 What is crack-a-laden, everybody? Welcome on into the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire, that is right here on the Fanduel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com, where today, we are getting you set for the RBC Heritage that is this weekend, letting you know our favorite golfers for PGA DFS. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here as always by Brandon Canilla. He is the managing editor for NumberFire. Brandon, we are heading out to Hilton Head this weekend for event number two in the post COVID-19 layoff. We have one week in the books, my issues with finding golfers who make the cut. Still, still there despite the layoff. How are you doing? I shouldn't, I guess like I'm surprised that you're here, honestly. Yeah, I mean, not only am I a big Xander guy, I bet Xander, obviously, which I do pretty much every week. And I also bet- He's not in the field? That will still put five bucks on it. Oh, I had an outright on calling more a cow as well. And I was talking about, I really want to find one of these young guys who kind of figures it out. And I mean, his iron play was amazing. And so, I mean, it's tough to have two amazing shots in one week to win outright. And have neither of them pan out because you can look at it one of two ways. One is like, oh, I was close. So I'm probably on to something. Or it was like, I already kind of pinpointed two guys who almost won and that's very hard to do. Maybe it's- But you could be close to pinpointing it and win and get the money in addition to feeling good. Yeah. Because I mean, even if it was like, if Xander won, who I got at shorter odds that it wasn't as big of a win as with more cow, I'd be like, whatever. So it's a win. Can't complain. But to walk away from having more cow in Xander and end up empty-handed is pretty painful. But I can only imagine how they feel. I felt really bad because I like, I think I jinxed Xander. I mentioned it in our Slack channel. I like threw up the X on Giffy. And it was like three minutes after that where he kind of, he had that putt that hold out. So I feel partially responsible. Like I like to downplay my role in the universe because I know that I don't matter. I have an insignificant spec on the spectrum of humanity. However, I feel like I did play a role in jinxing Xander and I apologize to you specifically kind of I guess also sort of does Xander. Yeah. I mean, I have no problem blaming you for any short-term reasons. So that works. Blaming me for anything. So I'm just happy that you're here. You are, you've made it back to the podcast, made it back to the microphone. I think that's an encouraging development to pick yourself back up and go at it once again this weekend. Yeah. I mean, and it's, it's very easy to do because this field we have once again is loaded. And we have, I mean, we've got Rory. We got Bryce, Swole Bryson. We've got Xander, Morakawa in here again. We got Luke List in the field. So like, what else could you possibly want? Corn Fairy winner Luke List in the field. We got, we got all the stars here in South Carolina. Yeah. We're going to see how Luke List holds up against a little bit of a tougher field. But I mean, I'm excited to see where the coverage goes with Bryson because I think they, I don't want to say they exhausted the, the angle that he got big. But I mean, I'm excited for Bryson. I've actually liked Bryson for a long time. He kind of does his own thing and believes in himself. And I can relate to that a lot. So I'm excited. Although for, for as, as hard as that dude swings and for as far as he drove it last week, he out drove Matthew Wolf on average by half a yard and like nobody noticed, which is insane. Yeah. That's how good, that's how good golf is right now. Absolutely. He looks like Mike Trout, which I think is always pretty exciting. But for Luke List, the question is not, can he hold up against good field? Is it will he avoid the Shane Lowry where he's like too hungover from being excited from his win to get forward? So we'll keep an eye on that. And I think that you have to keep, keep an eye on Luke List who we will discuss in the podcast today. So let's talk here about the RBC heritage. It is at Harbor town golf links. It is 7,099 yards, a par 71. So definitely a shorter course once again, which will be a topic of discussion for sure. There are 155 golfers in the field. And only the top 65 plus ties will make it after the first two rounds. And if you're like me, that has led to plenty of complications since the start of this, these new cut rule. So something to consider once again with the field being expanded in the post COVID-19 world. Brandon, when you look at Harbor town golf links, which stats are most noteworthy for you? Yes, this is the second straight week where driving accuracy historically has mattered more than usual, especially compared to driving distance. And I kind of looked forward, you're much better with weather than I am when it comes to golf and just at all sports, but there doesn't seem to be an abundance of wind in the forecast. I mean, it seems like later in the days on Thursday and Friday, there's some wind, but we're gonna have to keep an eye on it. But really the course should play differently than it does historically. And really we should still emphasize accuracy. I'm not saying necessarily over distance, but that's what the data says. And we had that last week. So actually wanted to look at what happened last week in a very similar situation where, it was one of those rare occurrences where driving accuracy seemed to matter more than driving distance. But last week, the top 12 distance gainers according to fantasy national made the cut. Half of them were top 15, but similarly, 13 of the top 14 golfers in fairways gained made the cut and five of them were top 10 finishers. But the top 10 and good drive rate all made the cut. Five of them were top 10, including the winner Daniel Berger. So I think that might be the key this week. Distances is good. Accuracy is good. One or the other is crucial. Of course, good drive rate does factor in green zone regulation if you miss a fairway, but kind of missing in the right spots or using your distance to an advantage. One of the other is gonna be vital for me this week. So my key stats this week are obviously number one, still stroke scan approach, good drive rate, stroke scan around the green as well, greens in regulation and actually birdie rate. Yeah, looking at the weather, it's not that bad relative to other courses that are on the coastline. I think that's the best way to phrase it. Like there will be certain pockets where the wind is more advantageous for certain golfers and we'll talk about that in the weather section, but from a whole like a holistic perspective, especially on the weekend, there's not a whole lot of wind relative to other coastal courses. So I would agree that wind will not be as big of a factor as you would have seen in past years here. Looking back at past years from a stats perspective, I wanted to go good drive rate and I think I understand your process in getting there. Like looking back at last week I think is impactful because it's a different field for these events and we've seen at these events in the past and that does matter. Looking back at last year though, there were a lot of golfers who were good in driving accuracy but bad in good driving for the full season who did well. C.T. Pond is the best example. He won 67th of the full year in accuracy, 142nd in good drive rates. There were other examples like that like Kevin Na was pretty similar and he did the same thing, Zach Johnson, same thing. And if you look back at 2018, Satoshi Kadaira, same thing, 42nd in driving accuracy, 182nd in good drive rate. Wesley Bryan in 2017, bad across the board but better in accuracy than good drive rate. So I'm not gonna push back against you for using good drive rate. I'm more just saying that's why for my key stats I personally chose accuracy over good drive rate but it was a pretty close decision for me. Yeah, I think the real, I mean you can just go stroze game off the tee although it didn't really correlate over that one week sample I looked at last week as well as something like good drive rate or just accuracy. But I mean there are gonna be opportunities just for some of these guys to gain a huge leg up with their distance. If not, these guys have to be accurate. So it's really a week where approach play always matters but play off the tee in one form or another has to be very good for these guys in order to contend. I think that's a fair way to put it too. We are going to discuss takeaways and reactions to last week's action in the betting section. So if you're looking for that, we're gonna get to that eventually because I think the betting odds are the most pertinent way to discuss that because some of them are pretty wild based on what happened last week. So we'll talk about that then. But first, let's start things off here by looking at what golfers have done in the past here in Hilton Head starting with Bryson Dejambo. Brandon, he was the talk of the town last week and he now goes to a course where he's had some good finishes in the past but also some non-finishes. So what do you see of Bryson Dejambo in the past year at this course? Yeah, he's been from a result standpoint pretty all or nothing but the underlying data is really good. I played this course four straight years was fourth in 2016, missed the cut, finished third and then missed the cut again. So I think if anyone is looking to kind of avoid Bryson they can look to the missed cuts and say, well, he just doesn't have it for this course. Obviously he's a very different player than he was even last year really. But the thing here is that Bryson had really strong T-degree numbers in all four of those starts, 10.6, 2.3, 7.4 and 4.8 strokes gained T-degree according to Fantasy National. The issue whenever that kind of happens is generally putting I finished fourth while gaining zero strokes putting in 2016, then you lost 7.1 the following year gained 2.9 when he finished third and then lost 5.7 in 2019 to miss the cut. That's very, very wild. And we kind of talked about this on covering the spread last week but that's elite course history despite two missed cuts. So don't look just at missed cuts, don't look just at finishing position if you can dig into the data instead. Bryson has gained stroke C degree and 10 of his 12 measured rounds at this course. Dude's a tank now. He was elite off the tee last week. Yeah, accuracy matters this week but he averaged 340.3 yards per drive. Again, Matthew Wolff was at 339.8 and that's just, I don't know. I find that very interesting because of how much talk Bryson's getting but last week DeChambeau was tied for third after leading in strokes gained T-degree at 10.3. That was a 1.3 strokes better T-degree than Colin Markawa. So I think Bryson's in a really good spot here. He knows the course well. The putting wasn't, it was fine last week. The around the green play was okay but he's looking like someone who can really just dominate the field off the tee. So I'm in on Bryson at his price on Fandaw at 11,900. So I'm going at Bryson. I won't be alone in that but I feel pretty good. What about you? Yeah, I feel good about him and I think that if I were ranking golfer straight up he'd rank second for me. The issue that I have is contest type because in cash games I want to spend it for Rory McElroy because he's Rory McElroy and I'm not going to get both. So to me Rory is a priority over Bryson there which means that I'd be talking about Bryson for tournaments but like you said, you're not going to be alone in going at Bryson DeChambeau. Whereas someone like John Rom who was the number two favorite last week behind Rory and missed the cut last week, he's probably going to go overlook because we're all reactionary creatures and like it makes sense that we would overreact to things but Rom is between Bryson, Xander, Colin Mora-Kawa all golfers who popped off last week when there were a lot of eyes on the event. So for tournaments I'm going to prefer John Rom over Bryson DeChambeau. And I think that the end result of all this where I prefer McElroy and cash games and Rom in tournaments is going to be that I wind up being underway on Bryson even though I have no individual qualms with him. The finishes have been awesome. The data behind that has been awesome. Like you said, he knows this course really well. So I have no gripes with Bryson. I just don't see him fitting as the top guy for me in either cash games or tournaments through no fault of his own. I think it's just trying to exploit people being off of John Rom. You're usually more on Rom than I am but I think for this week I do want to actively try to be overweight on John Rom just because I think this is, we're not going to get many situations where the public overreacts more than what we'll have this week. Yeah, and Rom was on 31.7% of Vandal rosters last week. Bryson was 10.3%. Those numbers could effectively just kind of flip this week. Rom was over the good tee to green last week. Just didn't putt well. So I'm with you. That's a bounce back spot for Rom. You do have to put Rory above Bryson in those cash games just because Rory for as bad as he was on the front nine on Sunday was just pretty spot on otherwise. So you make a good point. I would prioritize Rory over Bryson in cash games. We're going to have to track the sentiment on Bryson but I think John Rom and there are going to be other pivots as well away from Bryson. So I like Bryson a lot but he doesn't necessarily have to be my most popular golfer if everyone else is playing him as well. Yeah, I think that he, Xander and Mora Kaur are the three buzzy type guys at the top end and seeing how popular they are this week will be a good indication of how much we're going to overreact to tournaments in the short term future but it'll be interesting for sure. I think that's right. There's going to be a lot of overreaction. I would agree. And I think we're seeing that in the betting odds again we'll talk more in depth on later. Speaking of overreaction, let's talk about Web Simpson because based on the makeup of Harbor Town you would think this would be a place where Web could feast and that's exactly how things have played out in reality too because Web was a runner up here back in 2013 and that's a long time ago and I don't want to count that as a positive from a course history perspective but he's been good recently too and Web enters this week with three straight top 16 finishes at Harbor Town. He was fifth in 2018, which gives him two top fives and 10 attempts here. He is coming off a miscut last week but again, a lot of that was due to bad putting and Web is really good on Bermuda greens. So if we're looking to buy low on golfers who may have had a bad week, Web Simpson, good stats, good course history. He was solid in his form before the COVID-19 layoff and the miscut last week at least partly fueled by putting. So I think that Web is less intriguing for me of a buy low than John Romes but I think he's still in that same mold where I want to at least give him some long consideration. What do you think of Web Simpson here 11-4? Yeah, I like Web for a lot of the reasons you said. I think that anytime we can get someone as a bit of a bounce back, we should take advantage because golf DFS is very dependent on popularity. So that is something that you have to take into account and Simpson coming off that miscut but a very good Bermuda putter, the biggest problem for me is that the ball striking was just kind of okay. He was good off the tee but really we're getting a spot where I think people will avoid Web after he was on 32.7% of rosters last week, second behind only Rory. So I mean, it went Rory, Web, Rom. So Rory and then the two next, actually more Cow was fourth at 20.2%. So it was basically a tier of their own. Those two guys missed the cut. So I think that they're gonna leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. So Web, Rom, both bounce back candidates. I think we're both in on them and I feel pretty good. Yeah, I do too. And I think that we'll talk about other guys in that range who I like because Web's not the only guy in the low 9,000 range who is enticing. We'll talk about upper 10,000 range who are enticing but he will be in consideration for me for sure when I'm there. Let's talk about Kevin Kisner, Brandon. He is $9,800. So a little bit cheaper than the two studs we just discussed. Kevin Kisner, someone I had last week. What do you see with him for this weekend at $9,800? Yeah, that price puts him in play for a balanced lineup which has basically just been my default. It's been working pretty well, trying to maximize cut odds across every golfer. Sometimes when I run the optimal for actually optimizing cut odds it kind of includes some cheap guys who just because I can get access to like Rory but I've been building balanced lineups and it's been working and Kisner, I think is gonna be in play for that reason for me as well. He's played Harbor town six times since 2014 has made every cut, picked up strokes T-degree and all but one of those events and actually four times gained at least 5.2 strokes T-degree which is really strong for someone who's generally more of a putter and short game guy. The ironic part is that he's lost strokes putting and three of his six starts here. That's curbed his upside a bit historically. His worst putting surface has been Bermuda which is what we have this week but he's still a positive putter there. He's just not as a lead as he is on Ben and Poa. Despite that though, three top 11 finishes last week at the Charles Schwab he finished 29th while gaining strokes at all three T-degree in areas but lost on the greens kind of fits that, I've said this probably 10 times already but that bounce back mold, good T-degree in performance, just not good putting. So I think the price is reasonable at $9,800. I'm pretty sure off the top of my head he went from 65 to one on Fandall Sportsbook to like 45 or 43. So there's definitely, yeah, 65 to 43. So we're not gonna be alone in liking Kevin Kessner on Fandall provided that you do. So what are your thoughts here? Yeah, I mean, I like him again. I was in on him last week again and it worked out fine. Like it wasn't great but like I'll take that. And like you said, it was fueled by some bad putting and the long-term form for Kessner on Bermuda is good. So we should expect the putting in general like our baseline assumption, although it's futile to try to predict putting but like our baseline assumption should be he will be above average on the greens. So Kessner makes sense at $9,800. I do like other golfers in that range. So if he's going to be popular I really have no issues pivoting elsewhere. There are multiple golfers right there who I think are really, really fun. But like I think for cash games, Kessner is an option. And I like, if I get a read that he's not gonna be super popular then I will happily sign up for tournaments. Yeah, I think what we'll see this week and for weeks to come is a few golfers at about 30%, 35% probably for Rory week in week out but with the fields being so tough and so deep I think ownership is gonna be held and check in a lot of these situations. It's gonna be more like a major. So Kessner right now, according to fan share sports is 20 second in tags. So I don't really think like, I think there are only gonna be a few outliers that we have to worry about. Bryson could be one of them based on the early week tags. Web Simpsons actually tied for a second in tags which is surprising. All the sentiments positive, but- Yeah, it must be because of the course history. Most likely. I don't like chasing guys who get positive sentiment due to course history. So the hope would be for web is that people see his player card and see that he just missed the cut and are still recovering from the wounds of last week and don't even listen to the sentiment. I would guess that he'll still be popular based on that. People deserve more credit than saying, oh, they'll never go back to him because he missed the cut. But yeah, I think that if Kessner, like straight up, if I'm not considering popularity Kessner probably would be number one in that tier for me. So if he's not gonna be restrictingly popular, cool. Sign me up, I'm okay with that. Let's talk about the guy you always say is my guy. I refuse to accept ownership of him because I would rather not, but that's Ian Polter. Ian Polter rounding back into form recently. He was 29th last week and that puts him on the map for a course where he has done well recently. Polter has made the cuts all nine times. He has played at the RBC Heritage and that includes three straight finishes, 11th or better. He was 11th in 2017, 7th in 2018, and then 10th in 2019. That is despite shooting a 73 or worse on Sunday each year. So he's closed poorly, but still finished well all of those seasons. Polter, $9,400? Definitely not costly, definitely does work if you decide to go with a balanced approach. But Brandon means you have to use Ian Polter. So what do you feel in here at $9,400? Yeah, I think I'll probably gloss over Ian Polter this week. Looking at the underlying data. 46th last week, T to green, 51st in approach, 74th off the tee with 6th and scrambling. If you look back at the past 50 rounds, 115th in distance, 105th in fairways gained, 110th in greens and regulation gained. I don't really have any interest in Ian Polter. I'm gonna use him. Like not a lot. He's not my favorite in that tier, but I'm gonna use him. Yeah. I mean, I don't think he's objectively terrible, but he's not- But you don't think he has the ability to hit the highs, which is fair, right? Yeah. No, he can hit the highs. It's a matter of the likelihood that he does. Okay. Which again, I have. I mean, his top 10 odds in my simulations are pretty decent, but I would rather play Billy Horschel, Louis Wiestes, and Ben On. I agree on Horschel. I don't know why that sounded so weird, but it did. I agree on Horschel. I like Joel Damon at $9,500. We'll discuss shortly. So Polter is not my favorite in this tier, but I think I'm gonna be in this tier a lot. So that's going to actually push me towards guys, and Polter is not someone I would cross off my list within that tier. So that's well said. Okay. Let's move on to current form, and there is a lot to discuss here, because again, we finally have recent data for courses for golfers that we haven't had in three months. So let's talk about Gary Woodland. He is $10,500, potentially someone who could be in play for that balanced approach you were discussing. What did you see with Woodland last week? Yeah, coming off the ninth place finish, basically the anti-Bryson, just I think Bryson absorbed a lot of the mass that Gary Woodland got rid of. I don't think that's how that works. I'm not a scientist, but I think the mass can't be created or destroyed, so it probably had to go some, right? All right, you know, we're gonna, we've lost our science badge on this podcast. Like you are factually correct, but the method in which you are applying it slightly questionable? Yeah, I mean, look, I never had a science degree to begin with, so, but I wouldn't, you know. I have a bachelor in science in journalism, so I'm a scientist. What can I say? That's science? Allegedly. I have no idea why, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna complain about it. I'm a scientist, just like Bryson. Bryson and I are the same person. Yeah, so anyway, Gary Woodland added 6.6 strokes from his ball striking, despite losing 2.2 strokes off the tee. That means he had elite approach play. He gained 8.8 strokes from his approach play last week. Second was Justin Thomas at seven, and only Collin Warcalla at 6.3 was also above 5.7. So that's very, very spicy. He has finished well in three straight starts now, which obviously dates back months now, but he was 12th at the WGC Mexico, eighth at the Honda, and then ninth last week. Those all came with at least 6.2 strokes gained tee to green. He's not good on Bermuda historically, but I'm fine with him here for a balanced lineup at 10-5. I like Gary Woodland. I think he's gonna be close to, you know, a core play just because of the price. So any thoughts on Gary Woodland for you? I think that the only issue that I have is that he's kind of close to guys I think have a better range of outcomes than him. And by guys, I mean guy, it's Sung Jae-Yim. Like he's $400 cheaper than Sung Jae-Yim, and Sung Jae-Yim is one of my favorite golfers in the field. And like a $700 difference in salary between, it is a lot, but I'd rather find the $700 to get up to guys like, even potentially Justin Rose trying to get him after he looked really good last week. Patrick Reed is 11-3, not totally unconsidering him, unconsidering. Webb is there, I don't know, whatever. Talking is hard, but I think that Woodland is just kind of in an awkward place where for my, like if I, let's say I lock in Rory, if I use Sung Jae-Yim as my second player, then I can avoid using any golfer in the 8,000 range and feel pretty good about the cut-outs I'm generating from that while still maximizing winning upside. So I think for me, I generally want my second golfer to be 29-1 or shorter to win, just because I think that's kind of where there's a pretty big tier fall-off from a win equity perspective. So Woodland doesn't fit that. So I think that that's why I'm off. I don't have any objections to him. I'm just trying to get a little bit more juice out of my second guy. I mean, I can see that, especially for a cash game. In cash games, you really don't ever have to worry about popularity for golfers. But Sung Jae is tied with Webb for second in tags on fan share. So a Rory Sung Jae start is going to be very popular. For what that's worth in cash games, it's, you probably shouldn't worry about that at all. But I mean, I really build one cash game lineup for PGADFS. And then from there, it's all about tournaments and kind of looking for upside. And to me, Gary Woodland has a good upside, similar to, if not better than Sung Jae him. So I'm good with Gary Woodland. I can't really compare, and I know that you're not doing this, but I can't really compare him to Justin Rose or Patrick Reed or anything like that. Even Sung Jae is kind of up there because $400 this week goes kind of a long way. But I like Gary Woodland a lot after that ball striking performance. I wouldn't expect him to lose strokes, tee to green, or off the tee super often. So it's really going to be a matter of whether the short game clicks a ton for Woodland this week. But I think a made cut is very much in the cards for him. And I feel really good with Gary Woodland, probably better than anyone else aside from Sung Jae in the $10,000 range. That I would agree with. I'd agree with that sentiment. But I don't think I'll be here enough to be getting a ton of exposure to that range. So I'd agree with your sentiment, just feel building roster a little bit different. So you are good with the Wood. I was going broke on the Coke previously because Jason Coke Rack was in a bit of a funk. And this is a pro Coke Rack podcast, but I've been off of him for a while. But he had a third place finish last week. So we should at least discuss if it's time to get back on board with Jason Coke Rack. That third place finish was Coke Rack's second straight top 20. He was 18th in his final event before the COVID-19 layoff. And there's good and bad in those events. The good is that he has been really good off the tee and he's been picking up on approach again. The bad is that his approach isn't as good as it was when he was truly, truly on. He's been gaining strokes putting which you don't expect with Jason Coke Rack. Gain 5.2 last week, which is nuts. Bermuda is Coke Rack's least bad surface and I am wording it that way intentionally but I'm not expecting him to keep up the plus putting. So we again are a pro Coke Rack podcast but I am hesitant to buy back in on Coke Rack this week at $9,900. What about you with Jason Coke Rack? Yeah, so I mean, sure he gained 5.2 strokes putting last week but he also gained 6.6 tee to green. And if you can give me, you know, four strokes gain tee to green from a golfer in this range that's something that I'm going to take pretty much all the time. Of course it's not that easy. It's not like strokes gain tee to green works that way but we know that Coke Rack at his best is just kind of frankly one of the, let's move past like the stars. He's probably one of the best tee to green players that we have on the PGA tour. The putter can always be dreadful. We know that but on Instagram he did mention that he has pocket aces, pocket kings and pocket queens and like that this is his time. So I don't know what game he's playing because I don't know of any card games that allow six pocket cards. So he must be cheating then. I think that's kind of the only takeaway. So I think we should hop on. Why wasn't he cheating when I was using him then? Like that's my question. Well, he was playing by the rules. He only had pocket aces and then I don't know. Well, you should have cheated earlier. That's like I'm just mad at him now because he didn't cheat when I was using him. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what other conclusions we can come to. He must be just playing. Maybe he's got like some extra clubs in the bag. I guess that would be the golf equivalent. I can see this. Maybe one of them is a good potter. Maybe one of them is a good potter, one that he can actually make pots with. Maybe that's what he's doing. That one explained last week. Yes, maybe that is the case. Jason Coakrack or Victor Hovland? Straight up. Hovland. Okay, I agree. Jason Coakrack or Kevin Kisner? Kisner. Jason Coakrack or Matty Fitz? Coakrack. No, you're wrong. So, but we did get a couple there. So you're not saying Coakrack is your favorite in this tier, you're saying that you're not selling the good performance last week. Yeah, I'm into Coakrack and I know that you're not. Well, I guess I can't compare these two ranges, like the upper nines and the 10,000 range. Well, I like the 9,000 range. Okay, yeah. There are a lot of golfers in there and I'll probably have four of those golfers in my primary lineup. Because again, I know I want Rory, I might not get there, but I want a balanced lineup because I want six guys who have a really good shot to make the cut. Yeah. We had talked last week about how I was building my cash game lineup and I was like, ah, I'll go rom over Rory. I did get off of rom, which was good because Rom missed a cut and I got to Rory and he made the cut. The problem was the way I got there was by using Web Simpson. So, oh well, we tried. Let's move on to our king is back. Your boy. Luke List. It's your boy. I'm okay with you calling him my boy. Less okay when you do it with Polter. I'm okay with Luke List. Coming off of a win, doesn't matter what tour it was on, corn fairy tour is still at least a respectable tour. So, what are we doing at Luke List here at $8,800? Yeah, coming off that win, TPC saw grass on the corn fairy tour. Adjusting that for field strength, I have it about like a top 15-ish, you know, kind of finished from what the Charles Schwab was last week. So, definitely not something that we should just dismiss outright. And he had three top 40 finishes before a miss cut at the Honda with still positive strokes gained overall in that one. And I know top 40 isn't getting us super excited, but at $8,800, that's, you know, you're not getting top tens, you know, on a win from golfer is priced below 9,000. So, the form is definitely trending up before the hiatus. And I mean, he shot a 66, 70, 65, 67 at TPC saw grass to get that win last week. So, it's really hard to hate that too much, again, for the price. He's made three of four cuts at Harbor Town and that includes a third place finish in 2018. He's gained strokes T-to-Green at all four of those events, including 11.0 in 2018 and 6.7 in 2019. So, really good data here. T-to-Green, he might get some like value buzz. We know that Luke List can always let us down, but what are your thoughts here in a loaded field on Luke List? He can let us down even we don't use him because I distinctly like this, if you're new to the podcast and don't remember our Luke List phase, I did not use him for that Harbor Town event in 2018. I remember where I was when I was like watching him on Saturday. I was at Middle Ages Brewing and Syracuse, I'm pretty sure. And I was watching Luke List and I was like the one freaking event where I don't use this Joker and he goes nuts. So, he hurts me even when I don't use him. Therefore, probably gonna hold off. I don't expect him to be popular this week. The problem is I have golfers in this same tier who I project to be a better course fit and have equivalent or better current form than Luke List. So, like I'm gonna keep on monitoring him, but I'd rather go with guys like Adam Hadwin. I like Brian Harmon. We're back on that train again, which we'll talk about in the player picks. I looked at Joachim Neiman for a long while, couldn't quite talk myself into it, but there's still two days for Locke. I can very easily talk myself into it in those two days. Yeah, he might be Bank Grass only still, but. Yeah. He's also been kind of erratic off the tee, but like that's fine, it's whatever. For $800, I could do worse. So, I am monitoring Luke List, but not quite in the sphere where I'm gonna use him yet. Yeah, I mean, realistically the long-term form is not good enough to talk myself into it, but we don't really know what some of these golfers have been doing with their breaks. Obviously, Luke List came out and won an event, a pro event, which is not something we can just dismiss. And again, I mean, even if we try to adjust that, as like top 15 last week. Which would be net worthy for where Luke List was. Like that's still really good. Yeah, so for the price, he's definitely not out of play. It's just a matter of with these new cut rules and with the field this tough, I really just don't want to, and I feel bad like not discussing, oh, here's like the $8,000 play of the week, but these guys don't really have good odds to make the cut or make a significant impact. And yes, some of these golfers will have good events this week, like good performances, but not all of them. Predicting that is a different thing. Yeah, and predicting it is a different thing. So yeah, if you take every one of these golfers, some of them are going to do well. Yeah. But you can also just derail your lineups very, very easily by being overconfident. Someone who has not derailed lineups recently is Joel Damon. So let's talk about him here in the to wrap up the current form section. We talked about Joel Damon in this section last week. So I feel bad doubling up, but at the time we weren't quite ready to buy in, but now he's got another top 20 under his belt. So we might have to keep on discussing him. Damon, 18th last week at the Charles Schwab challenge, he gained 5.2 strokes putting to help fuel that. Again, why Jason Kochrack do not expect that to continue, but Damon, or I guess, oh my gosh, I have no idea what these notes say, nevermind. So he gained strokes putting, shouldn't expect that, but he is actually better on Bermuda than he is on bank grass. So the bottom might not fall out. And we know that Damon is a good overall player. The ball striking stats are very good. He lines up well statistically outside of the putting, and he's still only $9,500. So Brandon, are we buying Joel Damon yet, or are we still a bit hesitant here at $9,500? I think you still have to be a little bit hesitant. The really good note is that he was eighth in approach last week, eighth in birdie or better rate game as well. What's third in strokes game on par threes, according to Fantasy National, which is never something I love, but if you're a good ball striker, if you're good with your irons, that's probably gonna correlate pretty well. So I mean, I'm to the point with Damon where he's gonna be someone that I consider even for my one main cash game lineup. But as I'm rotating in golfers in this price range in a more balanced build, he's going to be part of it. And I think that should really answer your question. The real answer here is you don't load up on Joel Damon and not worry. Yeah, no. Because he can become the night man. Oh yeah. There we go. Got it in there. I think that I'd agree where he's a rotational piece and a consideration for a potential main tournament lineup. I think that's the way I'd phrase that. Like if you're doing single entry, I'd be fine having Joel Damon in there. But I agree that he's not gonna be a 60%er for me. And there are some golfers who I will use 60% of the time. Joel Damon's not gonna be one of them, but my willingness to put him in that 40% range is higher than it was previously. And he'll probably wind up there for this event as well. Yeah. I've just been getting to the point with a lot of these golfers where I don't feel, I don't wanna feel overconfident in too many value plays. I mean, even being overconfident in something like John Rom last week. And that's not to say, look, if you wanna hit it big, you're gonna have to take stands and be significantly overweight on certain golfers for whenever they do hit that high end of their outcomes. But you also, if you build that way, you're very easily and very often going to have a bad time. Yeah. So you have to figure out what you're okay with. Absolutely. And it's all individual too. You have to decide on your individual process and proceed as necessary there. Let's take a look at what the bookmakers are saying for this event, starting off with the top end. Rory McElroy is a favorite here, but the odds reflect what can occasionally be a wide open event. We were talking about some of the winners earlier, not your usual names, partly because of the field strength then. It is definitely stronger now, but the odds, putting Rory at 11 to one, Bryson is 14 to one, Justin Thomas, 16 to one, followed by John Rom at 18 to one, Xander Schoffelay, the final golfer in the top tier at 20 to one. Then it jumps to a second glob of golfers all between 25 and 30. That's Colin Moriakau at 26. Hideki Matsuyama at 27. Then Justin Rose, Patrick Reed, Sung J.M. and Webb Simpson all at 29 to one. And then Jordan Spieth around at the top group at 31 to one. So Brandon, it seems like the odds are reacting aggressively for what we saw last week. Do you think that these moves, like the betting market buying into Spieth, Rose, Bryson and fading guys like Rom, Brooks and DJ, you think that's an appropriate or is it an overreaction here? I think some of them are appropriate. Some of them are overreactions for Rose and Bryson. I think it's appropriate. Both were top 10. T-degree last week, Bryson was first. Spieth was 63rd. He was first in strokes game putting. Rose was actually fifth. Bryson was 50th. He said he couldn't make a putt, which, you know, whatever. Spieth was second and birdie, a better rate game, 80th in opportunities gained, which is a fantasy national stat that's essentially birdie opportunities. So that should kind of, you know, you don't want, look, he was 80th in chances to make a birdie, but second in birdies made. So you either think he's that good with the putter and can do it again or really build himself out in certain spots. So keep that in mind. For DJ and Brooks, it might also be appropriate. They were both outside the top 70 and T-degree last week. Brooks was 112th in approach, 10th in putting, and he was the only one to make the cut. So that's not really what you expect from Brooks. DJ was kind of similar with better driving, but I think Rom here is the real sticking point. He was 13th in strokes game T-degree last week, 113th in putting. That is like golf data 101 for kind of, yeah, you're gonna miss the cut if you're 113th in strokes game putting on average, but if you're very good, if you're that good almost top 12 T-degree, probably golf pretty well. So he's my bounce back pick for the week. I already bet him. I feel pretty good. I think he's gonna be a great tournament play if people do stay off of him. Yeah, I think that's, I agree with you on Rose, Bryson and Rom because the data all says that like these are legitimate. For Spieth, if you have to bank on gaining eight points, eight strokes putting to finish 10th, it's hard to project that to happen again. It could very well happen again because Jordan Spieth has shown that he can be a very good putter at times. So it's not like the odds that Jordan Spieth finishes top 10 or zero, but I don't wanna bank on that in order to get a good finish. Like his floor, if he misses a couple of putts is missed cut by a wide margin. So I am okay staying off of Jordan Spieth, especially because he was like weirdly popular last week. I didn't look at the actual numbers on the site, but it seemed like based on Twitter sentiments, a lot of people were very intrigued by Jordan Spieth. 13.6%, which doesn't sound like a lot, but was two, four, six, eight, like 10th on family. And then doing well is going to make people like, it's gonna inflate that most likely, even though it came with a salary increase. But I'm okay. Like if it burns me, it burns me. It's not gonna bother me. You get 8.6 strokes putting with a four putt. And it's not even the first time he's done this. Like he did that last year for a couple of events too, so it could happen. And we wanna acknowledge that that's within his range of outcomes, but like we should acknowledge the other end of that too. And I'd rather just go with Sung JM for $100 more if we're looking at golfers in that range. But Spieth gained 0.1 strokes T-degree in last week. And he lost like four approach or something like that? He lost on approach. I don't know what it was. Yeah, 1.4. I mean, he had some distance last week. The driving was pretty solid, but look, yeah, Jordan Spieth can do it. He's one of the few golfers who can kind of be an outlier, but long-term he don't wanna, you don't wanna get overconfident in golfers who are neutral T-degree'ing and gain all of their strokes with putting. It's just not a good long-term process. Denny McCarthy for 10-8, you know, let's load up on that. Both Rose and Bryson, we're gonna talk about Rose in the player picks. I am very encouraged by his numbers. We already talked about Bryson buying into that. But Rose, I think, will wind up being someone I use because he fits really well with the areas I'm looking to attack. And Rom, as mentioned before too, is someone I like for tournaments as well. So it's good to react to data. We have better data now than we had previously. We should react to that, but be picky about where you react to it and make sure we're not overreacting as well. Which golfers odds have shifted since things opened yesterday at FanDuel Sportsbook? Everybody's, really. I can't read all of them because I just basically be reading the whole field, but some of the most noteworthy ones, some of the, well, some of the biggest moves I should say rather than most noteworthy golfers. Guys whose odds have shortened include Matt Koucher from 42 to 1 to 38 to 1. Kevin Kisner, I mentioned already, but 65 to 43. That's the biggest move, really, that I've seen among relevant golfers. Ian Polter, who's your boy? 70 to 65. Joel Damon, 80 to 70. Brian Harmon, 80 to 75. Billy Horschel, 90 to 85. Harris English, 100 to 95. And then we've also seen plenty of golfers have their odds lengthened. Again, way too many to count, but pretty much everyone from around 50 to 1 to 85 to 1 lengthened by five. That includes Ricky Fowler, Tony Fiennel, Kiro Hatton, all from 50 to 55. Abraham Ancer, Matthew Fitzpatrick, 55 to 60. Scotty Schaeffler, 60 to 65. Bubba Watson, Jason Koch-Rack, Victor Hovland, 65 to 70. So basically everyone in that range just kind of fell back by five. Just getting a better number on Matty Fitz. Who can complain about that? Not I. Which lower salary golfers have odds to stand out to you? Well, Fitzpatrick is in the range for win picks now, so I'm assuming you're gonna take Matthew Fitzpatrick. I'll pencil you in for him now. Well, I didn't say I was gonna pick 60. I don't know what I'm picking. I literally just decided what I'd get. It's never longer than 60, so. Maybe it will be. Don't make assumptions. You don't know me. Okay, so for the lower salary golfers, I don't wanna say it's better than last week, but Corey Connors and Brian Harmon are both 80 to one, right around that 9,000 range on Fandle. Adam Hadwin, Joaquin Neiman, and Rafa Cabrera-Bayo are all 90 to one, again in that upper 8,000 range. And then Harold Varner, Harris English, Kevin Strillman, Cam Smith, Graham McDowell, and Luke Lister are all 100 to one. I mean, McDowell, Smith, they're both 85, so you kinda have options if you're just looking to match odds with salaries, but that's not really what we do and you can do a lot better for just a few hundred dollars more. And with the win odds being that way, even with that being the case, I feel less good about the 8,000 range than I did last week. I liked the 8,000 range last week. I thought it was fine. I don't feel as good about it this week. I think that there are three-ish golfers I like, one of whom wasn't even on that list and I haven't fully decided if I actually like them or not. But the number of golfers I like down there is lower than it was last week and that concerns me a bit and it pushes me towards going rory and then balanced or rom and then balanced. So usually I provide pushback to you saying, let's go balanced, but I'm not gonna do that this week. So I think we're in the same boat. And understanding why though is like important. It's not like we're like, well, we don't know any of these names. Like we don't know anything about these golfers. I think the problem is I know the names and that's why I don't wanna go there. Look, we've played tons of Taylor Gooch and Emiliano Grillo and Eric Van Royen. Don't say Grillo's name on this podcast for at least six months. Like the band no longer allowed in the hot tub. Yeah, but like the odds that these golfers, first of all make the cut, but then finish, you know, top 30 in a field this difficult. Like the leaderboard last week, the top 15 was all like, yeah, this makes a ton of sense that this is who's at the top. So it's a matter of like playing to the event. And I think that whenever that happens, yeah, you might not get Rory and Rom and Justin Thomas in your lineup this week, but it's probably smarter to have got like Victor Hovland and even someone like Jason Kochrack as opposed to too many dart throws down here who just frankly don't have really good cut odds or high end upside. And I think I agree more that sentiment this week than I did last week. So we're on the same page there for sure. Fandle is offering you a once in a lifetime wager on the English Premier League title. Download the Fandle Sports Book app, make your first deposit and take advantage of enhanced odds on favorite Liverpool to win it all. While other sports books are offering Liverpool at minus 20,000 odds, new users can get plus 500 for them to win it all. That is right, bet 10 dollars and win 50 bucks on Liverpool to take the EPL title on America's number one online sports book, Fandle Sports Book. A 21 plus and present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana or Colorado, first online wager only, must wager in designated offer market, $10 minimum first deposit required, $50 max bonus, gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER in Indiana, call 1-800-9 with it. In Colorado, call 1-800-522-4700. As Brandon mentioned, whether this week not that bad relative to past events at Hilton Head, relatively calm wind earlier in the day, Thursday, it will get to 10 miles per hour around 4 p.m. and then continue to rise after that. Similar thing for Friday, though the winds will spike earlier in the afternoon at around 1 p.m. So if you're looking to minimize aggregate wind, which is a weird phrasing I know, but your best bet would be to load up on golfers teeing off later in the day on Thursday. You'll get worse wind Thursday, better wind Friday. There is a slight chance of rain both days as well, and then the winds are pretty calm on the weekend. So overall, nothing too crazy, and it's going to be less windy than usual at this course, but you can definitely consider stacking tee times due to the overall elevated wind from where it is at a regular course. So I'm okay stacking tee times. It will not be my default fraternance by any means, but if you wanna have a couple where you go there, I will not talk you out of it. Let's finish up with the player picks for the RBC Heritage, Brandon. Who are you turning to in the upper tier on Vandal? Apparently my sort of top three process picks are just the chalkiest picks this week. So I mean, I think these are the best plays, but I mean, I'm fine pivoting away from Bryson to John Rahm, but I'm gonna talk about Bryson again. Look, the field's loaded. There's not a shortage of elite options at the top, and I went down 12 golfers deep, and I'd be fine with any of them. So from Sung Jae in and up, I can make the case for all of these golfers this week. That's pretty insane. But right now, Bryson looks really lethal. He gained 12.1 strokes from his ball striking last week. Nobody else was above 8.1. He has, as I mentioned already, elite tee-degreeing performances at Harbor Town despite two miscuts from bad putting. So really, I think our only option right now is to think that people look at the miscuts and maybe lower his popularity a little bit, but as it stands now, Bryson is my second favorite golfer from a process standpoint behind Rory. And that's where I was too. Like if I'm playing things straight up, he'd be second behind Rory. He just didn't fit in the different builds. So I think we're on the same page there when it comes to Bryson D. Shambow. My first high salary guy is Rory McElroy because he goes back to Bermuda, which is easily his best putting surface, and he was good for large chunks of the event last week, as you alluded to previously. And despite finishing 32nd, Rory did still gain five strokes tee-degreeing. His biggest issue was the greens, lost 1.3 strokes there. McElroy 45th in accuracy the past 50 rounds in addition to ranking 10th in approach and fifth in scrambling. So he doesn't have accuracy or distance. He has both, at least to a certain extent, and that's definitely a positive. This is the first time McElroy has played Hilton head since he was a teenager. So Rory's been around the block a couple times, but hasn't been here in a while. Effectively no course history here, but we know that McElroy can mop up on courses like this. So at $12,200, he is still my top guy. It may be too early to ask you about a cash game build. I think Rory will be in mine. Do you think there are enough mid, low 9,000 guys for you to get there in cash games to Rory McElroy? Maybe. I think I was more okay with not playing Rory last week because I was a little more overconfident with John Rom. I don't think John Rom misses the cut this week and he's $500 cheaper than Rory. I think you can plug in Rory and still be fine. So as it stands right now, I think that he's the play in cash games. Tournaments are a different discussion obviously, but I think for cash games, I'm more okay playing Rory this week than it was last week. Okay, I think that makes sense. Let's move on to your second high-salary guy. You got to the sheep before I did for the first time in like 15 years this week. So you got the person out of taken. That's Sung Jae-im. I'm on board with this one too, assuming he does not stay as popular as he currently is on the fanshare tags. Yeah, that's problematic. Like I said, it was Bryson Webb and Sung Jae, I think outside of Rory who were like, these are the best process plays maybe for this week. At their respective prices, not that Sung Jae is a better player than Justin Thomas outright or anything like that, but for the price Sung Jae-im makes a lot of sense at 10,900. He was 10th last week, finished with positive strokes gained in every area, but he's now had really good finishes. First at the Honda, third at the Arnold Palmer, 10th at the Charles Schwab. He's 23rd in strokes gained to green over the past 50 rounds. Missed a cut here last year with some bad approach play and putting, which is abnormal for him, but he's been historically a really good Bermuda putter over a still small sample for him, but very balanced and makes a ton of sense this week. But Sung Jae, Webb, Bryson and Rory look to be the shock this week. So I'm fine not playing Bryson, even though I like him more than Justin Thomas and John Rom. I'll play Justin Thomas and John Rom in a higher percentage of my lineups than Bryson to get some ownership leverage because the discrepancy, I mean, frankly, John Rom and Justin Thomas have better win odds for me in my sims just because I use more historical data. As of things right now, it might be a little bit more equal, but still I'm fine going to John Rom, Justin Thomas, Xander, more Cala, even Patrick Reed and Rose, so like you can't really go wrong this week at the top. Yeah, let's talk about Rose here because I would have gone Sung Jae, but let's talk about Rose specifically. Good bounce back last week. He gained 2.5 strokes in approach and 6.4 tee to green and the finish was juiced by good putting and we always had to acknowledge that, but he's actually better on Bermuda than he is on Bentgrass anyway, so it's not as if he's gonna like totally tank. Rose actually showed some signs of life before the layoff too because he gained 2.8 strokes in approach in just two rounds of the Arnold Palmer. Missed a cut there, but was only good on approach, so he had that good event, backed it up with a good event last week too. I am going to try to get in on Rose before the public fully reacts to him getting better. I think 11-2 is a pretty forgiving number, so I like Justin Rose quite a bit and I think of the guys, like if we're making the cutoff, like after Rom maybe, I think I go Sung Jae 1, Rose 2 in that range. What about you? If I'm not factoring in price, I'd still put Xander above them, but with the savings for Rose and specifically Sung Jae, probably Sung Jae and Sung Jae would be number one for me. I like Hideki a lot too. It's just his first week back on the tour. Yeah. But I think he's gonna be probably low-owned for once. I think Hideki's always popular. But again, outside of Brooks, who's still worth a few darts just because we know what Brooks can do just based on last week, wasn't really there, it's just such a loaded tier that it's hard to nitpick. Yeah. I think I agree with that. I definitely have my favorites, but I agree where if you get the read that someone's gonna be popular. Yeah, all my favorites are popular. Yeah. You have the ability to pivot if you decide you wanna do that. Let's move down to the mid-range on Fandall. Who stands out to you there, Brandon? I have Victor Hovland at $9,900, under $10,000 for once for my first mid-price golfer, but lack of Bermuda putting, just 16 measured rounds is a bit problematic, but he's still in play in one of those balance to make the cut builds, which is what I'm looking for again this week. One of the best T-degree performers in the return last week, despite poor driving accuracy, which is actually really uncommon for Victor Hovland, who's 22nd in accuracy over the past 50 rounds. So he seems pretty safe here. The chipping, the putting is still an issue. He did go from bunker to bunker on one. I mean, who else in though? Not what you want. But I mean, I think Victor Hovland yet again, a great play at $9,900. He is my favorite guy in this range. I like Hovland a lot. So I'm very on board with that one. I also like Matthew Fitzpatrick, shocker, at $9,700 because the times to go to Matthew Fitzpatrick are on non-distance courses and on Bermuda. And this course checks both those boxes. So let's ride with Mattie Fitz once again. He ranks 19th in driving accuracy the past 50 rounds and he is 41st in approach. And that's in addition to ranking 10th in putting on Bermuda. And Fitzpatrick has shown the ability to have pop weeks. He gained at least 3.9 strokes in approach in three of his past eight measured events. And one of those was at the US Open. So you can do it against Telfields too. Fitzpatrick has been to Hilton Head five times already and he was 14th year or two years ago. So he knows the course, has done well here. I like everything about him at $9,700. Brandon, where do you sit on Matthew Fitzpatrick who you mentioned you had below Jason Kochrack when we discussed earlier? Yeah, I haven't really looked at Fitzpatrick a ton. He doesn't do it enough for me. But I mean, he's definitely not bad. Statistically, I have him 27th in my stats only model. He's got good top 10 odds. I think it's probably just a, and I don't usually do this, but he just hasn't really been on the forefront of my mind at all. So I think maybe I'm a little bit lower on him. The biggest concerns for me are the opportunity numbers, the birdie numbers, other golfers in this price range are a little bit more fantasy friendly. So Fitzpatrick's finishing the same. If he finishes 20th, he might not have as many fantasy points as someone like Scottie Schaeffler who historically makes way more birdies. Same with Victor Hovland. So talk about Scottie Schaeffler who is $100 cheaper than Matthew Fitzpatrick. Yes, so Scottie Schaeffler, $9,600 abysmal Bermuda putter. So let's start there. 6.4 strokes with the short game, which is around the green and putting last week. So why not buy in? But he gained 5.2 strokes with his ball striking, really good driver, really balanced in all the stats that I like to look at for this week. 25th in distance, 54th in accuracy, 30th in good drive rate, which definitely works in a field this deep. So I like Schaeffler. We've seen some high end upside from him, some high end finishes. Even when the short game hasn't been great and when the short game hasn't abandoned him, like we see what Schaeffler can really do. So I'm in on Schaeffler at $9,600. Yeah, I think that Schaeffler makes a lot of sense. And he is part of the reason why I really like this range this week. I sometimes am not super drawn towards the upper 9,000s. I think it's a really good tier this week between, I mean, I'm not super into Coke rack, but like he is there, Hovland is there, Matthew Fitzpatrick is there, Kevin Kisner is there, Kiro Hatten, I think is worth considering too. So the upper 9,000 range is really good. It's locked. It's locked and loaded, man. Yeah, Hatten was so good before the break. He's gonna be interesting to watch this week. Absolutely. Let's talk about my second mid-tier guy. I was gonna go Ian Polter, but we talked about him in the course history section, so I can probably pass over him. I'd probably rank Joel Damon number one in this year, but let's talk about Billy Horf real quick, because we have not discussed Billy Horschel throughout this podcast. Billy Horschel is $9,400. He ranks 16th in driving accuracy over the past 50 rounds and is a good Bermuda putter. Those are the good things. Last week, Horschel finished 38th and that's okay, but he also lost 2.2 strokes in approach. That's a little bit concerning, but outside of that, Horschel did look pretty good and before the layoff, his approach numbers were solid. We know like long, long-term, Horschel is a good approach player too, so I think I'm willing to go at Horschel $9,400 this week. I think the approach numbers last week are enough where I'd rather go to, I don't know, where I'd rather go in cash games. I'd rather maybe just spend down for like the 9,000 range, like a Brian Harmon type guy in cash games, but for tournaments, I will go at Horschel. So I think Damon Horschel, Polter, all guys I would consider in this range, what are your thoughts on Billy Horschel? And I guess those three golfers in general. So who are the three? Damon, Polter and Horschel. I'd rank them Damon, Horschel, Polter. I think them- Horschel and Damon, Horschel and Damon are close. I was, I didn't have Horschel in my player picks initially, but like the more that I think on it, the more I think I should have him ranked higher. Again, the approach numbers last week were not good and that's worth noting because it is a little bit concerning given that he had that stint over the swing season where he had really bad approach numbers, but I think I'm still willing to at least give it a shot. I'll flip him to number one in that range. I don't love any of them necessarily. I do, I did make mention in passing of Horschel in my write up on number fire just because the specifically low 9,000 range isn't anything I love, but he makes sense there if you're looking in this range. So Bermuda is his best putting surface. He's just kind of like going with the longterm form that the win odds aren't super high, but- I don't think they're very high for anyone in this range. That's the thing is you kind of are foregoing, the deeper you go, the more you sort of forego high end upside. If we're ranking the tiers below 10,000, I would say upper 9,000s are one, upper 8,000s to 9,000s are two, and then the low 9,000s are easily third for me if I had to rank those ranges. Yeah, I'm with you there. Okay, let's move down to that range then of $9,000 and lower. Who do you like down there for this week? Harold Varner, $9,000, one of our favorites. He's bad on Bermuda, so he fits the heat check mold here and basically all of my lower end picks, but again, the cheaper the golfer, the more likelihood that there is for some issues. But look, if you're digging in this range, you have to trust the ball strikers, not the putters, and that's what Varner is. Last week, only three golfers fared better in approach play. That was Gary Woodland and Justin Thomas in Calamore, Cala, who finished 9th, 10th, and 2nd respectively. So I'm going with the really good T-degree stats over a large sample for Varner. He's 11th in the field and strokes gained T-degree over the past 50 rounds. So it's not chasing the sort of performance from last week, but more trusting, really good T-degree numbers. Yeah, and it's not chasing when you can back it up. And I think that's what Varner does. So I agree with that. He's interesting. I prefer Brian Harmon though, so let's talk about Brian Harmon, because he's all faithful here on the podcast. Harmon was in a really bad slump before the layoff because he had lost strokes on approach and forced rates when things went on pause. That's abnormal for a guy like Brian Harmon, but last week, much better. He gained 3.8 strokes in approach. Finished 23rd, even though he lost four strokes off the tee, concerning given this is another accuracy course, but Harmon does rank 36th in accuracy. So I would expect a rebound here this week from a driving perspective. The approach numbers were good last week. And Harmon is also one of the few guys down here who is a plus putter on Bermuda. So I think the safety in Harmon is pretty high and I had mentioned that rather than forcing in a low 9,000 guy for a cash game, I'd be okay jumping down to the 8,000 range. Harmon was the specific golfer I had in mind. $8,000, I am willing to consider him for cash games. Brandon, where do you sit on Brian Harmon at this number? I'm good with him. The issue is more, I like other golfers as well here, but the difference is I like about five to six golfers in the sense that I wouldn't hate having to play them as opposed to the top end where it's like, I want to play all these. So anytime that happens, it means that I'm really not that confident on any specific value golfers and that's a problem. And that's why I'm gonna try to limit the amount of exposure I have down here. But for Harmon specifically, no real issues. I would just prefer two golfers at 9,000 if I can get there. If not, I'm fine with Brian Harmon. So you would discuss trying to sell out for ball striking and potentially for going a good short game to do so. Ain't no golfer embody that than Corey Connors. So talk to me about him at $9,000. So Connors is never a good putter, but is best on Bermuda. He's still negative on the surface. At least bad. At least bad. But diving deep in a field this good, not something I recommend often or do often just because of everything I've said on the whole podcast. But he was 19th last week, tied with Varner on the standings and did so by gaining 4.6 good drives. So either a fairway head or a greener regulation after missing. He actually tied with Bryson in that stat which kind of gives you some context. He also added distance against the big hitting field last week. So the ball striking is there it's just a matter of whether the short game is there or not. And again, if I'm really having to bank on one of these cheap golfers, I'm going to go with ball striking over putting. And that's the thing with Connors is he doesn't have like a specific course where you need to use him. He's good with both accuracy and distance. So he makes sense here. I don't know, maybe it's just like a scaredy cat in me. I'd rather go with like the safety of like a Harman type guy over Connors. But I also understand why you'd want to go there in case he sucks less at putting in a given week. He was good last week. Yeah, buy into that, never could go wrong. Let's talk about Adam Hadwin who was down $300 from last week even though he did make it through the cut. He also could have finished much better than he did because he gained 2.6 strokes in approach which was his best mark since the Shriners back in October. Hadwin though lost 2.6 around the green. So he finished 43rd. He ranks 21st in accuracy, 23rd in approach to the past 50 rounds and Bermuda is not his best surface but he does rank 36th there in the field over the past 100 rounds. So I think Hadwin is similar to Harman where he's got decent cut odds I would assume, should have a pretty high floor, should make the cut and he's $8,700. So I like the safety in Hadwin even though I know that he's not gonna be great around the greens. I still think that there's enough there for me to buy in. What are your thoughts on Adam Hadwin at $8,700? I like him. He might be just for the $300 savings where I end up most down here. Okay, just because I think he gets me access to a little bit more at the high end. I was in on him last week. He's just accurate. He should kind of be safe. I don't wanna get overexposed to any single golfer down here but he's in that like five to six golfer sample I guess pool of guys I'll use down here. I mean, I'm fine with it but I don't love anyone down here. Yeah, I think if the difference is, if you're getting Hadwin and let's say Hovland versus I guess it'd be Sheffler. If it's like Hadwin and Sheffler versus Connors and someone who is $9,300, I'm taking Hadwin every time. Hadwin and Rory or Harold Varner and Bryson. I'm gonna go Hadwin. Well, I mean, I'm by a pretty wide margin. I'm just saying that's the difference. Oh yeah, okay. I was going more like the mid range because I don't have that much of a disagreement with Bryson. I have a big disagreement with 93 versus 96. Okay. If that makes sense. Sure. Win picks for this week. I did not check the bobble hacks. I didn't feel like I needed to. No, it was gonna be close. So you wipe me there, which means you get to pick first. We will pick one golfer. We'll exclude Rory again, because why not? One golfer outside of Rory and then one golfer, I am gonna go 60 to one or longer. Who is your first pick for this week? All right, you gotta give me a sec because you threw out 60, so I'm not 100% ready. I never know what it's gonna be. Sometimes it's 50. I'm excited to keep you on your feet. Sometimes it's 50. Sometimes it's... I can't give you time to prep because that would just make this segment terrible. If we knew what was happening in this segment, it'd be hideous. Yeah, but you gotta give me like a second to check. It'd be more hideous, I should say. I should clarify that it's hideous. Give me a picture. Okay. So that means I should pick the top end guy. I'm gonna go wrong. I feel like we talked a lot about him on the podcast and I liked the reasoning behind him, so I'm gonna go wrong as my top end guy. Who do you have on the top end? It should be JT, but I think I'm gonna go... Now, give me a second. Give me your 60 to one. I mean, you called it. It's Matthew Fitzpatrick. You knew. Okay. Yeah, it should be JT, but I'm gonna go Bryson. Didn't I pick wrong last week too? You did. Not good. Okay, well, whenever you make a mistake, double down. And that's what we'll be doing this week. Any final thoughts for you on the RBC Heritage before we close up shop for today? I think it's probably a week where ownership is gonna be mostly flat, but if you can avoid the super chalk in hopes that they miss the cut, that's what you should do. Especially when our data is less good than it usually is, I am more inclined to avoid the chalk than usual because we have less certainty. Because we have less data, therefore it is more advantageous to fade the more popular golfers. That is all that we have for this week here on the PGA version of the heat check, but it's a pretty locked, loaded. Why do I keep saying locked as I'm loaded? It's a loaded week here on the podcast feed. We had Austin Kass of Number Fire on yesterday to discuss the English Premier League and discussing DFS around that. I know nothing about it, so I talked to Austin to get his thoughts. And Austin educated me on roster construction, stacking, all that good stuff. That's already posted later this week. I'll be talking with the other Austin, Austin Swing about UFC, which is coming up on Saturday and will have a NASCAR DFS podcast for Talladega coming up on Thursday. Make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, the Google Play Store, iHeartRadio, wherever you listen, you can find us. And if you like what you hear, please leave a rating and review as well. Brandon, people have questions for you on Twitter. Where can they find you there? I'm at Gedula13, G-D-U-L-A-1-3. And I'm at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fanduel Podcast Network at Fanduel Podcast. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald, our video producer for running the video side of things here today. Thank you, Cal, as always. You can find the full video version of this podcast up on the Fanduel YouTube page, as along with most of our other podcasts as well over on the Fanduel YouTube page. Subscribe to that. We will talk to you all again next week. Good luck with your lineups for this weekend and have some fun, watching some sports once again. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy Podcast powered by Number Fire.