble hat. I know I'm losing that. I don't want to go 0-2. That means I am leaving you, John Rom, Tony Finau, Justin Thomas, Ken Smith. There are routes to you winning this thing still on the board. Who are you picking, knowing that I'm taking Xander and Rory? Yeah, so I can't take what my model has. 66.7% combined win equity between those four. That's 33% of the time you beat me. You have a 0-1 third chance. I appreciate it, but that doesn't quite work that way. That was dumb of me. I will skate. All right. Don't you wish I were your bookmaker right now? I will have to go, okay. I will have to go Sam Burns starting at 5-under. And then I think it only makes sense. I think Rom could do it, but he's starting 3-under. So it's really between Cam Smith and Sung J.M. And I will go, the real chaos play would be Cam Smith. So I'll go Cam Smith. So you're not taking GT? He's starting 3-under. Yeah, but like, you know, it's GT. And what's John Rom too? I mean, that's true. Okay. So your picks are Rom and Sung J, correct? Or no, it's Cam Smith. Sorry. Sam Burns. And you know what? I'll go GT over Cam. Oh no, if he wins, I'm gonna run it forever. I just talked you into Justin freaking Thomas. Well, I mean, he's starting 3-under. The better play. See, I have Cam Smith, and this is like the worst way to end this picks for the year, because I'm trying to factor in like, I can't take the four best plays. Correct. But I'm gonna lock in Burns because he's 5-under, and then I'm gonna... Who do you want me to play? I'm not gonna answer that question. That is a way for me to regret everything from now on. No, absolutely not. No. I will... I'll do the ELMO Fire Emoji for Pure Chaos, and I will say Cam Smith, final answer. Okay. When do you occasionally have people who listen, usually Oliver, who will photoshop things? I want either the ELMO Fire Emoji with Brandon's face over it, or with Cam Smith and his mullet over it. You choose. If we have any like photoshop like talented people, graphic design is your passion out there listening. I would like an ELMO Fire Meme with either Brandon's face or Cam Smith, maybe both who can say. But I think that that's what I want. So, Cam Smith, Sam Burns, final answer, correct? Yes. If Cam Smith were to withdraw because of his hip, or back, whatever it is, his hip, his back, who do you want is your backup? I'll let you pick a backup here. I would go JT then. I will also let that stand, even if Smith withdraws during the event. I'm fine with that. You're a nice guy. Yeah, I know. That's what we're here. But if Smith plays three of the four rounds, he's in. Locked in. Sound good? Sounds great. Fair compromise. All right, since I was a dick, I took Xander and Rory from you. That's all that we have here for this week. Brandon, any final words of wisdom for the good people before they go off to fill out their lineups and their photoshop this week? It's a game theory heavy week. Yes, you can get, you will have a less likely to be duplicated lineup if you fade both Schaeffler and Cantley. But I don't think that the odds are, you're banking on pure disaster for two of the most consistent best golfers on the planet. They really have to fall outside the top five for that strategy to work. So think long and hard about how you want to approach that. You definitely have to play both together. But, you know, you can be different in other ways. You can play a Justin Thomas, a John Rahm, a Sung JM, as opposed to just all the chalk. You can fade Xander and Rory to be different. But, you know, it's a, it's a, as you mentioned at the top of the show, it's a week where you can get a leg up if you take the extra step, think a little bit longer about how this week can play out. Yeah. I think that as DFS players, if you're plugged in, you're trying, you're putting thought in, you're going to have a leg up in events like this. So it's a good week to play some DFS. Hopefully good week for betting. Hopefully not a good week for Ken Smith and Sam Burns, but we'll see how that, I'm sorry guys. Like I just, I need to win this. I need it pretty badly. We'll see how that goes. The plan for us on the podcast here as Brandon will still be doing the podcast during the fall, during the start of NFL season, flying solo. I'll be back sometime. Depends on what my schedule looks like with covering the spread being daily, but we will still have PGA podcast during the NFL season, all right here on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. So find that wherever you get your podcast and subscribe to get our NFL, MLB, UFC, NASCAR podcast, all in the same place at the same time. We appreciate those of you who have listened to us throughout this year. Brandon, if people have questions for you on Twitter, where can they find you there? I'm at Godel 13, GDULA13. And I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. We'll be back with you to talk NFL week one, the two of us together outside of our spots and covering the spread back with you together to talk NFL week one in a couple of weeks. That's crazy to say. We'll talk to you all then. Good luck with the tour championship. Have fun, enjoy the golf, and hopefully go win yourself some cash. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.