 What is crackling, everybody? Welcome on into the Heechak Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com where today, PGA is back for the Charles Schwab Challenge that is coming up this weekend at Colonial Country Club and we are here to break it all down from a DFS perspective. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here, again, I can't say as always, it's been like six decades, but joined here once again by Brandon Gondula. He is a managing editor for NumberFire, Brandon. Hello, it's been like 15 years. How are you? Yeah, it's been since, I guess the draft, the NFL draft was the last time we did anything. I believe so. Cause the players was not after the draft and so yeah, it's been, it's been a minute. Or two. It's been. I don't even slack you. Like I kind of just are slack. You know, ever since we stopped having the podcast, I don't really talk to you at all. Kind of go out of my way not to interact with you. I try, yeah. I try, sometimes I can't avoid it because I had to like tilt at you about something menial that I can like ruin your day with. But outside of that, you know, like, I've just been like a lost duck floating through these waters, drifting by myself with nothing to do. We've had, we didn't have a League of Legends podcast. Oh, we did. We had, I've done some USC podcasts and some NASCAR podcasts. We were talking before about which golfers we'd want to see in like a USC fight against each other. I think the Bryson Brooks, one is the most, one I am most intrigued by, but like we get to watch some golf this weekend. I don't have to do fantasies about Brooks Kepka, just one shot KO and Bryson DeChambeau. This is great. Well, that's not what you said before the podcast. You were pretty in on Bryson. I revised. I listened to what you said, reacted and adjusted my thoughts accordingly. When we get new information, we should be willing to adapt our thoughts to that. That's what I did. I don't know. I feel like doubling down and just ignoring any evidence to the contrary is the better way to go. Facts are overrated and counter to what we're going for in general here, but we do have a full podcast for today. We're going to break down the Charles Schwab Challenge from a DFS perspective, let you know the intricacies of the court. Court, course. See, we're out of practice. This is great. The intricacies of the course, we're going to go through golfers who were doing well before the break. We don't know if they're still good because it's been three months, but we'll talk about all that and break down our thoughts on this field here today in just a bit. But first, quick reminder to subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, no UFC podcast this week because the card apparently for Saturday, according to Austin is not as good. So no UFC podcast this week, but two NASCAR podcasts, one on Tuesday for the Wednesday race in Martinsville and then one on Friday morning for the Sunday race in Homestead. I am having trouble keeping track of which races are when, but Martinsville at Homestead. So make sure you are subscribed so that you can know when they're out because I clearly do not. So just make sure you are subscribed. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating and review as well. The Charles Schwab Challenge is taking place at Colonial Country Club. It is 7,209 yards and it is a par 70. And a lot of you playing this weekend may not have played PGA DFS in a while in which case, welcome back. But in case you have not played since September, it is important to note the cut rules changed. They used to have the top 70 plus ties made it and then there could be secondary cuts, et cetera, et cetera. But now it is just the top 65 plus ties make the cut after the first two rounds. There is no more secondary cut, which means that all you don't have to worry if your guys make it to Saturday, but it does make it harder to find guys to make the cut as our lineups would be evidence of from the fall and parts of this winter as well. So top 65 plus ties make it. There are 148 golfers in the field, so a lot of dudes ain't gonna make it to Saturday and Sunday. Brandon, let's look specifically at Colonial Country Club. What do we need to know about this course and how does it impact it from a DFS perspective? Yeah, so Colonial is not overly long. It's a course that generally rewards accuracy more than distance, which is pretty intuitive if you just look at the course overview like the actual kind of flyover. There are a lot of fairway bunkers, a lot of bunkers, small greens, but accuracy over distance, which is typically pretty rare throughout the season, but it is the case this week as they return to the PGA Tour. Stroke scan approach is going to be key as usual. The problem probably is that we don't know whose irons are necessarily in form. There are, again, a lot of bunkers guarding the greens, kind of avoiding trouble. So hitting fairways and then having good approach shots, hitting greens in regulation, that gets rolled up in that for me. It's really not a super easy course either. Fantasy scoring could be held in check last year or last season. No, last year I just do it by year, because it's easier. It ranks 36 out of 41 courses where I have data and average fangirl points. So not a ton of scoring here. So I'm really looking for ball striking despite the emphasizing distance a little bit. So really, iron play, greens in regulation, fairways hit. So it's kind of a good list week to week, but really just trying to go back to the more proven ball strikers coming back to the PGA Tour whenever I can depending on salaries. So my key stat, stroke scan approach, driving accuracy, greens in regulation, a little bit of stroke scan around the green and some bogey avoidance as well because the course is difficult. Yeah, looking back at past years and what golfers have done based on where they ranked for the full season. If you go back to 2018, the median ranking in driving accuracy for the top 20 golfers in that field for the full season was 58th versus 108th for driving distance. So that's not a split you see usually. And I have generally been inclined to go with like a driver or something like that to account for things in general when we've had situations like this, but like disc or accuracy outperforms good drive rate even by such a wide margin that I did one of going to accuracy too. And like you said, it kind of makes sense once you see the course to skew that direction. So we're on the same page there for sure. The one question we can have is like, we don't really know how accurate the stats are. So Brandon, usually when we're looking at the stats, we're pulling the past 50 rounds from Fantasy National. Did you change that at all to account for the fact that we don't know what's going on? Cause I can see it both ways. Like on the one hand, if you go past 100 rounds, your sample is like probably a full calendar year for some guys and that's a long way. But also it may just give us, it may counteract some golfers who were in weird form entering the break they may have corrected since then. So how did you alter things from a stats perspective to account for the layoff? Yes, I mean golf's that, probably the weirdest sport with this because there's a lot of data now, but the data can get a little tricky. And there's a lot of that eye test that goes into, you know, whether someone hits a green or hits a fairway by like a foot or not. And if you really watch, you can see who's doing what, but really the most predictive stats come from like the past two years. If you just look at larger samples, it makes a lot of sense because then we're not buying into short samples from golfers who just happened to kind of hit the high end of their variants or have something clicked. So I would actually think that there's nothing wrong with making that, making this sample you look at larger than normal. And then as far as like the short sample stuff goes, like I still use, I think 50 rounds is fine, but if you're looking at like the past 24 or 12 rounds, if you like that's kind of something that you do whenever the PGA tour is moving along, you're like, I wanna figure out who's doing well, like in the immediate past, I don't think that's gonna really yield good results. Because like you said, sometimes guys can just be locked in and like they're not gonna remain locked in after a three month shutdown. Like I know they've been able to play golf for a while, but like it's hard to stay to keep a heater going. That's to be like sustainable changes that are made and it's hard to find sustainable changes over a 12 or 24 round sample. So I'd agree with that. Just broadening things out, maybe discounting guys who were in a weird funk before the break and things like that. There's one golfer specifically I hope has broken out of a funk that he was in before the break because if not, I could have some bad lineups for Sunday. One other question that I have for you Brandon is like something we discuss a lot here on the podcast is past history versus current form. Their history at the course versus what they've done recently. The reason at least I have always said course or current form over everything is that golfers change over a long period of time. But I wanna know who is golfing really well right now and then make minor adjustments for course history. Here we don't really know who's golfing really well right now. So is that gonna change the way that you weigh? That's really difficult to say. The way you weigh history versus current form for this week? So it makes sense to think that way. The problem is that this invitational event is usually not nearly as strong as it is this week. It's usually a much smaller field. And I mean we had, if you just kinda dig back and you look at like oh, you know, Kevin Na has great form. Let's not trash Kevin Na, Kevin Kisner. It looks like let's Gary, I guess, Justin Rose who clearly had the best form before the break. Yeah, so I mean it's such a loaded like layered response because would Kevin Na have won if it were this field? Totally. Would he have gained, I mean his approach numbers were great those two years at the Charles Schwab when he finished first and fourth. Maybe I'm hopefully not spoiling too much here but I mean would he have gained that many strokes over this field? 100%. Probably not. So when you factor that in and then you've had some golfers say like it's gonna be weird playing certain courses without grandstands, without fans. It's gonna play a little bit differently and we haven't really talked about it but another reason to emphasize accuracy is I'm not saying some of these guys are gonna lose golf balls and that this is gonna be decided by like lost golf balls but it's very much more likely that guys spray it and can't find their ball because there's not those four or five guys just sprinting after the ball and holding everyone off. So I understand the case for kind of looking more at course history here for this week and for these upcoming weeks but I think it's gonna play a little bit different than it typically does anyway so I'm probably not gonna raise it up too much. Yeah, I think I wanna do the same for different reasons but for like me, it's hard to put a lot of emphasis on course history when they go there once per year. Like for NASCAR, when they go to a track twice in a year my sample on a driver at a certain track is twice as large if I look at just 2019 whereas with golfers, sure they do four rounds sometimes but like it's still going to be one event. If they had like a weird night of sleep Wednesday that can ruin their entire weekend. I think I'm still gonna lean the way you were saying where I'm gonna value current form more than I value course history but it is at least a discussion to me about which way we should go but I think that your answer is correct there for sure. Yeah, I mean, and look, you can do anything you want coming out of this hiatus. You can look at Instagram, you can look at Twitter, you can see what- Twitch, you can- Golden T. Twitch, see what they've been doing on their Golden T machines. I didn't actually know that was a thing. I follow a guy on Twitter who is, I think it's Golden T, who like, is in like Golden T competitions. He's not a golfer, so I don't know why I'm bringing this up. This is not relevant, but. I mean, there's too much. I mean, even in the hiatus there's like too much to kind of follow but yeah, you can kind of look and see which guys are posting a lot but speaking to someone who's kind of this way, if I were practicing every day, I'm not gonna post about it. I think a few golfers off the top of my head wouldn't really do that. Specifically one golfer, I think we both like a lot. My boy, Zander, I follow him on like social media. He doesn't really do much, but there's no way that he's not out there like practicing and grinding. He's young, he doesn't have a family. So like, you know, we might see some like, someone with a family who's posting all these scores talking about how many rounds he's gotten in, but we don't know what other guys are doing. So I think it's all kind of just not really worth it. If you practice and don't post about it, does it actually count? I think Karyon Johnson posed that question a couple of weeks ago. Did he? Like actually? I think there was a, again, I don't really follow this stuff too much, but I think there was a picture of Matthew Stafford and Deandre Swift working out together and Karyon with his either girlfriend or fiance. I don't wanna get that wrong, but I don't actually know. And then I guess he's like getting some plaque for it and his response was effectively, you know, it's possible to work out and like not post about it. I don't think he's right. I like Karyon Johnson, but I'm gonna have to disagree with him on this one. If you're not posting about it, it doesn't exist. That's just, that's the way life is. So react, dig into the Twitch streams, dig into the Insta videos, TikTok, I don't know, whatever it may be, find out. And if they're not posting, they're not worth it. That's just the rule, the PGA DFS this week. The PGA is back in a big way this weekend with a massive daily fantasy contest on FanDuel. This week's mega eagle contest includes $1 million in total prizes with first place netting $100,000. Best of all, it is only $7 to enter, $7 to enter for a chance at $100,000. To get yourself a chance to add all that cash, go to FanDuel.com or download the FanDuel app, eligibility restrictions, apply. Let's go into past history here. As mentioned, the regular caveat supply of, we do wanna put more weight into current form. But we can look back and see which golfers have been here, which golfers have done well. And one of them is John Rom. John Rom, a couple of top fives here recently. And obviously we know the current form is good too. So talk me through John Rom and how you're viewing him at 11.9 for this weekend. Yes, he's the second most expensive golfer on FanDuel, very much worth it. His price, you know, in his own right, was definitely one of the best golfers in the world entering this hiatus. He's gonna cost us this week, but again, it's really hard to hate John Rom right now. Miss the cut at Colonial last year, which is kind of strange to discuss in this section. And the way he did it was a little concerning. According to fantasy national, lost 4.2 strokes T to green, 3.1 from approach specifically, but that was right after missing the cut at the PGA. The year prior, he finished fifth while gaining 6.2 strokes T to green, followed that up with a T two, or, you know, that was after a T two in 2017 when he gained 11.4 strokes T to green to lead the field pretty comfortably there. So a really good form T to green here. And anytime you're looking at past results, the results are fine, but I prefer strokes gain data, specifically strokes gain T to green. And we've seen Rom do really well twice here. There's kind of no reason to think that he would come back with a ton of rust. So he's gonna cost us, but I think I'm gonna go hard at him. I'm really trying to figure out how I'm approaching this one. I want obviously access to the high end guys. Rom is definitely on my short list, but trying to figure out, it's probably gonna be more of a balanced build. So either way, John Rom is on my short list. So I think from a roster construction perspective, I may be on a different spot because the way that I view it is like when driving distance is not as much of an emphasis, in my eyes at least, and this could be wrong, the pool of golfers who can finish top 10 is larger. And that to me lends itself more towards being okay with more of a top-heavy roster. I'm not saying like all-out starts and scrubs because like there is a cut and we needed to consider that, but I am okay. There are several golfers in the 8,000 range who I think are like legit contenders for a top 15, top 25 finish. So I'm okay with spending up, but I still need to prioritize. And we'll talk about Rory McElroy later on in the odd section, he's a separate subject here. But I think when I'm looking at John Rom compared to Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Kefka, Bryson DeChambeau, I think Rom is pretty easily at the top of that list to me where I put him above all those guys. The question is like do I go back to DJ and Brooks, hoping they fixed what was ailing them before the break? Or do I decide to commit and go to John Rom? I, in a field where I have limited information because we haven't seen these golfers in such a long time, I am more inclined to not commit outside of Rory. Again, we'll talk about him later, but I think that's a big question I have. So from a ranking perspective, Rom is number one for me there, but I'm not sure how committed I feel to that just because of the lack of information. What about for you? Yeah, I think this is a good week to kind of take a stand on which types of golfers you're valuing, whether it is just the guys who are hyper accurate or who get the biggest boost from whenever we're looking just at accuracy and not counting for distance. If we're looking for guys who are just in good form entering, which probably not something I'm doing, I think the guys that I've really been keying in on are some younger golfers who have holes in their games, specifically things like short game that can kind of get fixed a little more easy. So that's kind of the way that I'm going. Rom, for that reason, still fits. You have to think that John Rom's doing everything you can to stay at the top of his game. So Rom probably at the top of that tier, or he is at the top of that tier behind Rory for me. Bigger problem is he's only $300 cheaper than Rory, so that's always tough because Rory, I mean, I kind of have to like, so when I build up my simulations, you kind of have to like scale that back a little bit with how good Rory was, but even when you do that, like his win odds are just substantially higher than anybody else's, so, I mean, if you're trusting the data, Rory's still the play, but Rom, if he happens to go a little bit overlooked, just because it's like, hey, Rory's $300 more and we have so many other good options, then I'll be going in all in on John Rom. I don't think we had this specifically in the rundown anywhere, so I do want to ask you about Kepka and DJ. They were really bad, I think it's fair to say, before the layoff. Is there any inclination on your part to try to get in on them now before we can react to changes they may have made? I guess DJ did finish 10th in one event, but like, they weren't good. So are you inclined to try to get in on them while the salaries and popularity may be lower? Yeah, I mean, if we get a read, it's actually earlier than we record normally, so it's even harder to get a read on, who's gonna get ownership, and we know it's gonna be Rory, it's probably gonna be Rom, JT as well, but I think that this is, like I said, it's a good week to take a stand on the golfers you like the most, and I think for that reason, Brooks is an elite tournament player. I would be there with DJ as well, but I just prefer Brooks straight up. His form wasn't quite so bad. Potentially the time off will help, and Brooks is a guy, I don't know, it could kind of be counter, but he doesn't really talk about practicing a lot, like he kind of doesn't seem to practice much, so this time off could either like not affect him that much, because he's fine not practicing, or he could come out and we learn that he hasn't really touched a golf club, but again, we've seen him come back from injury in like one major and stuff, so. Yeah, I think they're very interesting, and I think that they are people I want to at least make sure before Thursday morning, I give a lot of thought to. I may wind up still not going there, but I at least want to give a thought, because I think that they are really, really interesting for this weekend. You were also talking about young players making improvements, I know Young Han An is not super young, he's like 20, upper 20s, but someone tweeted at him like, hey, how's the putter? And he said, hot as always, so that's what I thought of when you were talking about younger guys working on their game, just bent on in like a putting green in his office, I assume, just going ham. Yeah, I mean, it's realistic to think that bent on became less awful at putting. It's not. Let me have this one. Nope, I'm cutting you off there. We are not going to go there instead. We're going to talk about Kevin Na. We're giving the Na away to that sentiment and talking about the other Na. Kevin, the most recent winner at Colonial Country Club, he came through in last year's Charles Schwab challenge, as you mentioned, and did it in pretty impressive fashion too because he beat Tony Fienow, who was in second by four strokes. It was Na's second straight top five finish at this course in his third top 10 in his past four tries. Now, Na did miss two cuts in the first seven events in 2020 before the layoff, but he also was top 10 at the WGC, Mexico in a tough field. The big issue that I have with Na is that he's in a really solid tier. That upper 9,000 range is tough. So are you going to give Na a run with the impressive course history or are the other guys drawing you away in that tier? Too many other guys, I think. I know that it's $600 is a lot for PGA, but I love Colin Morakawa. I'm going to talk about him more. Scotty Schaeffler is $10,200. We can talk Jordan Spieth in a sec at $10,000. But I mean, even like Matthew Fitzpatrick, Jason Day, Victor Hovland, Daniel Berger was really hot entering. I don't know how that's going to stick around, but I think the reason to like Kevin Na is mostly the course form. And the reason to like a lot of these other guys is just a larger sample of stats that look really good. So probably going to just pass on Kevin Na. I'm always a fan of his, but I really don't think that the price is quite right. And I would rather go elsewhere. Na anecdotally fits the course because like he's not a super long guy. So like you could make that argument, but a lot of the guys we just touched on are in a similar realm. Like Matthew Fitzpatrick is also not a distance guy and is really good with like his irons can be good with his short game too. So I think that that kind of takes away the one thing in Na's favor. So I don't dislike him. I just don't like him enough to prioritize him in a tier where there are a lot of really good options. One of them could be Jordan Spieth. You might have to sell me here. You were talking about guys as in balls. Jordan Spieth may have some issues with that given his accuracy off the tee of late. So Jordan Spieth, $10,000. What is pushing you to talk about him here for this weekend? Well, the course history. We know he's an elite Ben Grasputter. I've had great finishes at this course in recent years which is obviously why we're talking about that. But did so in different ways. Last year he finished eighth despite gaining only 0.8 strokes tee to green. Lost 1.9 with the approach but gained seven and a half strokes putting which is very much an outlier performance. The year prior though, he gained 7.1 strokes tee to green lost 3.6 putting. Putting is definitely volatile even for someone as good with the putter as Jordan Spieth is. I kind of hope that this break was really good for Jordan Spieth but it could also be very bad for him. Not that it could get much worse. And that's not to say that he's been the world's worst golfer. It's just his ball striking hasn't been there the swing mechanics. I'm not an expert by any means but it seems like that's what he needed to work on and maybe the time off was really good. So the ball striking was still a mess entering the players. He ranks outside the top 110 in approach and off the tee strokes gained over the past 50 rounds according to Fantasy National. But there are a lot of unknowns and I think that we're talking about guys like Brooks Kepka and DJ and trying to buy back before the public is like exactly where they should be on these guys. And for someone with Jordan Spieth we know what the upside is it's we've seen him gain a ton of strokes tee to green. We know how good the putter can be and that means that he can put away a win. So for $10,000 I like the idea of a balanced lineup and I think that Jordan Spieth is at least in play and I was not really there for quite some time before that. So sounds like he's not doing anything for you. Yeah, it's pretty accurate. So I think the way that I'm viewing it with golfers potentially making corrections over the layoff is dependent on the sample in which they sucked and the sample on Jordan Spieth not being good off the tee and with his approach play is really big now. And it's been like a couple of years whereas with Brooks Kepka and Dustin Johnson we saw them be dominant like DJ early summer of last year and Kepka for several years he was dominant and then has kind of slipped off of late. So the sample of them being terrible is smaller. The same thing is true for like Billy Horschel had a weird stretch over the winter and stuff like that where he was pretty terrible but like bounced back. The sample on Justin Rose struggling is smaller too. So I think if golfers had a rough couple of months I am okay potentially trying to buy low on them when it's a couple of years that's more worrisome. So I am still waiting on Spieth. Again, like my hope with him is that we get an event where his ball striking gets good but he's terrible on the greens because there I'm gonna try to buy in aggressively but I haven't really seen that yet. So I'm still very, very hesitant and I'm less inclined to buy low on him than I am most other golfers I think. So I think I'm a bit lower on you, lower than you here. Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna like fight you on it. I'm not saying that Jordan Spieth is my favorite golfer in this range. She definitely isn't. But I think the time off probably is gonna do him some good. The ball strike. It can't do him pretty bad. Right, that's what I was getting at before. It feels like it's been forever since we've seen good ball striking from him. It's been about two years. Just basically a really bad like 2019 in terms of ball striking. So, but I mean, there are some events sprinkled in where things look pretty good. So it's definitely possible. I mean, he's only 10,000 and he doesn't need to win, but with how good his putter can be, he can jump up like 15 spots in the standings, make some extra birdies. So he's got some appeal for me though. I think that if you're multi-entering for tournaments, you're not wasting a slot if you decide to have a couple sprinkles of Jordan Spieth. I think that's the way I'd say it. You're not wasting a spot. But if you're building one lineup, you're not playing Jordan Spieth. There is no chance I would not consider it. Absolutely not. So yeah, it depends on how you're playing things, but maybe if you're multi-entering, worth a sprinkler too. Jim hates it, so you can just say it. Is Jason, yeah. So, yeah. I mean, like there's usually like some dude who I just can't, I can't fathom using. I don't think Jason, you know, Jason Day is here. Just kidding. Like Jason Day, play of the week where I just can't, I can't fathom possibly using that person. That's kind of like Jordan Spieth is not there, but he's like, you know, he's close. And I like Jason Day to speak. Okay, you can do that. I'm gonna refrain personally. So let's talk about someone, Brandon, whose sample of suckage was a little bit smaller than Jordan Spieth. And that's a million of Grillo. And Grillo, his form entering the layoff was really bad. He had missed the cut in four of six events before the break. That means that he did not miss a cut two times. He was disqualified in one of those two times. He did get a third place finish, that's good. But that was at the Puerto Rico Open with a really bad field. So Grillo, the past six events, not a whole lot going. But this course might be able to get him back on track because Grillo has made the cut all four times he has played here, including three straight top 25 finishes. One of those was a third place finish in 2018. And Grillo really cheap, $8400. He was in better form for those events, which is worth noting, but his stats are still okay. And he's had time to maybe patch things up in his game. So are you in on a million of Grillo as a value play this weekend? Is he on bentgrass? He is. That's really the checklist with Grillo in terms of whether you can consider him or not. Again, if you're building one lineup, no. Yeah. And that's, I think maybe this is where we differ because you said that there are some names in the 8,000 range you feel good with. It's chess. So like, I mean, I like Eric Van Royen. Yeah, I like Eric Van Royen too. Other than him, there's Adam Hadwin at 9,000, but I don't feel great with anybody else. And I really don't even love the low 9,000 range, which is to say like, I'm not looking in this range a lot and I want to kind of just build a lineup with like five guys, 96 and above, so that I just feel better with a lot of my golfers as opposed to taking a stab on someone like Grillo. So he's in play because it's bentgrass and we know that the ball striking can be. I wouldn't expect like the top three upside in this field because again, he did that against the weaker field at this event, but you know, he gets a top 25. That's definitely viable. It's just a matter of the odds that he can really separate himself in this tougher field. Yeah, I think for me, it's like for one lineup, and like especially if it's a cash game lineup, I wouldn't want to go Grillo, but I would feel comfortable having him as like a fringe core play if I'm multi-entering for tournaments. Like that's where I met with him because if I have someone as a fringe core play for an event where I'm lowering my exposure levels to most golfers, like I'm not going like 10% on everyone, but like if I'm going, normally I'd be 80%, we're already going to 60%. Like I can have 40% Grillo and still leave 60% of my lineups where if he sucks, I'm still safeguarded there. So I am comfortable putting him in that fringe core range because I'm safeguarded enough where if he sucks, whatever it's okay, like it doesn't feel good, but like I still have lineups that can go off. And I think that there are other guys in the 8,000 range who I'd put in a similar bucket where they can be fringe core plays and that's why I can feel okay going a little bit more top heavy. I think that's the way that, that's the reason I'm okay with it. Yeah, I mean, I don't dislike that logic at all, but I think that the odds that you hit, like let's say all, if you're trying to get all six of your golfers in the top 10 in this field, I feel like a more balanced way, of a more balanced lineup is much more likely because what's Grillo's ceiling? I mean, I have numbers on like how often he finishes. You can actually answer this with numbers. But to really like figure that out, I mean, I won't lie, the optimal lineups that I spit out with that were like Rory, Rom, and then guys like Jim Furrick, and there was like a lot of really cheap guys, I know, but that's just because that's how good Rory and Rom's odds are. I really don't think that's the best way to do it though, so I'm gonna disagree with the numbers and probably build a little bit more balance, but I mean, that's not to say that I don't like Grillo, it's just I can only do so much with him and not as much as you. Yeah, and again, try to avoid if you can in cash games because I am still worried about those struggles from before carrying over. So cash games, no, fringe core play for tournaments, yes. Let's move into current form and look at some golfers who were doing well before the layoff and one of the best golfers before the layoff was Colin Morikawa. You said you wanted to buy into younger guys who've had some time to work on things. In this time off, Morikawa probably doesn't have a ton to work on outside of maybe some stuff for the short game. So what are your thoughts on Morikawa at $10,400? Yeah, I think that's a super cheap price. It's really, I mean, in the field, I understand it. If this was a typical Charles Schwab, he'd be priced up, but for that price, that really gets access to a really good player. Again, it goes along with the idea that some of these younger players could iron out some of those wrinkles that they have in their game. And we know where Morikawa's good, and it's the ball striking, leads the field and strokes game approach over the past 50 rounds. This field too, like it's not a regular Charles Schwab, so that kind of says a lot. He was 25th at the Waste Management, 26th at the Genesis, 42nd at the WGC Mexico, which I'm willing to write off because the elevation there is always problematic for new guys. Ninth at the Arnold Palmer, and again, I mean, he's also second in the field and strokes gained T-degree over the past 24 rounds if we kind of want to view it from that lens, which again, I really don't, but the super recent form entering was really good. If he gets the putter figured out, if his chipping gets a little bit better, he could be one of the most dangerous golfers in the field for weeks to come, not just this week. So he's the kind of player I'm looking for. It's kind of pull the trigger a little early and get out ahead of everyone else. Yeah, I think for me, I'm not gonna have, not every lineup that I built if a multi-enter for tournaments is gonna be top heavy. I'm gonna have somewhere I have different roster constructions, because I agree, there is some credence to going more balanced. And I think that if I'm going balanced, more cow is perfect, because in that mid-10,000 range, I would have a hard time putting anybody above him. I don't see anybody I put above him in that range. Tony Fiena, I would consider, but he's not a great fit for this course. I only finished second year last year, but he's not the best fit here. So I think more a cow would be my one, but I think he has to fit in a very specific type of roster build, and I'd rather get Xander Schoffelay, we're gonna talk about some GM in a second, I'd rather get to those guys than go with more a cow. So when I go with the balanced build, I think that more a cow would be a key piece to that. So I think from that perspective, I'm gonna be here at least at some point this weekend, for sure. Yeah, I mean, it's really difficult to figure out the best way to build lineups this week, mostly because we don't know what to expect. If we could be more confident in some of these value plays, I would say I'm more willing to go stars and scrubsy, but I really think I might just try to settle on one stud and some balance, but it's just, it's difficult because if you play Rory, I just started a lineup with Rory, Xander, and more a cow, and I have 8,700 left for the final three. That's not as bad as I thought it'd be. It's not, but you gotta play basically Grillo, Yeah. Van Roy, and I'm not giving out like full lineups here, but you're kind of like, with only liking like three value plays, I only have like one place to go with that lineup. Yeah, and I think that that's viable at times, but it's definitely not a default build. But I think that like if you go Rory, skip over Xander and go more a cow as your number two, that gets you more balance. It gets you fewer value plays and maybe that's in a better zone where you could probably get back up to the upper 9,000 then. I'm gonna be more inclined to do the opposite and go around Xander rather than Rory. Yeah, I think that's in play too. Cause like Xander's, I will talk about Xander later, I think he's really interesting. So I think that's in play for sure. Let's talk about someone in that same tier as Xander Schaafle, which is some J.M. Because he's one of the most recent winners on the PGH tour before the layoff. That was some J.M. He got it done. The Honda Classic then followed that up with a third at the All in the Palmer. And then all the wind got taken out of his sails because we had the COVID-19 layoff. But him backed up those finishes with really solid stats. He gained 6.2 strokes in approach at the Honda Classic. He gained 10.5 T.D. Green at the Arnold Palmer. A lot of that was around the green, but regardless, still counts. So that's good. There are two potential issues here. The first one is that Sung Jae's better on both Bermuda and Poa than he is on Bencrasse. Sample size issues definitely in play there because him is younger. The second is that this is a really good tier. It's got Webb Simpson at 11-4. It's Xander Schaafle. Patrick Reed, Justin Rhodes, all within $200 one way or another of Sung Jae him. So Brandon, did Sung Jae do enough before the layoff for you to target him at 11-2 in a really loaded tier? Yes, but the odds that I play him just realistically are kind of lower than they should be. Like I'm fine with the price. That's kind of where he deserves to be. But with Xander being only $100 more expensive and with someone like Morikawa at 10-4, it's just a lot easier to either pay up or pay down for one of those two just because I like Morikawa and Xander so much this week. So Sung Jae probably, I mean, just one of these young guys, all he does is golf. He golfs every week no matter what to begin with. So long as he had a way to golf, he's probably just been playing constantly without the taxation of like tournament style golf. So he's probably gonna come in in really good form. And I was actually very disappointed to see the price because I figured if he's mid 10,000s or something, which is not unrealistic because of the other names in that range, he would be a great play. I think right now at the price, he's just an okay play. I think the one thing that helps me get to Sung Jae is that I'm probably gonna be in this tier more often than you because I really do like the build of Rory jump down to this tier for my second stuff, whether it be Xander or Sung Jae, I do like Webb as well at 11-4. So I think this will be not only a popular build for me and as a result of that, I'll wind up getting to Sung Jae at least a bit. He's not my favorite in that tier though and that's the issue that pushes me away. Yeah, and I'm not downplaying a $400 difference but Brooks at 11-6 or Sung Jae at 11-2. Right, that's it. I mean, I don't need to even answer that I don't think. I think that buying low on Brooks there is really tough to lay off of. Yeah. All right, let's move on to a couple of cheaper plays. We haven't talked about the low 9000 yet, I don't think. It's not very enticing. That's why I don't really wanna get to bog down and in the value. I like the mid 9500, it came out on purpose because it's kind of the cutoff of where the falloff is but there are a couple of guys in the low 9000s who could be intriguing, one of whom is Max Homa. He is $9,300 a winner on the PGA Tour last year. What do you see with him here at $9,300 specifically with his current form? Yeah, was a golfer on the rise. He's not as young as like Moorakala. He's actually 29, Moorakala's 23 but it still kind of fits into that general idea of some time off helping some of these less established players really figure out maybe what they don't have time to work on as much as they should. But he had a hot stretch of a ninth, sixth, 14th, fifth and 24th entering the hiatus despite some lukewarm ball striking over a pretty large sample. But the more recent data coinciding with those better results were basically coming from above average ball striking with above average putting which is basically just kind of an all around good golfer. The question is whether that sticks after the break. He did finish 27th year last year. So I'm not putting a ton of stock into that but I definitely don't dislike that. So $9,300 is a price that I don't think I'll be requiring a ton this week but actually the more I build lineups I'll probably have to find some golfers in the low 9,000s actually to roster unless I'm bumping down to the 8,000s which I also don't really like. So I think Homa is gonna be someone I play more than I initially would want in hopes that the current form sticks around. So any thoughts for you on Max Homa? Yeah, not quite convinced. I think that for me it's not, there aren't guys who I like who are, you know, this salary lower outside of the guy we're gonna talk about in a second but there are guys right above this like Kevin Kisner's $9,500. I'd rather do whatever I had to do to get to him or find the $300 to get to Billy Horschel and like he said, like $300 is a non-trivial number on in a really good field. So I'm not like trying to dismiss that but like if that means that I jumped down from, I don't know, like if I jumped down from like, I wouldn't even pick Mark Leishman over Calmore Cow but like if I had to do that that's an adjustment I'm going to make to go with a Billy Horschel over a Max Homa. So I think that's kind of where I'm at. I could see myself using a share of him but like it would more so be a differentiation play more than anything. I wanna talk about my golfer here though and we can talk about this, this tier as a whole because like he said, I think that's not the best tier. So let's talk about Joel Damon because with how well he was playing before the break Joel Damon probably didn't want the layoff to happen when it did because in the final two events before the layoff Damon finished fifth ball of times that was after a 14th at the Pebble Beach Pro Am and those finishes for Damon came even though he wasn't necessarily doing well in the greens which is something that I want to account for because I'm not expecting to be good as a putter expecting to be bad but he actually lost 1.6 strokes putting at the Arnold Palmer still finished fifth there and that's what happens when you gain 7.2 strokes and approach. The problem is that the worst surface for a bad putter for Damon is bentgrass. So the putting woes could very much rear their ugly head again. That's why I can't say that like, oh I'm just gonna use Damon in this tier because like there are very serious blemishes that I expect to continue for him at $9,300. So are you in on Damon and where do you rank him relative to Homa? Probably that's tough because I wanna trust the ball striking but I really like the all around performance from Homa entering the break. So I might put Homa first above the two. Damon is just in this range that's where we start to get to these guys who have a lot of question marks. And if you look at like the win odds and the way that I do things is not just match win odds to salaries but I think off the top of my head there's no golfer below at or below 9,000 whose odds are better than 100 to 1 to win. So the win equity just drops off a table both in the actual betting market but then the simulations however you wanna look at it. So the farther down we go, the tougher it is. And you mentioned $300 being non-trivial. You basically can do like Max Homa or Joel Damon take your pick plus Rory or you can do John Rom and Ben On or Billy Horschel at 96, that's the same price. Or Xander and Scotty Schaeffler, that's the same price. Like if you're looking for like high end win equity I know that you have Max Homa, Joel Damon, these guys can in one iteration of this event finish pretty high but really trying to maximize my like win equity here in a tough field as much as it's like is hard to think I'm not gonna play Rory in my main lineup I might not play Rory in my main lineup. I think that there is, well there is credence to that even before talking about like the opportunity cost because of like the long layoff and we don't know there's just so many unknowns. Like there's value to that thought process because of that. But also when we're talking about this if it gets me out of this low 9,000 tier then I'm more willing to do it. So I think that I like the 8,000 tier more than you do but we're both on the same page that the low 9,000 range is just, it's not good. And I think that's something that will impact the way that I'm building things. What that means dropping down more or paying up a bit more to get away from the guys at around $9,300. It's not even necessarily that it's not good. It's that nobody really separates from anybody else. And yeah. There's no cash game option in that tier. Right. And like some of these guys will finish well but the odds that you hit on the right guys is not super high. And that's kind of where I'm getting at with. Yeah, you know, Joel Damon can finish top 15. Camp Smith can finish top 15. Like this can happen. But I really think in the top of the field it gets the more it makes sense to kind of balance your lineup out a little bit more. Yep, I think that makes sense too. Let's dive in here to see what bookmakers are saying about this Charles Schwab challenge starting off at the top. We're Rory McElroy. The easy favorite at Vanduul Sports Book. He is eight to one. Then it's John Rahman and Justin Thomas by themselves at 12 to one and 16 to one respectively. Bryce Ndishambeau is next up. He is 22 to one. Brooks Kepka and Webb Simpson are 25 to one. Then Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed are 28 to one. Sung J.M. and Xander Shafley around at the top group. They are 33 to one at Vanduul Sports Book. So let's talk about Rory here because he is the favorite. He is the highest salary golfer on Vanduul. How do you view Rory McElroy in the field especially relative to someone like John Rahm? So Rory is definitely a cut above everyone else. Whether you kind of adjust for the laugh or not. There's really no reason to expect Rory to come back and be just not engaged, especially with all these majors coming up. So Rory is easily the number one. It's just a matter of how good you feel about your ability to hit on the other golfers coming back in that lower tier because you can't really play Rory and a balanced lineup unless your balanced lineup is like all $9,000 golfers which isn't a bad thing. But that's not usually the way that I think of a balanced lineup. It's usually in that sense Rory plus someone even like Xander or Sung Jae and then balanced from there. So if you're going with Rory, you kind of, yeah, you might get the winner but you're gonna have to hit on your other five golfers and it sounds a lot easier than it ever is. So that's always the problem. Yeah, and I think that I guess like for tournaments I still want to build around him. I get what you're saying. The only thing that it changes for me is my exposure level because normally in this field, I would have Rory at like 80% exposure because I'm okay building around a dude and just kind of like wasting away a week if he doesn't do well. Like that's not a huge issue for me personally. If your process is different, you should account for that but like mine, whatever. Also with Rory, like he's finished top five in every event he's been to since September which is only seven events but like that's still seven straight top buys is disgusting. So the odds that he torpedoes you and takes you out of contention are not as high as they would be for other golfers. So I think that what I'll do is take that whatever max exposure would be to Rory and lower it to account for the layoff and still give myself some leeway to have a lineup burst out if he doesn't do well. So just lowering exposure but still building around him. Yeah, look, he's got the highest upside in the field. He's got the highest floor. The question is if you're building, so for tournaments he's definitely in play even at higher ownership because you can differentiate in other ways and Rory's not really a risk to miss the cut. Hopefully, I mean, but if you- Come back, let it die, he's cursed. If you plug in Rory though, you have 95, 60 for your other five golfers which is basically you either live in that 9,000 range which has options but isn't super appealing or you start digging into that lower range which again, yeah, any golfer can win an event basically. Not somebody's guy at the very bottom of this but it's the odds that you kind of hit that six of six because you're forcing it Rory, it just plummets. So I think this week the question is more, yeah, Rory you can play in tournaments. The question is more, are you jamming him in in cash games no matter what? So I tried to build the cash game roster while you were talking because again, I don't listen to you. That's fine. While you were talking and I started out with Rory and then built from there based on golfers, I am very okay using for cash game rosters and when I got to the end, I wound up going wrong instead because the final golfer that it got me was a lot more palatable. The $300 there made a big enough difference where I was willing to go wrong there. So I don't know if Rory will be my cash game golfer but the pool of golfers I will consider is so much larger in tournaments that he's still going to be my firm core stud for tournaments even if he's not in my cash game lineup. Yeah, it makes sense. Like I'm not saying fade Rory. Rory's the best player in the field and there's no conversation about it. It's just a matter of is the best cash game lineup one that includes Rory? It's very easy. You can make the case for it but you have to kind of convince yourself to play a lot of these other golfers who they're just a, it's a big teardrop right around that $10,000 range and we can't really lie about that to ourselves. And for me as of right now, the answer is no. Is Rory in the optimal cash game lineup? I don't think so. I'm going to tinker around to some other iterations of it but for right now I would say the answer is no. And I'd rather go like it was, it wound up being wrong here because like that's how it worked out. But I could very easily see him not being in my cash game lineup. Yeah, it sounded weird to think about but I think that's where I am now. We've seen a lot of movement here because I think people are pretty active in the betting market. People might be a little hungry for some golf as we saw with the match and stuff like that. So what movement have we seen since things opened up at Vandal Sports? But I think the most, the most relevant window here is since the contest went up which I believe was like late Friday. So have you seen any movement since Friday until now on Wednesday afternoon? Yeah, a lot. I'm not going to read everything because it would take me forever. I'm just going to try to hit on some of the bigger ones. Some of the ones more near the top but as far as guys who's irrelevant golfers who's odds have shortened, Brooks Capca from 29 to 25 to one on Vandal Sportsbook. Jordan Spieth, your boy from 42 to 35. Ches Revy, your actual boy for once, 120 to 100. But then we've seen a lot of guys have their odds lengthen. Rory from seven to eight which is always just noticeable. Still a pretty heavy favorite. Bryson from 18 to 22. Webb Simpson from 22 to 25. Dustin Johnson, 25 to 28. Ricky Fowler, 29 to 35. Xander, 29 to 33. Mark Leishman, 31 to 42. Colin Morcal, 31 to 45. Scotty Schaeffler and Tony Fiennel, 34 to 40. So really what that kind of means to me is it was a like take your pick kind of a open or at least as it was on Friday and then when people started betting we saw who wasn't getting action. So it seems like who's getting action is probably a lot on Brooks and Spieth. And then probably not like nothing overly probably not a ton on anybody else's would be the kind of the read that I have. And I think that as a result of the way that you were talking about like it's probably just like pick your poison initially where I think that it shouldn't push us to believe that Rory will be under or less popular than he should be unless because he lengthened. Like he's still the heavy favorite. He's still the most the highest salary golfer and your research has shown that both those lead to a golfer being the most popular. He's still gonna be I would say probably the most popular golfer in the field. Yeah, by far, I would say. So don't let that make you think he will not be popular. He's gonna be popular. Just a note there for sure. Which lower salary golfers have odds that stand out to you? Again, there's not a ton in terms of the golfers who are super cheap from a DFS standpoint. Again, no golfers below $9,000 have odds better than a hundred to one, which is a full on long shot, especially in a field like this. So I mean, golfers who are realistically kind of in the conversation are all right in that low 9,000 range, which is the range that we weren't really in on, but there are some golfers with 65 to one win odds, which are not terrible. But that includes Kevin Kisner, Joachim Nieman, another young guy who can maybe iron some things out. Abraham Anser, Joel Damon, Harris English, Max Homa, Ryan Palmer, Maverick McNeely, Christian Bizadenhoot is 80 to one. But as far as anything relevant, I'm not gonna list off guys who are like 120 to one just because they're cheap. So sorry, but I don't really think that makes sense here. So maybe that does speak to that low 9,000 range being a little bit better than we think, but I don't really know if this is enough to get me in on that low 9,000 range anyway. I looked ahead to the player picks and neither of us has anybody in the low 9,000 range there. So if you had to pick one, who would you go with? Of the guys I just mentioned, probably Homa or Nieman. Okay. What about you? Kisner? Kisner, if we include him. I feel pretty good about Kisner. He's in my player picks, but like of the guys below $9,500, I guess it'd be either Damon or Anser. Anser's at least accurate off the tee. That's good. He's not terrible with his approach. I don't know. I don't know if that's enough to like, I don't feel inspired by it, but like, I guess it's kind of like a sure whatever type thing maybe. I mean, I can read off golfers who are 9,000 or cheaper. We'll talk about cheaper guys in the player picks, but like, I think it's worth noting that like, the odds fall off. Like that in itself is noteworthy. And it is. And that's why I don't want to, yeah, I like Eric Van Royden more than the next guy. I like him a lot, but I need to limit my exposure and I don't think that he's part of the best lineup I can build. Shots fired. The best single lineup. And then send him that audio clip with no other context attached. Just going to come out. I hope, I've been looking for his joggers. I want some of them. Very specific. Oh yeah. Yeah. They were pretty. You call them joggers and it threw me off. That's what they are. I know, but like it's a weird term, whatever. Whether nothing to be concerned about, thankfully, the winds Thursday will be beneath five miles per hour to start and then rise throughout the day. Never going to get higher than 10 miles per hour though. Friday's forecast is pretty similar. So no major advantage for any particular wave from a tea time perspective. On the weekend, the winds are never projected to get above 10 miles per hour. So might be a bit less windy than usual at courses like this. So potentially lower score than usual, but regardless, no weather that is noteworthy for this weekend. So let's dive into our player picks for the Charles Schwab Challenge. Brandon, who do you have in the upper salary tier? So I'm going to go with John Rom. Again, I have Rory in his own tier, but I'm fine with John Rom in a cash game. I'm not really fine with anyone else in this range until you get to Xander to start off for cash game. So it's kind of, look, we like Brooks. We always love Justin Thomas, who we didn't really talk about much. Fine with Dustin Johnson in tournaments, but if it's not Rory in a cash game, it's going to be Rom or down to Xander. So I really want to kind of emphasize Rom here. We already talked about his form at Colonial, but he's 12th off the tee, 14th in approach and strokes gained over the past 50 rounds, 46th in fairways gained, 14th in good drive rate. So doesn't really fit the, we're looking for like accurate golfers off the tee, but you know, he can be. We see that in the data. The good drive rate is really the telling stat for me there. He's going to be able to overpower what's available to him, still hit those fairways. And he's actually a better, he's a pretty good bent grass putter, rates out better than Rory does. So I think Rom is the only one who's really in the stratosphere of Rory this week. I'd agree that too. I mean, of the golfers who are 11-1 or are more expensive, only two are in the top 70 in driving accuracy the past 50 rounds. One is Rory, the other one is Rom. So I agree that like, if you're looking for course fits, win equity, whatever it may be, those are your two guys. And that's why I'm okay, jumping down to Rom for a cash game lineup. But to me, it is all about Rory. He's my first player pick, because again, thanks to the layoff, it has been since September, since Rory finished outside the top five. That is seven straight events. That's stupid. He can bomb it, but again, he's not a sprayer. He's 44th in accuracy the past 50 rounds according to Fantasy National. Fourth in approach, second in scrambling. The reason to maybe not go all the way in, like again, maybe lower exposure a bit is that he has no course history here. Rom does, and again, is very good course history. And with the layoff, we just know less. And when we have less information, I tend to lower my exposure. So that's reasons to be a bit lower on Rory, but I still think that something around 60% is fully appropriate, despite that for me on Rory McElroy. Tournament exposure estimate, Brandon. I know it's still Rory. Yeah, but if you had to guess to me, where do you think you'll wind up? For tournaments, I'd still wanna be higher than the field because I know what his upside is. Surprise though, around 40. Okay. So lower than you. Probably not the majority of my lineups, but I mean, I can build lineups with Rory where I still like the lineup. It's not how I wanna build my core lineup for our bobble hat. Maybe I'll get there. Maybe I'll talk myself into some cheaper options, but I think for now, Rory's fine for me not being someone that I build around in cash games. I would also say that for single entry tournament rosters, I would go Rory there, over wrong. Because I am more okay with, specifically, a new Yana Grillo. It opens up a lot of stuff, but I'm more okay with him in a single entry tournament. But for cash, maybe not. Yeah, I was gonna say it's kind of like Rory and Grillo versus Correct. Rom and Van Royden. Yeah, or Van Royden. I don't know, just 87, yeah. Moving on to our other higher salary golfers, who else do you like here? Callin' more Cowah. So I'm gonna kind of play into that idea that I'm gonna bump down. No, it would have been Xander, but I'm gonna spoil your next pick. He picked Xander already, so I wanna make that clear, but more Cowah just kind of fits what I'm looking for, the young guy who can probably fix some of the things in his game that weren't quite on par. And what was up to par was the ball striking, and you really can't fade that. I'm not saying that he will come out with elite ball striking 100%, but I'd rather have to fix the short game than the ball striking in the iron place. So for $10,400, I think more Cowah's one of the more underpriced golfers this week, and I'm gonna build around him quite a bit. Like I said, in that tier, if I do wind up going with an approach that leads me to this tier, more Cowah would be the guy I'd go to there. If I go into that second tier, my guy is Xander Shafley. He's the top guy there for me. He's more known as being a bomber, but he's not a total sprayer at the same time. And his history here is pretty bad. Two missed cuts, no finish is better than the 48th. And the hoping that what that does is keep interest in Xander muted, probably a fruitless endeavor because people tend to like Xander quite a bit, but regardless, I can hope. The big flaw for Shafley for this course is that he's 88th in accuracy, but he's also 18th in approach, 11th in scrambling and 24th in bentgrass putting. That's over the past 100 rounds. And we know Xander comes to play in the toughest fields. And this qualifies as being that. So I hope he flies into the radar more than usual due to the red flags. I'm not expecting that, but like I'll be in on him regardless. So give me your pitch on Xander. I know you liked him too. What was your process that led you to him? Again, just kind of like the idea that he's young and can kind of fix things. And he also doesn't have a whole lot to fix. It's more of the short game. The around the green play was there. That was always one of the things that worried me about him, because while around the green play is the, generally the least important of the four strokes game stats, it still matters. And we're not going to have fans down, like to tamp down all the rough green side. You're going to have to kind of be able to play from some disadvantageous positions. So I wanted to see that and it's there for the price. I think he's probably the best value in that 11,000 range. So he's going to be a core play for me. It might be my highest down call for this week. Okay, let's move on to another, let's move on the mid range actually. Golfers who are between like $10,200. I cheated. I cheated. And the low 9,000s. It makes sense with the more Cala pick. So who is your pick here? I mean, I took more Cala as a hard one. No, no, I'm saying, I'm saying you're right. I'm just explaining in case it was weird. Yeah, but I mean, okay. This again goes with kind of what I've been saying. Scotty Schaeffler though, $10,200. Only 23, entered with some very clear places he could work on his game. Dreadful putting, but other than that, top 40 in all three T-degree stats entering, I guess the players, 57th in fairways gain but 22nd in good drive rate. So it leads me to believe that he can put himself outside those fairway bunkers and into position to hit these small greens. So I think that he's in play for a made cut for sure, which is definitely something he won from someone who's at $10,200. But there's some upside if the short game kind of hangs around. And I think he's 31st in greens regulation in this field, which I'll take. So Schaeffler fits that idea of going a little bit more balanced than I typically would as does your next golfer. Is bad putting a prerequisite for being a heat check favorite? Yes. Okay, good, just making sure. So Scottie Schaeffler can be there. He's in the putter, I don't, yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that's just required. Victor Hovland potentially not a bad putter? I don't know, it's hard to tell. It's a really small sample, so I don't actually know. But he's in a really, really good tier, which can be tough, but the stats are perfect for this course because Hovland ranks 13th in accuracy the past 50 rounds and that is on top of ranking 7th in approach. He's been brutal around the greens. The short game again is a concern and in this range though, you're gonna have to accept something bad. For Hovland, it happens to be him around the green. So we have to acknowledge that, but the ball striking is really good. That makes you a heat check favorite in general, $9,800. It's a good tier. We talked about how that's why we're not into Kevin Na. And that's worth noting for Hovland too, but I think at 98, I am willing to go here for sure. What about you on Hovland? Yeah, I like him quite a bit. I think, yeah, he was one of the golfers who I would have written up, but you were at the sheet first. Look, he knows, he's said that his chipping sucks, like those were his words. But I don't recall exactly where I saw this, but I'm pretty sure he's been working on his chipping, which makes sense. And again, this is the kind of situation where I'm trying to take advantage of. A young golfer with everything, but kind of one area, whether it's putting or around the green. I'm not really looking to say maybe this guy learned how to drive or play with his irons at an elite level. So if Hovland brings what he can typically do with like decent short game, he's gonna pay off his $9,800 price tag. Right. The one reason I almost did not write up Hovland was because I was interested in Billy Horschel. So I'm glad you decided to write Billy Horschel instead at $9,600, your second mid-tier play. What pushes you towards him? Yeah, not a young guy, but this is gonna be a range. Look, we keep saying we don't really like the low 9,000s, but it's because I'm fine with the mid to upper 9,000s, and that's a pretty clear distinction. To me, there's a big drop between like these guys and the Max Homas and whoever else is down there. So Horschel, 20th and Fairways game, 22nd in Bentgrass putting. He's got pretty good win odds in my simulations, despite like the more middling price. I know that the recent form was falling off, but the large sample for Horschel is still pretty good. 19th and 34th here, over the past three years, it's not of course the same exact course or setup or field, but I feel pretty safe with Horschel. There's a tinge of top 10 upside for him. So for the salary, Horschel, another reason why I'm really interested in a more balanced build. And I think that he fits really well for a cash game build. I like Horschel there. The reason that I'm not super concerned about that funky had was that the long sample is really good, but also the sample immediately before the break. He had gotten, it seemed like over it. Like he had a couple of top 10s, had some good approach numbers in the final four events. So I'm okay overlooking it personally. And I think that's why I'm okay with Horschel and cash. I also like Kevin Kisner for cash game type rosters. He is a former winner here. He got that back in 2017. It's one of two top fives and three top 10s for him at this course. And those were a long time ago. You know, 2017 is, I know it's like one of the more recent events of this course, but it is objectively a long time ago. But Kisner's form is good too. He's 28th in accuracy, 50 second in approach, 24th in scrambling. And that's on top of being the fourth best bentgrass putter in this field over the past 100 rounds. So I think there's a lot to like about Kisner. I think that both he and Horschel are cash game plays. I am okay having both in the same cash game lineup. If it's one or the other, I might pick Kisner, but like honestly, I don't care. I think if I have the 100 bucks, I'll go up to Horschel. I think that either way, they're both options. What are your thoughts on Kevin Kisner? Not super in on him, but also kind of just view him a tier above the rest of that like low 9,000 range to upper eight. So I'm gonna have to like kind of take a stand and bump down a little bit. So that I'm not playing someone I don't wanna play. And I think for that reason, I'm gonna have more Kevin Kisner than I want, but it's because I feel better about Kevin Kisner than I do our boy Russell Knox or someone like Keegan or Brandon Steele. I don't wanna play many of these golfers in the 8,000 range with a whole lot of confidence. I did not even know Keegan was in this field. That is how little he is popping on my sheets. And there he is. All right. And that's how good the field is. Not the Keegan. Keegan is 109th and approach the past 50 rounds. What are you doing, my friend? What is going on? Oh man. Yeah, I think that the drop off is really bad. After Kisner, would you go Neiman over Kisner, I'd assume at 95? I would because I love Neiman's stat profile and just Neiman in general. Yeah, the reason I would- He's had time to work on his apps. What else could you want? The reason I went Kisner over Neiman is the accuracy. Neiman not great there, whereas Kisner is. So that's the one difference, but I'm not opposed to either. I would put Kisner above Neiman. I think I actually would go Billy Horschel above Kisner after rethinking about it, but we know, whatever. Moving down to the value tier, guys at $9,000 or lower, who do you have there? Adam had one right at 9,000. So he's at the top of this pricing tier. It's just not a super strong tier, even if you kind of bump up to like 93 or 94 and look down. Not a ton of win equity, it's 0.7% for me, which sounds really low, and it is, but it's also so higher than a lot of what these other golfers down in this range have. But look, we know he's accurate. He's 26 over the past 50 rounds and fairways gained. He's got on bentgrass. He's 18 there, over a 100 round sample. Good sand splits, which I don't really look at too much because you have to hit a good shot and make the putt for sand numbers to work out. So hopefully we get some answers long-term for better sand data, but I really wanna emphasize some balance and I think Hadwin still fits that because realistically, I'm gonna have to spend down on one or potentially two golfers per lineup, but I'd be fine if I spent down for one and it was just for Hadwin at 9,000. Yeah, I think Hadwin is really well-rounded. I like that for sure, has seen the course before. He played here in 2017 and 2018, not bad form before the layoff. So I think that Hadwin is someone I'm very okay with. My favorite value play is Shaz Revy because it's kind of like he's an automatic play for me on a non-distance course, which is what we have this week. The stats for Revy line up super well. He is ninth in accuracy, 16th in approach, and 53rd in bentgrass putting. And Shaz did have some missed cuts over the winter, kind of similar to like a Billy Horschel type thing, but he finished off well in the stretch before the layoff, finished 25th, 10th, and 29th respectively, gained at least 2.3 strokes in approach in two of those three events. So he's not the highest upside guy and I think that that is a really good criticism of a Shaz Revy play, but got great odds making the cuts and getting a top 25 finish for this salary. So $8,700, I would be very okay with Shaz and Cash, and I think that I'm okay with him for tournaments too. Brandon, your thoughts on Shaz Revy, $8,700. I wasn't super into him, but I see the case for it for sure. It's just, there's not a lot of upside, but there's also kind of misleading safety with just some of the short game numbers and the missed cuts. So I mean, look, if I'm down here, I'm gonna go first and foremost to Eric Van Royen, but I think the second place below 9,000, so discounting Adam Hadwin, probably gonna be Revy just out of kind of obligation. I think that if those are your thoughts on Shaz, I can understand why you're more inclined to go balanced. I think that makes a lot of sense. I don't want my first week back to hanging in the balance of what Shaz Revy does. Very fair. Who else do you like as a value play this weekend? Like is a strong word, but Emiliano Grillo, we've talked about him a ton, but there's not a whole lot else down here. Matt Wallace is 7,900 if you really wanna punt play, but we know Grillo is an elite ball striker. He's third in approach over the past 50 rounds, and he's really only playable on Ben Grass, which is what he has this week, accurate enough, 16th in fairways game. So he's one of the like three to four options I would consider, and that kind of sums up my view of this week, the first week back. Yeah. I think the reason that I thought the 8,000 range was good was because there were definitely guys I could point to who I'm like, okay, I'm very okay with Grillo, I'm very okay with Revy, very okay with Van Royen, but like from a volume perspective, you're right, there's not a ton. I think that's fair. But let's talk about Van Royen, we have not discussed yet. A lot of unknowns with Van Royen, given that we have small samples on him, that hurts our read on both his accuracy and his Ben Grass putting, but the approach numbers are good enough to make me take a swing here, because Van Royen is 23rd in the field and approached the past 50 rounds, and a lot of that's against tougher fields. Over that sample, he is 54th in accuracy. He was 59th in accuracy on the Euro tour last year, he was 1.36 percentage points above each field's average. So he's at least not terrible off the tee from an accuracy perspective. So for $8,600, I think Van Royen upside is there. I think that because I know more about Shaz, I'd be more willing to go with him in a cash game lineup. But for tournaments, I'd rank Van Royen higher, and I'm very okay with Van Royen, straight up for tournaments too. What are your thoughts on EVR? I like him, he's a top tier ball striker. We've seen that enough data to know that. The struggle comes in the short game, which definitely problematic, but if you're taking some risk, it should be more on someone like Van Royen or Grillo, who can get to the greens and then just a matter of whether they get up and down, make their putts. Pretty balanced as a driver, 52nd in distance, 54th in fairways, and actually has the highest win odds in my simulations among golfers priced below 9,000. It's not particularly close, although it's 1.4% for him. I think the next close, there's like two other guys above 1%. They're not high odds when you get down as far. So Van Royen's at 1.4%, but he's 120 to 1 to win. I've taken notice, yeah. Oh, okay, just making sure. Point that out. Although I would recommend in a field like this, more of a top 10, top 20 kind of a vibe, I would bet EVR to win outright. Although, I mean, we could see a lot of those joggers come Sunday. I mean, it doesn't matter for me because all the casinos are closed in New York still, and that's all we have here. So it doesn't matter for me, but like just pointed out, your state is less backwards. Windpicks for this week, I almost forgot that we had this thing because it's been a decade since we've done this podcast. So I don't know who won the last Bobble Hat. I don't know who the last Bobble Hat was, did I? Arnold Palmer. Wow, that's a long time ago. You snapped a, I had won seven in a row and then you won two in a row, so. Good. If you wait with baited breath for Bobble Hat updates, for our head-to-head that we have throughout the year, we decided to extend this year's season through the Masters to give me a chance to make up ground. So for those of you keeping track at home, and I know that there are at least 0.3 of you keeping track at home, just note that. It's going through the Masters this year. All right, so let's go one goal for anyone you want and one goal for 50 to one or longer because this field is weird. Like I don't want us picking chess, basically. So you can have, should we toss out Rory or no? I mean, you're the host. I always trust that you- I'm asking you because you had to make these picks too. Let's rule them out. Okay, so no Rory, I'm taking raw. Okay, that was my fear. Yeah. I could have tossed raw amount too. We could just have a free-for-all. But we didn't talk about a lot of the other guys all that much. So. Yeah. So 50 to one or longer. I mean, I did this before the show because I knew you were going to say 50. Yeah. But even then, like the golfers with the best win odds for me are not golfers I love. And if I'm actually looking for winners, like I don't want to go with Horshal. Van Royne's up there, but I might go Gary Woodland. Even though I don't really like him as a DFS player at 10-3, but I think the win equity is probably the right player. Woodland's 42 for me. So let me pull up the actual odds here because there's someone I want to see if they've lengthened. Yeah. Vaughn Taylor's 250, he's good. Oh, that's upsetting. It wasn't. Mark Leachman's 42. What are you talking about? I didn't say anything. You said you wanted Leachman. Oh, you said Woodland. I'm stupid, sorry. They're the same person in my head in my defense. Okay, so Matthew Fitzpatrick lengthened, but not long enough. He is still 45. They're a lot of golf. Like I'd take more Cowan Heartbeat, but he's 45, so. Yeah. Yeah, okay, so sorry, I'm just looking at these. Victor Hovland. Okay, so you got Hovland. And who else did you take? You took Ram, huh? Cause you, yeah. Yeah. I asked you if you wanted to include Rory and you let me take Ram, so like, this is on you. I know, but that's all right. Cause Xander's gonna win anyway, so. Oh, okay, cool. If we had tossed out both Rory and Ram, I probably would have picked Xander. I know. So, it's not a big pick. That's all right. That gets me the winner in a way, so. I'm gonna win. You win by picking Xander. Like even if he doesn't win, you win in your heart. I probably bet Xander every time he's in a field, which is like, seems like eight times a year. Yeah. That's all we have for today. We ran a little long because like we had a lot to discuss, but I think that's okay for this weekend. So Brandon, any final thoughts for you on the Charles Schwab challenge? Anyone who says they know like what to expect coming out from any golfers, I would just be very curious about that. I think there's gonna be a lot of added variants to golf, which is already high variant. So, I mean, if you feel great about fading Rory or jamming in Rory into every lineup, I can't really knock it because nobody knows what to expect here. So trust yourself, but also kind of brace for the idea that we don't really know a whole lot. Yeah. I think that like, if you're talking about like other sports, like my model for NASCAR, it was okay, a couple of the first races back, but it didn't really like round into form until this past weekend in Atlanta. So like we're gonna need the sample to get larger before we say like with definitiveness, like this person should be the favorite. This person is a value. And I'm gonna go 90% out of them. Like it's okay to admit we don't know things and you should react and adjust your DFS lineups accordingly. Yeah, there's a lot of, look, if you get to the point where you can say, look, I don't know everything and neither does anybody else. And that gives me some leverage. That's a really good way to be when it comes to DFS. Absolutely. That is all that we have for today. Once again, though, make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed because NASCAR podcasts come in Tuesday and Friday back with more PGA podcasts every week until whenever it's gonna be a while and it's awesome. Nice to have it back. Nice to get to talk to you again, Brandon. It's been fun. It was nice to talk to you too. People wanna yell at you on Twitter. I'm not saying ask questions because, you know, whatever. If they wanna yell at you on Twitter, where can they find you there? I'm at Godula13, G-D-U-L-A-1-3. And I am at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel podcast network, add FanDuel podcast. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald, our video producer, front of the video side of things here today. Thank you, Cal, as always. And thank you to everyone for tuning in. It is nice to talk to all of you again. Hopefully you are safe, you are healthy, you are happy, and things have been going well for you and your family. We're glad to have you back, and hopefully you can have some good lineups to track this weekend. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.