Valspar Championship 2026 DraftKings Picks, Lineups, Ownership | Skill Predictability at Certain Course

After Bridgman's like Connors, the Gala, Rasmus,

Oygard, Thor Bjorn, Olison, Wyndham Clark,

Kudy, Mack Meisner, who rated out,

Mack Meisner rated out number one in the model

that I tried to run.

So I threw my computer in the garbage.

He, he, he projects really well for us quite,

quite often and I, I'm with you.

It's like I, I don't totally trust it,

but then I actually look at the data and say, okay, well,

I, I suppose I should have known that the model

wasn't making stuff up and, and yeah, he does,

he does look like a better player than at least,

like how often he's contended, right?

And because I think a lot of the time when we think

about how good a player is, the thing that our mind goes

to is how often have we seen this guy in contention

on TV on a weekend, then he just hasn't been there that often,

but then I also look at, you know, our volatility numbers

and, okay, he's a really low volatility guy.

And so he consistently rates out for us as like,

he's unlikely to win, but he has one

of the better made cut projections

in, in basically any field.

And, and that's the case this week again.

At Mayo, Experiode.

Welcome to the Pat Mayo Experience Valspar Championship,

DraftKings picks full DFS breakdown, Alex Blickel

from FTN Fantasy joining me on the line right now.

Alex, did you know that if you hit the description

of this video or podcast, you can get the link

to my special underdog group for filling out

an NCAA bracket.

It is free to join.

And the winner gets $1,250, second, $750, third, $500,

$2,500 for a free bracket.

Is that something you may be interested in?

Yeah, I know that now.

And so right after the show, I think that's where I'll be headed.

Yeah, you sent it out to the discord as well.

Cause I probably owe you some cash.

Cause you swept me some basketball last night.

I woke up with a ton of money in my underdog account.

It felt very good about that.

It's been, it's been a really good run in NBA.

It's been a really good running PGA too as well over on,

on, on underdog and it's, it's really helped me.

Cause my DFS lineups have not been that good in every single week.

The, the Sunday, especially underdog picks come through.

We did it again this past week.

Just back nine scores this week was, was the key.

They, they had a bunch of guys priced at 35 and a half strokes

for the back nine and I looked at it and said,

hey, wait a minute, it's playing pretty tough.

Let's take all these guys over.

Just do two pick plays so we don't get penalized too much for the correlation

and for the five guys hit.

So it's, it's been great.

We've hit it 65% clip on the, on the PGA pick so far this year.

Well, I'm in one discord and it's yours.

And if you guys want to be in a two hit the description,

you can find Blickel's discord down there.

I found it interesting playing the back nine at the players for the underdog

plays because 16 all of a sudden started playing really difficult.

And if you don't have the gimme at 16,

you're probably going to shoot over par, which is what we saw,

which brings us to this week.

They're probably going to have the snake pit coming down the stretch.

Wholes 16, 17 and 18, historically,

one of the toughest three holds stretches on tour.

However, the past two years, it's getting kind of easier.

It has been, it has been easier.

I wonder this year if it's going to get some teeth again because it looks like

we're going to get at least some gusty conditions for the first two days.

And you know, we just saw how firm it was.

It saw grass and we're getting sunshine and breeze pretty much all week

leading into the Valspar.

So hopefully this course is as difficult as we've seen it.

Cause I think that was one of the things the last couple of years.

Like it just wasn't the conditions just weren't as difficult as what we had

seen some years prior.

And I think we could get the really good ones this year.

Yeah, looking at the weather right now,

I'm using the tarp and spring slash rolling oaks tower on windfinder.com.

Right now, like there's 20 mile per hour winds today as we're speaking,

but it'll be like us up to 16.

The wind doesn't actually look all that bad for the throat.

The course of the week, it's the lead up to the week that looks bad.

Interesting.

I looked this morning at a windy.com and was looking at like sustained winds,

basically 10 to 15 gusts, 20 to 25 for the first two days, at least in the

afternoons, it looked pretty symmetrical Thursday for our day.

So I don't think we're going to see much of a wave advantage at least at this

point, but you know, that plus really firm golf course could mean high scores.

Well, if you use that link in the description to join the bracket and your

brand new that will give you a deposit bonus of up to $1,000 at a 50% bonus.

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You can use it on the snake pit and join Blickel's discord and find out what are

the plays to go for higher or lower on those come Sunday.

Maybe we'll have some other stuff in there as well.

I want to talk about the players just for a minute.

It was our highest rated show of the year.

Shout out, Tango for coming back.

Obviously, our worst picks week of the year.

It was, it wasn't great.

The one thing I felt good about was talking through the wave strategies and how the,

the field was, was definitely too confident in the early late stack.

And, you know, I ended up running three lineups, two of them were late early.

That was the side to go.

Unfortunately, Shane Lowry ruined my weekend by not getting to the weekend.

And so I wasn't able to take full advantage.

But I did feel really good about that strategy and just talking through it.

And then, you know, we, we added Contest Sims over at FTA, a new and improved version

of our Contest Sims that now really handle wave advantages, wave scenarios,

like super, super well.

And so I had a lot of fun playing with those and kind of,

unfortunately, it confirmed a lot of my, my priors and prior intuition on just

how to play those stacks and how important it is when you see a potential advantage

to really go all in on that, on that advantage and go 60.

Well, it's funny because I ended up, I played 75 or 80 live ups.

I stacked 21 side, stack 20, the other side.

Unfortunately, I had a bit too much Rory in the, in the alternate, the PMAM, the quote,

the quote, bad side, but I liked how we talked through it that I don't know how people

landed on AM PM as just, it was very clearly going to be the superior wave.

And I started looking at the weather is like this, this looks about even honestly.

Like, yeah, maybe on Friday afternoon, if the winds had really stayed down,

but when do you ever see the winds down in the afternoon in Florida?

Yeah, there, there was that.

And then the, the other thing that I kept seeing was like, okay,

if this storms rolling in on Thursday afternoon, early Thursday afternoon,

that means that the course is also going to get some water and might play more

receptive for the next day and a half compared to that first waves play.

And that's pretty much exactly what happened.

And that's why there was, there ended up being a 1.9 stroke advantage over the first

two days for the PMAM wave.

And so I, I was with you, I didn't, I was a little bit confused as to why the,

the feel was so confident about the AM PM advantage.

And I think they were looking at just like the strength of the wind.

They weren't focused on direction of the wind.

And certainly they weren't focused on the potential precipitation.

So there was definitely an advantage there.

And basically what I did was I, I like mapped out all the different scenarios of, okay,

here's what happens if the, if the storm does roll through.

Here's what happens if it doesn't roll through, but the wind still come all the possible

different scenarios.

And I had basically like, there were, there were two outcomes where early,

late had an advantage.

There were two outcomes where late early had an advantage.

But the late early advantages were going to be stronger than the early,

late advantages.

So I actually saw very even if not a slight nod to the, to the late early play,

that pretty heavily.

Like I said, I wish, I feel like I, I deserve to get more out of it than I did.

And I blame Shane Lauer.

Yeah, I blame, I blame Lucas Glover for costing me a bunch of money this week,

because he just went full meltdown over a four hole stretch on the front nine on Friday.

I was feeling good.

I was like, I need Pendrith to rally you and I were talking about it.

That I need Pendrith to rally here.

I think he eagle the second hole.

It's like, oh, this is going great.

I had a PM AM with it.

It was a Scotty lineup, which would have turned out to be fine.

If that ended up being the case, had I got six of six through and then Clever just went full

implosion and that was the end of me in the $200 single entry,

which I think would, I'd still ended up caching,

but it just didn't quite get there because my low end picks ended up being pretty good.

It's just I didn't have enough of the Cam Young.

Well, I had no Ludwig.

He was a full fade for me, but I had a lot of Cam Young and fits as a part of that as well.

So it's like, okay, let's see if we can maneuver something here.

Just didn't end up working out for me.

This tournament, I think it was the last year at this tournament that there was a huge wind advantage

in the, I think the first day, wasn't it?

Yeah, I believe so.

And I think the final thing that that I want to mention about the players,

like, first of all, what an awesome leaderboard that was.

And second of all, one of the things that we really saw come to fruition that we,

we talked about on the show is TBC sawgrass is such a phenomenal course in the way

that it helps great players separate from good players, good players separate from bad players.

I saw some discourse on Twitter about how it's just a luck fest.

It that really could not be further from the truth.

There is a lot of luck involved.

There is a lot of variance involved because of all the water.

But there are very few courses year in and year out that reward great play

and punish poor play more than TBC sawgrass.

And I was, I was really happy to see that come through because we talked about how,

you know, the course of model, like almost every single skill set except distance,

really was boosted in predictive value last week.

And we definitely have a different story this week at the Bells Bar.

So a few notes before we get into the Bells Bar this time around.

Keith Mitchell is not in the field.

Bobby Mac is not in the field.

And additionally, my main man, Shootershan Yellow Maraju decided, you know,

a fifth place in a million bucks at the players is good enough for me.

I'm going to take the week off.

So he has WD from the field as well, just in case you were considering any of those guys.

But maybe the biggest note that I stumbled across.

Have you heard about Austin Smotherman this week?

Who's been bet down to 40 to one in the market, by the way?

No, tell me his wife is due to have a baby on Monday.

Interesting.

So as someone who went through this process, it might come early.

And I don't know if that means he's leaving or staying, but I am being,

I was going to be all in on Smotherman.

And then I was like, ooh, that kind of terrifies me.

Yeah.

If you remember, we, we had this conversation a lot last year and it came to Scotty

because at the master's sky, it was like, I don't care if I'm, if I'm in contention,

I'm going to go be there for the, for the birth of my child.

Smotherman isn't in the same financial position as Scotty.

So if he's in contention, I don't know that he can turn down the opportunity

to make a million dollars in one weekend, I guess we'll see.

The Scotty thing I think got a bit overblown because his wife was due, like,

three weeks after the master's, like, that Smotherman's wife's due on Monday.

So I'm just throwing that out there.

I'm, it's not going to prevent me from using Smotherman on DK.

It might prevent me from using Smotherman like a single entry.

Yeah, that's, that's a good approach.

The other thing maybe you could do is you just play him and show down on Thursday and

Friday and then you, you leave him alone on the, on the week long slate.

Well, he is Mr. First Ryan leader at this point.

So you probably just bet him first round leader and go from there.

Apparently, yeah, he, he hits everything close and makes all the puts on Thursday.

And then on the weekend, the, the real putter kind of comes out to play.

I did notice going back and checking out some of the early round coverage

of the past two years at Copperhead that just, I want to see if I can find

the, the overall totals because it just, it's stuck out to me round two last year.

If I gave you some names to throw inside the top five on the second round leader board

last year, just spitball me if you don't remember of guys who could be in there.

Well, I remember that there was, there was a day that spieth,

Haveland, all those guys, I think Xander as well, all kind of search up

leaderboard, but I think that that was Saturday, which was me to believe that Friday

was just a bunch of no names.

It wasn't a bunch of no names.

It's a bunch of guys who did really well at PGA National this year.

It was Etch of Maria, Ricky Castillo, Shane Lowry were all populated up there.

And even he'd set Sunay ended up there as well.

Like Bridgeman ended up WDing from PGA National.

But as you may remember last year, he was T2 at PGA National.

So I was going to start to, trying to, to mind some fun from that leader board

and see what happens this week.

There's definitely overlap there.

We talked about the approach signal at PGA National and here at Innisfrook,

we get a ton of approach signal as well, also less driving signal than usual

at PGA National, less driving signal than usual in both aspects,

both distance and accuracy here at the copperhead course.

So yeah, there's, there's definitely overlap in the skill sets that are,

are required by these golf courses.

And you said that there's a lot of putting signal here as well.

There is, yeah, there's, there's a lot of putting signal.

When you think of, you know, the, the names who have done extremely well here,

it should come as no surprise that there's a lot of putting signal

because it's Sam Burns, Taylor Moore, a lot of guys who, who really rolled the rock well.

And it also makes sense just from a, like what you expect from the course standpoint,

because this is one of the more difficult courses on tour.

In order to make birdies here, you're probably going to have to make 10 to 15 photos.

You can't just hit it to tap in all the time.

And you, and because it's as difficult it is as it is,

you're also getting, you know, those testy six footers to save par.

So you just get more puts from the range that actually does have some predictive value.

And it's not just about, you know, who's draining 30 footers out there?

It's who's making the puts that you really need to hit high quality puts

to make a, at a consistent rate.

So, and this is also a unique setup because it has the five par of three.

Yeah, it still has the full complement of four par of fives.

But it has one of the lowest going for the green percentages on par of fives

of any course on tour.

It's right around 41% with the PGA tour average right around 60%.

You can find all this information on the rabbit hole.

By the way, that's bird's golf dot com slash.

Maybe you saw me do the walk through.

If you've never watched the research show, I have it screen shoted up there.

So you can watch me walk through it.

So you can find all that information up there that I think it's two of the par of fives

are essentially three shot par of fives.

Yeah.

And the fact that there are five par of threes also helps explain why the driving

signals down and approach signals up because that's an extra hole where the T shot

does not matter and all that matters is is what you do with your iron play.

So I think it's really nice when the course fit model is very clear and easy to understand.

So I bet Brian Campbell at 2000 to one.

This is as good a place for Brian Campbell.

I think as there is the one thing I will say is it has seemed like he's done

better on easy courses.

Am I right or was there one laid in the season last year that was a more

difficult course?

He won John Deere, which spieth has won both these tournaments in the past.

Maybe maybe that's a fake signal for me.

And he won in Mexico, but as long as he just doesn't hit it into the trees.

And sometimes when he hits it into the trees, it bounces back out.

I'm not going to play him on draft kings, but I just thought 2000 to one for a guy

who won twice last year.

And even to go look through his numbers, he's been really bad.

Don't get me wrong, but his approach play has actually been pretty good.

It's just his driving sucks is chipping sucks is putting sucks.

So if you can like luck into a good putting week and he keeps hitting his

approaches pretty well, maybe we got a chance, especially at a course

that probably isn't going to penalize him for having no power.

Yeah, I'm actually very much in on him if he's still 2000 to one.

That's that's way too high.

Yeah, you can get the 2000 to one in the each way extra market at bet

365.

So you get half the money on the 2000, half the money on the top three at

one 50 odds, which is what 400 to one for top three.

You also can play him like the 10 place market, like 750 to one if you want to.

Yeah, I'm with you.

I'll go for the top three though, because when when he's found himself in

contention, he's gotten the job done.

Yeah, let's say, I think every top 20 he's had on the PGA tour.

He's won.

He might have three top 20s and two wins or something like that.

So I just thought it was a hilarious number for a guy who, listen, does he have

a, what, what is one in 2000, like 0.001 percent chance of winning?

Well, a, so one in 100 would be one percent chance.

So one in 1000's 0.1.

So this is 0.05.

So 0.05 percent chance based on his history, he wins more than that.

He sure does.

Yeah, we've got him at 0.3 percent in our simulation.

So that's that's actually quite a bit of value on 2001.

Yeah, most EV player in the field is Brian Campbell.

If you can get access to that 2000 to one number, I thought that was very

funny to go through.

So like, what's the type of player you want to look at here and even going

back to PJ National, obviously Taylor Moore was on that PJ National leaderboard

this year, former winner of this event, Keith Mitchell, done very well at both

the events.

And although there's more bigger names at the top of this field, it, it does seem

like you get those like random mid tier guys who do pop in.

Yeah, you do.

And again, like not to, you know, be a dead horse, but the question might

tell us that that's what's going to happen because there's, there's less

signal on the skill sets that typically, you know, create the separation

from the, the best players to the worst players in the field.

And so guys in the middle of the pack, they, they just have to do a little

bit less than they usually do to, to really get themselves kind of on that

level playing field with the, with the best guys in the field.

So we should expect to see that.

And I think it's going to happen once again this year.

The other thing to look at some of the previous champions, be it victory,

year ago, Paul Casey, the year that he won, Sam Burns, the first year he won,

I'll even go back to when Charles Schwarzel ended up winning at this tournament.

It's a lot of name brand players who are kind of struggling and people just

don't want to bet they end up winning here.

Yeah, we, we have definitely seen a history of that here.

And I know you had a name that really kind of fits that bill this week.

It does.

Well, I'm now thinking about it based on what you've explained.

There's actually another guy who I think could kind of do the same thing.

Well, there's, I mean, Oxey just won.

So it really can't be him because he even put, struck the ball, struck the,

how out of the ball with the players, he just couldn't make that many pots.

But Max Homo was the first one.

I brought him up on the betting show as you saw.

He's dipped down to 75 to one in the market.

I like him on draft Kings this week as well.

He's a high variance player, but he's, he's still making a ton of birdies.

He is.

Yeah.

And man, did you see what Oxey did on the second hole on Sunday?

I did not know.

So he was, he was my like number one core play for round four showdown.

And he ended up doing quite well.

He shot two wonder.

He was, he was a very solid play.

But he was over the back left of the green in two and left it there and left it

there again, then left it there again, then hit it to seven feet and made the putt

for double bogey and then so he, he started birdie, double birdie, birdie.

And the double was when he was green side in two on a par five.

I get very easily could have been four under four for him.

But at least he battled in and gave us a good score.

That happened to me.

It's fine.

It's just reliving that it's a vivid memory for me last year.

I was playing a par five.

That's very hard to get to in two and I just hit a massive drive.

And I had like a six iron in it.

I was like, all right, let's go and I flew the green.

It's just a giant green ended up making triple bogey.

It happens, but it shouldn't happen to PGA tour guys the way that it happens.

Well, I really think that Sunday at the players, the greens got so cement like

that it took guys a while to adjust to not so much the speed of them,

but being able to control the spin on them.

Because you saw even Cam Young and Straka for a while and Fitz was doing it too.

They weren't even really trying to hit spinny shots.

They were just kind of landing it short, letting it roll up versus the guys that were

attacking pins.

It would go like skip, skip gone.

Yeah, 100% and actually, like I think the mistake that that actually made

when he was long of that green was not just saying immediately to himself,

this is going to be an extremely difficult shot to pull off.

I should try to hit this to 15 feet.

And maybe I can make the 15 footer for birdie instead.

He tried to hit a hero shot three straight times and 10 cupped himself into a double.

And actually, like the the final up and down was a really good one,

but it would have been a lot better if he just hit that first one to the middle

of the green and try to make a putt.

So Max Homa fits that bill.

The other sort of he's not quite as name brand of a player, but he's a high skilled

player. No one wants anything to do with them.

But what he's been doing so far this year is kind of crushing it,

ball striking and putting the lights out as Rasmus Boyard.

He's a really good putter.

He really is actually both boy guards.

I think that's an underrated skill for them both.

I would also say in terms of a guy who has not done well so far this year,

who is still a good putter.

And finally, like the skill set that's been hurting him so far this year is

driving and now we get to a course that that's less predictive.

Ben Griffin maybe can find some of that form that he had last year here at Copperhead.

Ben Griffin's another guy who sank me into his PMAM lineup.

He was like minus three after the first round.

I was feeling really good.

Yeah, he did the Shane Lowry where he was looking really good for a while.

Lowry was two under Bogey free through 13 holes on Thursday and ended up

team off at four over the next day.

So it was it was not a fun finish to his round.

And Ben Griffin was very similar.

Thank you, no ball.

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Let's jump over to draft kings right now and try to build out some lineups.

I threw in my first shell lineup, like my my instant blank test of who do I like this week?

So I have spieth Brooks Homa.

He set Sune Bud Colley and Taylor Moore in a lineup.

Do you think this is just because I I would be good here fading.

Xander, Pavel and Okshay fits Justin Thomas.

I know not that I will end up fading them, but I don't care about those guys as much

because I started to look down this list and just it gets kind of thin once you get below $7,500.

It gets really thin.

So yeah, I think the the very first thing that I'll say about this lineup that I very much agree with this.

I like the idea of a balanced lineup this week where almost it's almost like the main focus of the lineup

is making the weakest link as strong as it can possibly be.

So it's not about getting all the best players.

It's not even about getting your favorite plays in the lineup.

It's about making sure that no there's no one in your lineup that you really don't feel confident in it.

So I can make this like a Rasmus Hoigard lineup pretty easily now that I've kind of talked myself into him.

And he's another one who popped up.

He ended up finishing T8 at at fantasy national at PGA national a few weeks back.

I've bet spieth.

I've betbrook.

I've bet almost all of these guys.

I bet spieth Brooks Homa and heats at Sune.

I think they're all really good plays this week.

I did also bet Nikolai Hoigard, but maybe I just go Rasmus as well.

Who knows?

Yeah.

And there's another another name kind of in the low eights.

Windham Clark that I don't know if we can quite put him in that like Homa camp where he's just better than what he's played.

Or at least it seems like he's he's better than than how he's played.

He did play pretty well at the players and

interestingly like the players the TBC sawgrass is not a golf course that really fits him.

So that's kind of something that I look for is when one a guy has some decent results at courses that really don't fit them.

And then they get to a course that does the problem is I don't think in his book really fits him super well either.

So we don't get that type of a boost.

But just in terms of like betting on talent that that's underpriced in this field relative to what we've seen from their best over the last few years.

I think windham certainly belongs to that category.

What do you make of some of the players who like Pearson Cooty is obviously the biggest example of this that start of the year off

Superhot Matt McCarty was another one who started the year off Superhot feels like they kind of peaked another going back down.

Do we keep fading them or do we try to buy back early on the way back up?

So I'm good with just leaving Cooty to the side this week getting back on him next week in Houston.

I do think it makes sense to think about what the type of player each guy is.

And so Cooty, for example, he really benefited from the run of golf courses that really rewarded distance, really rewarded the combo of distance and accuracy.

You got the distance at Torrey Pines and then you go to and then there's Scottsdale and then you get both distance and accuracy.

Genesis really rewards distance and so Cooty was really benefiting from just great course fit week after week after week, then gets a sawgrass not a good course fit anymore and oops, he kind of stinks and so now we get another course we're driving isn't as predictive.

I'm not going to be in on on Cooty, but there are some guys who maybe they started really hot.

They didn't play well recently, but this is a good golf course for them and so I'm kind of always in the camp of course fit above.

Most other things, but I think it's especially true when you're thinking about, you know, the trend of a player recently it's not just how well has he played it's can we contextualize his recent form with how well he has fit those courses and then how well he's fitting this course can David Ford chip in pot enough to do something here.

That's the question every single week.

I'm I've been impressed with him I'll say that and it certainly looks now like there's a better chance that he's going to be able to figure out the around the green and putting before the ball striking goes away because we're you know with every single event that he continues to hit the ball well we're becoming more and more confident in his ball striking and we actually now have at least like some examples one example of the the putting and or chipping being pretty good in a week.

Do you put any stock into obviously if it's a positive example and it's someone that you want to take it's like oh they had a really good week at the players let me keep running this through because the players actually tell us anything because guys once you get going bad it can get really bad for like David Ford for example I think he was like 300 at one point just you look at his numbers. Oh that's a lot of red on that card.

Yeah I think you can have nailed it right right at the at the top there where we should think of great performance at the players with a little bit more like signal if you will then really bad performance because the thing about saw grasses you can just be a little bit off and if you're a little bit off it can really punish you over and over and then once once you're going poorly there it seems like the most difficult course in the history of the world whereas in order to play well you have to be on in basically every aspect of your game.

And so anyone who played well at the players just number one they just gained a lot of confidence are coming into this week feeling really good about all parts of their game and number two there you can't fake your way around that place like it there are times where someone is coming off a good performance and you dig deeper and it's like man they really didn't play that well they got a couple good breaks they made some some really nice puts but they didn't totally deserve the finish that they got and then you know that comes to fruition the next week and they don't play as well.

But you can't fake your way around saw grass so anyone who had a good finish there is likely actually in good form do you think that there's any way that you had to good of a performance like with fits and I know fit seem pretty jovial even after he came in second place made a great run on Sunday but does he take a step back this week like that there's a lot of emotion and physicality and just like you're drained coming off the players championship and then going to copperhead hell Bobby Mac took the week off he's like yeah enough of this for me I'm a big man.

I'm actually drained but like fits hell Zander I guess Zander wasn't really in it because he had such a bad day on Saturday and then kind of rallied back obviously he had the big rally on Sunday at this course as well I did is it unfair to punish guys that did too well that were in the mix and using all that energy yeah I think that is a little unfair that what I can say from you know an actual playing standpoint is I think one of the one of the reasons why the players major championships they can be so fatiguing

isn't necessarily about just being in the mix over the weekend and you know the stress that puts you in although that is a real effect it's it's also the fact that these guys probably spent a lot more time in energy Monday Tuesday Wednesday leading into the event prepping and making sure they were as prepared as possible for for the week ahead whereas in you know typical weeks they might take Monday

off and then just do a very light session on Tuesday and then do their program obligation on Wednesday and call it a day things of that nature so there's there's just so much more prep that goes into the weekend it makes the week a lot longer in that regard but that also means that it doesn't affect somebody who was in contention on Sunday any more than it affects the guys who were just there for the weekend now players who had the weekend off because they missed the cut that actually can be a bit of a blessing in disguise for this week at least the best players

in the field this season on Stroke's game to approach smotherman is number one Brooks is number two auction fits Marty doe number three

Havon David Ford Rio heats up soon a Nikolai Hoigard Zander Schoffley Zach Blair in four weighted rounds and then the guy who came T3 at this course last year puts the lights out and has already won Riviera it's Jacob Bridgeman who when you think about the very top of the draft Kings

pricing to go to Schoffley Havon Akshay fits Bridgeman but then you have Justin Thomas and can't lay in speed just below him is he potentially going to get lost in this field and frankly he should probably be one of the higher own guys there's definitely a chance that he's going to slip of the crack so there's also a chance that you know he'll be projected well around the industry and therefore he'll just get ownership that way but I'm with you if he's low owned he's going to be a really solid play because he's his putting projection now

is second in the field for us only behind Danny McCarthy and and he might have our third highest putting projection in the world now behind McCarthy and burns Harry Halls in that mix

Kim Smith is in that mix but he's way way up there he's a phenomenal putter and and now we're we're seeing the approach play climb like even even last week we were projecting him to

loose strokes with the irons because as well as he's hit his irons this year he's coming from a really low baseline as of last year and so this is the first time that he's he's got

himself into a positive projection for us and at this rate I'm almost expecting it to go even higher as we go on the rest of the season just after Bridgeman's like

Conor's the Gala Rasmus Oigard Thorpeur and Olison Wyndham Clark Coody Mac Myzner who rated at Mac Myzner rated out number one in the model that I tried to run it so I threw my computer in the

garbage. He projects really well for us quite quite often and I'm with you it's like I I don't totally trust it but then I actually look at the data and say okay well I suppose I

should have known that the model wasn't making stuff up and and yeah he does he does look like a better player than at least like how often he's

contended right and because I think a lot of the time when we think about how good a player is the thing that our mind goes to is how often

we've seen this guy in contention on TV on a weekend and he just hasn't been there that often but then I also look at you know our volatility numbers and okay he's a really low volatility guy and so he

consistently rates out for us as like he's unlikely to win but he has one of the better made cut projections in in basically any field and and that's the case this week again.

Yeah he's 15th to green this year 20th and approach 23rd and ball striking sucks on the greens and that's the one thing that we're seeing from the top of this list of the guys that

actually rate out well in both and maybe we can try to construct a lineup this way to try to find our guys that are both good on

approach and good in putting which you mentioned had the biggest signals so far this year it's auction who is third and third

between approach in putting that's by far the best in the field Victor is sixth and forty eighth in putting Nikolai is ninth

in 11th Zander is 10th and 34th Bridgeman is 12th and 1st the gala is 14th and 17th Rasmus Huygard is 15th and 24th and then you're getting pretty patent

his iris 20th and 6th that's interesting wouldn't it did you mention Zander did I just miss his name no I did mention Zander yet okay because yeah I mean his

putter has not been very good it was really frustrating this past week I had Zander in both my PMA and lineups and he could have been 16 18 under in the first two days

like he he's ball striking especially his iron play was outstanding I think it was yeah it was Friday where he hit 14 of 14 fairways and he was

hitting the ball far on on those days like his he really could have won that golf tournament pretty easily if the putter was a little bit better now he didn't

make some bombs and so like his stroke skein putting looks fine but man he missed so many puts that he really could have made and just didn't and that's kind of been his

story so far this year but it certainly was his story last year but we I do think we're seeing some signs that he was very good on the

screens at pebble where his putters getting a little bit closer to where it was in 2024 and the ball striking now seems like it is where it was in 2024 so I

wouldn't be at all surprised if we see Zander just go on quite a run throughout the rest of the spring and summer I this is probably the last time that we see him play

before Augustus probably the last time we see a lot of these guys play before Augusta because we'll get we don't know if we're going to see

Rory again I'm guessing Scotty will be in the field next week and then you'll get a few guys who may win will defend his title and he's not all the bombers will play in Houston and then more of like the shorter

type players that are in the master's field will end up playing Valero that's just inevitably how it goes but if we can get a Zander miss cut this week we might actually get a pretty decent number for him at Augusta.

Yeah I wouldn't count on a miss cut but as long as he's not in contention I think we'll get a good number.

Hey you say listen you you say you don't think we're going to get a miss cut we talked about the Scotty 10 to 1 miss cut it almost happened it did yeah it should have happened that was that was pretty unlucky that it didn't but what a call that would have been because I only heard from a couple people on that conversation but they were like why are you guys talking about a Scotty miss cut that doesn't happen and it very nearly did so the only other players in the field who rate out top 40 in approach and putting at the same time home uh

speed p-roge and David Lipski are the only other ones and Dan Brown the Da Vinci code guy.

Yeah I was very much in on Dan Brown at the start of the season haven't been super impressed with him but at least uh at least this fit uh is is very much there I also say like I don't know what what you think of these guys the guys that I'm going to have the hardest time on this week or so we talked about like approach and putting being the two kind of dominant skill sets.

Here what do you do with the guys who are great at one skill set and awful in the other like Rico Hoey for example or Michael Brennan yes I'm thinking about betting Brennan if that tells you anything yeah I mean to me this is not the place to to bet Brennan because I I agree but you're not going to find a guy at 175 to one who just possesses the most repeatable skill set there is that if he can just find it somewhere else because he

there are going to be holes here that he gets access to an easier access to even though it's not a full go driver course that is going to make the course easier for him just like I keep saying I think I might just end up betting him every week I don't I don't have an argument again against that strategy uh the only thing I'd say is I wish he was at least close to his good with his irons as he is off the tee and if that were the case I'd be right there with you but as of now it's a dominant skill set off the tee

it's a little bit subpar with the irons and the the short game and the putting is is basically like everything we hoped it was right like the kind of the thesis for Brennan coming into the season was he just has to not suck on and around the greens and he's going to be in contention a lot well it looks like he might suck on and around the greens so uh the one thing we needed doesn't look like it's actually the case but to your point like um

there are very few players who are as good at any one thing is Brennan is off the tee and even on a course where that's less predictive than usual it's still a big advantage it's always an advantage and it's easier to have a spike week to mediocrity in short game and putting in it is in other stats.

Yeah you just chip in twice and all of a sudden it's like okay here we go you just get lucky I picked just watching Victor chip the ball he made so and Thomas imploded coming down I forgot Thomas was winning this turn by three strokes with four holes to go last year.

Yeah exactly and then Victor made every pot like he was he needed to get it up and down it's like oh no he he chipped it to 15 feet and it's like oh he made the pot don't worry about it.

Yeah that was uh that that funnel round was a really going actually I felt like last week or last year's Valsapar was just in general a great tournament and and part of that was because we got some some more difficult conditions over the weekend that allowed some of the players who are on the leaderboard to really go backwards they did and it allowed all of the premier players that you consider to be the best in the field to really go ham with ball striking like Thomas had a great weekend.

I think Thomas still shot 67 in the final round he just imploded coming down the stretch Victor had a great weekend, spieth had a great weekend, zander had a really good weekend all the guys that you would have bet on before the I think even Fleetwood ended up charging up the board on Sunday as well all the guys that you would have expected to do well all week did in the bad conditions on Sunday when everyone else went away.

That's uh that's a bit of a pattern here I think too where like you look at the leaderboard on Thursday you look at the leaderboard on Friday and you say wow who are all these guys and then by Sunday the cream is risen to the to the top and it's all the guys that you kind of expected to be there and and I think that's again like just a product of the golf course where it's it's harder for these guys to separate but the the dominant skill sets end up winning out and and the guys who are really good in those skill sets you know it's it's a lot of fun.

It's easier for them to do it for four days than it is for some of the weaker players best putters in the field if that's what you're looking for to try to spike this week and hopefully everything comes along with it, Bridgman, Pavel, Akshay, Vince Whaley, Chad Raimi, Carl Phillips, crazy Carl being carried by his putter this year, Chris Ventura, Davis Riley, who I have most definitely betting his first round leader, Chandler Phillips, Matt McCarty, Nikolai Hoigard, Jordan,

there's Lipsky, there's Bezadenhout again, Bezadenhout's irons have not been very good this year. They haven't, he still projects pretty well with his irons and then I'll add Grazerman and Denny McCarty to that list as well. Yeah, Grazerman's there, Patrick Rogers, SH Kim, Takumi Kenaya, Rasmus Hoigard, Ben Griffin's another one who's still putting pretty well even Eric Cole is putting pretty well right now the shipping is really good the approach is really good he just can't put but I believe he ended up coming inside the top 10 of this tournament last year and it wasn't a good year for

Eric Cole a year ago. I've got another name that's that's really gross down here is Andrew Putnam as well. Putnam's putting has sucked this year. Yeah, so this is this is one of the like focuses of our prediction model is like how how much do we do we want to include from players in our in our different skill set projections and putting especially is the one where you basically want a larger sample.

No matter what the recent sample says, but man, it is absolutely concerning just how bad Putnam's putter has been because the the other thing there is like it's it's difficult because it's it's not just this season where the putter has been bad. It's also he was great at the RSM but prior to that he hadn't had a great putting week since the 3M last July. So it is a little bit more concerning and one of the difficulties there is he played four events where he didn't

have shot link and didn't play well and we are including those and we're trying to like reverse engineer estimates for for all the stroxing categories in those events, but it very well could be that you know he was really bad in those events with the putter and because long term he's a good putter we probably assume that putting was one of the better things he did in those weeks.

And so the there there is absolutely a chance that we are over estimating his putting projection for this week and he is nowhere near couldn't a player for me to object if you want to just totally ignore him in your play.

Well he does his irons can we see this like three times a year that the irons really do heat up I would be more comfortable with him in like a first round leader context or a showdown context rather than a full is one of these rounds if the putter especially if the putter isn't going as well is the first year in his career he has.

He's not keen strokes putting on a per round basis and he's like wildly in the minus so if it did flip at some point that wouldn't surprise me but obviously he's not consistent with the flat stick right now and the rest of his game just isn't good enough to hold on is the problem for me that if he doesn't have that what is it's like Denny if Denny doesn't have his putter what does he have.

Very good point I love the call to use him in showdown instead of the main slate.

So let's try to build a lineup of these great approach and like still high end putter guys because Brooks I mean I bet on Brooks just the ball striking has been too good for me but obviously the putter hasn't been there but he is someone I would take more of although if you take the past two years he has been like the shittiest putter in the world but for whatever reason I just feel like he's going to get it back eventually.

I think so too so do you want to start there with Brooks no I was going to say let's try to let's try to build a lineup of this style of players so I had bridgeman and auction in right away for these approaches and putter type players because they're the best to in the field then it would be like Nick Alliance and her probably can't afford shockingly enough all these guys are the really good players yeah.

Rasmus to do to do this throughout an entire lineup because we're going to find too many value guys which I think is where we're going to run into that issue we're like okay now that we're down in the seven case we've got to find someone who's really good at one and then hopefully he just doesn't suck in the other category as opposed to being able to continue to find guys who are really good in both Jeremy Paul pretty good in both we can we can do that.

And then we can throw max homo in see how we're doing now we get eighty one hundred bucks left yeah karma definitely fix this it's this build I I think he's got to be like a focal point of this type of lineup Patrick Rogers would be someone as my guy Zach Bauchu would be another one who could fit up here Dan Brown as I mentioned before fits this mold a little bit Nick Taylor could potentially get there patent desire at sixty two hundred bucks you know who fits this.

Who he certainly hasn't played well this year but he hasn't been terrible and he did play well with the players Eric Cole.

Yeah Eric Cole yeah what what is Eric Cole's number here Eric Cole is seven thousand so we can actually increase that Jeremy Paul spot up to seventy three hundred bucks we had anyone to throw in around that price point is going to say John Perry but that doesn't really make any sense.

Mac Hughes kind of fits this build yeah he kind of fits.

When Wallace is hitting his irons well he really fits it but he's not doing that right now no he's not now he's been really bad yeah.

Do we take a chance on phenel and just hope that the the new putter actually is that important because we know he's one of the better iron players certainly from from this price range.

Yes I he had one good round at the players I feel like we really shouldn't overrate that.

I agree it's not a comfortable click by any stretch of the imagination but I kind of think we're out of comfortable clicks down here regardless and so it might just be worth saying hey if this guy plays well what are his chances of actually getting us a top 10 instead of just a top 40 and I do think phenel.

Rates well in in that kind of frame of mind well the other thing that we can do here is we can take auction down to speed who also fits this irons and putting criteria and that does get us heats at soon a who I believe fits this mold as well let me see Rio.

Is no he does not fit it because he cannot put to save his life T for this course last year though which is always.

He's been a lot better this year hasn't it yeah it's it's been like it's either it's either been like you know it is actually the ultimate.

I mean the gala fits this model though I did you not trust his driver this course but so the lineup would look like if you just take the punt with which I did with Jeremy Paul patent because I are for the same price actually fits to bridgeman speed rasmus boy guard home a

gala with Jake Paul w w champion oh yeah that's fun a five one yeah I I love the the gala call as well by the way and I think the other thing you could do here is like let's say you didn't want the the Jeremy Paul play if you took him in speed out what are we left with from a more balanced perspective like if not okay so put cold.

And now yeah cold gets you to like Keegan Nick Taylor actually fits this mold to if someone who can park and hit his irons yeah that that would be where you would end up although you could take the gala up to Nikolai who actually fits in a little bit better than the

Galatas there I mean they're they're neck and neck for us we've got we've got a Nikolai point zero two strokes better in approach and

the gala point zero four strokes better on the green so now compare now compare their drivers yeah Nikolai is much better so if that's going to be the tiebreaker give me the guy who's actually driving it pretty decently Nikolai had around I think it was Saturday at the players where I think believe he made one birdie and 17 parts he was he was steady that's for sure I did play well on Sunday as well I think he was three under and and yeah he's just as we've said one of the guys that I think has the the

highest likelihood of you know really kind of showing that he's a better player than our current perception of him and I know that his last two events weren't great but honestly like if

if finishing 24th and 27th at the API in the players is him underwhelming now I think that means he's a pretty solid player I would agree I've been treating him like he's actually really good for the past two months

that's why I bet him to very little success I think he got me an each way cash at Phoenix and he almost got there for me at PGA national not quite there but almost there that he's been lurking like these are usually the guys that end up winning like you said that you know of course fit is something that's very important to you I would agree with you but I think that we really do overlook how much recent form plays into when people win yeah or at least just how good the player is right like a great player who's not a great fit for the course

is still more likely to do well than a bad player who perfectly fits the course because it lines up with his skills and weaknesses the the better player still the better player and so in that regard

and you know Nikolai's certainly underpriced at what is the 89 hundred so yeah I think he's a really strong play this weekend and yet again a pretty good big thanks to our sponsor better help for partnering with us for this important conversation about mental health

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place download the bleacher report app today so you never miss a moment let's move to ownership and try to build from the top because I

think that's what you know most people they're like hey I want to play hovland I want to play zander how do we make those lineups

work in and how do you pair them up do you see many people using two plus 10k players like we see zander oxie hovland

zander lineups I don't think we'll see many of them because I think there just aren't going to be enough cheap guys for people to feel

you know confident about to feel any conviction and so I do think a lot of the field was going to it's going to kind of take the

approach that that I talked about where we're we're almost spending a little bit more focus on how how strong can we make our

weakest link as opposed to just how can I possibly fit this combination of studs and so in that regard I don't

think we'll see many 10k's I do think we'll see a lot of lineups that go more balanced and try to get as many of the like fits Patrick's

can't lay spawn bridgeman oxie as as they possibly can together where again like if that means that they have to choose all of the

cheapest of those guys that they will because it makes the rest of the lineup just better and they feel good about all the guys up top.

So who would you guess is going to be the highest own player of this of the top end.

I think fits Patrick unless people unless people to have the same like concern that you asked about earlier where did he do too well did he put himself in such a high stress situation that he's just not going to have the energy to now you know show up and play well this week as long as they don't have that fear I think he'll be the highest

do you think that it could be Brooks I'd be very surprised if it was Brooks he's just not going to project well enough around the industry he's going to be one of the guys who's like the highest owned relative to his projection but

that's not going to take him to one of the more popular players the only other one I would throw out is people will look at the board like when you just look just the first thing you notice when you open it you know

Xander's almost $11,000 people will think about projections course history and what they just saw in Justin Thomas is $9,500 bucks

Yeah, I think I would be surprised if there's too much separation at the top like I think that's one of the one of my main takeaways early is there's an argument for so many of these players and at least in our projections they a lot of them project very close to one another so

it's going to be difficult for any one of these guys actually like Xander might have the highest chance of being you know 30 to 35% of any of these guys but

the chance in any of them just really separate well above and beyond the rest of the guys I think is pretty low and so that that kind of gives us license to just play whoever our favorites are

Could you be talked into a guy who has three top tens in his past four starts on the PGA tour

It depends on the guy Zach Blair. Oh God

No, I don't think I can be talked into Zach Blair. I think that I can I feel like I saw his name pop up at this turn

Yeah, it was top 10 here two years ago

I don't know how he's better here than most places because driving is so much less important than usual

What's trying to build up the Xander lineup you put in Xander it's so weird not to have Scotty here

It's like well, you put in Scotty got $7,000 left you put in Xander you got $7,800 left

So there's a lot of maneuvering you can do if you want to use it

You don't necessarily need to go down to the very bottom of these seven K guys

Who would you expect to really pop out in ownership? I still think it's going to be smotherman

Yes, he was he was the the first name I was going to say I definitely think smotherman will be popular

playing well and he's not just playing well. It's like he is an iron savant and

That's what that's what everyone knows really matters here

And so I'd be shocked if anyone was even close to ownership that smotherman's going to get to in the seven K range

Who do you think would be next on that list? Would it be I I like collie

I like Taylor more this week. Obviously Myzner is going to project out really well

Or is it someone a bit cheaper so you can get back up like Glover has killed this course over the years. He's very good of this course

Yeah

Or is it okay now

It could be this this is another range where outside of smotherman

There's a decent argument for a lot of these guys the difference between this range and the above ranges

There's also a decent argument against most of these guys

So I'm having trouble at the moment kind of figuring out who's second who's third is fourth

And I think the answer is that it's probably going to be pretty bunched

I do think there's a chance that McCarty will be pretty high-owned in this range

Which is odd because people will see the two top tens the seven of nine

And maybe it's a time to reinvest into Matt McCarty, but he's game has just gone to shit recently

It's all been putting like that's he that's the only thing he's doing well

The advantage to that is this is a place where that actually matters

But I think the the thing that will keep his ownership in check and will keep it from you know being anywhere close to smotherman

Is that the approach play hasn't been good and so you need one of the spikes now

It's not like it's been terrible all season

It was quite good at the genesis. It was great at the mx at least in the in the two rounds

With the shot link data. It was good at the Sony. So

It's not like it's been this full pattern of his approach place thinks this season

But it's it's been very up and down and it's been more down than up in his last five starts

Wanted to take a look at Michael Kim's numbers because he had a very bad round two at the players championship

But overall like it seems like his ball striking is coming back a little bit

And I do like a short game. He just could not put at riv. He could not put at bayhill

Got a little bit better at the players

But he opened the air hot fire on the greens and seems like his swing is coming back

Versus him versus no vac versus some of these guys that are down here right now

I would try to think like hey who's a great iron slash putter player when they're going well Michael Kim would be that answer

He would be and and he's one of those guys

We talked about like okay sometimes there's

Course fit that just it's it's such a bad fit that we can almost ignore the the really bad performance

And I think that qualifies for Michael Kim at the players because

You know, we get like a really unique window into Michael Kim's game number one because of how often he talks to you

And then number two because of how much he shares on Twitter

And I loved his breakdown of sawgrass

especially in terms of like

The way it demands that you shape shots

differently even within the same hole so much more than other golf courses where there are holes where okay

It's clearly asking for a draw off the tee and then a cut into the green and then a cut off the tee and then a draw into the green

And Michael Kim just doesn't do that when Michael Kim is at his best. It's draw after draw after draw

There's no decision making going into each shot. It's it's automatic. I am starting this ball

You know

15 feet right of the flag and I'm letting it fall to five feet right of the flag and that's where I wanted to finish

And he just can't do that around sawgrass

He has to try and shape the ball. He even talked in his kind of breakdown ahead of time that

Hey, if this place gets soft

That's going to be a really big advantage to me because it's going to make it less important that I actually hit some cuts

And I'll be able to just hit my draw all over the place

Well, even though we got some rain it was still too firm for that and so you got a guy who really doesn't like to hit

Anything what a draw on a course where he had to do so quite a bit and and so I'm not going to fault him at all for the fact that his approach play was really bad

because

Again, like I didn't expect much from him knowing he had to hit some cuts into greens or he just had no chance to hold a lot of those greens

And that's exactly what happened a lot of drawers have done well at this course in the past

Mm-hmm. You got some Patrick read in your life you and I mean there's not a lot of primary drawers of the golf ball

At this point in time bud callie had a really good run here a year ago. So you got read you got callie vick hits a ton of draws too

He does yeah, there are

There are a lot of guys and and like this is just one of those places where it's not as important right you don't

Have to be able to shape the ball both directions

The the one variable that would make it so that it's like really advantageous to be able to do so

Is if we got a lot of wind because then anytime like you're in a crosswind

It's just significantly better to shape the ball into the wind

It just narrows the dispersion quite a bit. So in that scenario

It helps, but other than that the golf course itself like the the design

The the structure of the course doesn't demand it anywhere near the way

Sogress does so let's go back to this line of chaffley and Austin smotherman are the first two in

Is this a spot where you would try to go to a glove or or a Eric Cole or a pheno and someone in the bottom sevens to get yourself back up to that mid eight section

Yes, I I do think so because to me that that low eight section is

Just pretty far ahead of of anyone in the sevens like I'm very interested in rasmus and windum

In particular even pendrith and you know these guys are

They they don't totally fit what we're looking for because obviously those guys would benefit from a course where distance is really rewarded

But the rest of the game

It it fits it like decently well at least where particularly the putting all three of these guys

When they're putting well are our very good putters now pendriths putting at least of late has been really concerning

But like I said earlier

I'm I'm much less concerned about recent form when it comes to putting than I am with like driving accuracy and approach play so

I'm

I still consider pendrith to be a good putter even though he hasn't been for the last month

And these guys also score really well

So I like them a lot more than anyone in the mid seven range. Can I sell you on a j your

Both as a play at six five hundred bucks and if you go to cool bet calm right now

Under the PME exclusives tab you can get them as top Canadian it's 17 to one

It's gonna be a hard sell for me. It's gonna be a hard sell, but uh, he's so you washed

He's got talent at least. Yeah, he does and it's all basically like he's a pretty good driver like he's a neutral driver

In his two big skills are approach play and putting which he has started to flash. He flashed it at cognizant

He ended up coming t 13. He flashed the farmers weirdly enough and came t 49

That's just not a course where you would probably want him. He's not a huge driver like distance wise

But he's pretty accurate

He just had a terrible players and sinking all of his numbers

But the three weeks previous t 26 t 13 t 28 and shout out to Larry from at Tom and Marty's did tell me he went to college in Florida

He played in the copperhead invitational twice a second and a seventh. So he's very familiar with this course if nothing else

That's true

The downside is a second and a seventh is probably the equivalent of like

40th and a missed cut in a PGA tour. Yeah, but he also wasn't of the same quality of players. He is now

That is very true as well

I'm just trying to think of guys from the bottom of this list like we had Jeremy Paul. He kind of rated out well

You could go with Michael Brennan

Michael Kim sort of at the top

Just taking a look at these guys in the middle

I got outside of date you could go like would you rather go with Davis Riley Jimmy Stanger or AJ you were because I like you were

I think I'd go you were there

If if I had to pick someone from this range though, I think it would be

Either putt number hovered

Okay, I like you were better than those guys because I think that we might have seen untapped upside

And it was the last guy to win out of any of these guys. It was you were 21 key school

That's true

So let's just throw out of the way like that to me that

It's probably more impressive and more telling than the the cheat 13 for example at the cognizant where he just potted the lights out. So

The fact that he won q school. I do think there's there's some real signal there like this is a good player

And he did putt the lights out. He also gained over three strokes on approach. Yeah

Like isn't that what we're looking for? It is

So well, let's chuck in you work right now into this slide because that leaves you with 8400 bucks

And you can just pepper that range that we talked about you said do you like Wyndham Clark

I said I like Rasmus Hoiguard and that gets you back up to Brooks if you want him

Yeah, or Cory Connors or I think this is probably just our guy Nikolai again

You could do Nikolai you still have 200 bucks, which means you could upgrade Rasmus or Wyndham Clark

You could upgrade Wyndham Clark to Davis Thompson probably don't want to do that

You can upgrade Nikolai down up to Pendrith or you can go Clark down to Clark for the same price as Homa if you wanted to

Could also go from smotherman to like a grazerman

You could but I I wanted to build this out like because I know a lot of people are gonna start zander and smotherman

And what these line-ups would look like, but yeah, you're absolutely right

I you could drop him to Glover if you wanted to and get yourself an extra 200 bucks

But the only guy I would really want to get up to like he is very interesting here

He's been first round leader twice obviously he went full Keegan at this course in the past

But I don't know he's just been so bad this year outside of round two at the players

When his putter just went absolute scorched earth if I was going to get back up to a range

Ideas sad as the sounds I do think that there's a drop-off between heats at Sunay and the rest of them

I think most people would say that there's a drop-off from GJ spawn down. I just like the way that Rios been playing this year

It's been playing great and

I mean he's he's been one of the guys who's like consistently proven me wrong

And I think it's about time that I I start to recognize the fact that hey, you know what he he actually might just have improved

This much as a player

Whereas it's really hard to kind of buy into that early on but

This is now

What is it six straight weeks of of really solid golf? So yeah, I think uh

I think a satsune is a pretty solid play. So let's take those four out go back to

Shofflay and smotherman if we don't go scumming down to the $6500 level. Who do you think the cheapest

Player people will throw into lineups on a pretty consistent basis will be is it someone like Meisner near guard Peterson?

Is it a shameless power? Is it a blade's brown?

Oh, that's an interesting one

I

What do you think the field's going to do with SungJ here pass?

I think so too

There is a chance that he's going to project very well in some places. Let me see

What we have formed like he's he's projected okay in this range

Like he's been at least with time. I mean, I Thomas was bad at so maybe just he did gain on approach

At at the players which is ace is encouraging to see he gained in both rounds

He's really bad with the driver in round two very good in round one couldn't chip or putt round one

Maybe there is enough there

Like you can make I can see how you can construct a case for SungJ based on talent level

Based on what Justin Thomas just did last week when no one gave him a chance to do anything

That at least I feel like there are more signs from what he did at the players that maybe he's closer to being back to SungJ

Then anything Thomas showed a bail

Yeah, I don't think that a lot of lineups are going to go cheaper than this but

Or sorry, I think plenty of lineups are going to go cheaper than this

But there's not going to be the one guy

Anyone lower than

Where we have smotherman that's going to get a ton of ownership

So one option is to build a lineup that actually makes smotherman

The cheapest guy and so you like you can throw you can throw myzner into there. You can throw

What are you in there? Well, do you do okay of this like of this grazerman roger's colleague McGreevy Taylor more

Creestoff right and

Myzner pangeyager

Near-guard Peterson who do you think is the guy from there people will go to because I love collie and I like Taylor Moore

There are my two favorites of these guys outside of smotherman. I think McGreevy

But they they all are very similar maybe Taylor Moore just because of the history here, but

And the fact that you know he's he's played a little bit better of late, but projections are definitely going to like

McGreevy and Myzner more than Taylor Moore

All right, so let's go with McGreevy

We'll throw him in that gets us back to 8,000 which means you could go

Rasmus Clark Homa if you wanted to do you think that's where people what people will do or do they want to finagle a little bit where they can say

Hey, I want Alex Smolly. I mean Aaron rise just sitting here. I kind of forgot he was in the field

if you put both

Myzner and collie into this lineup does that get us back to

To like an yeah, it gets us back to something like 9k. Yeah, 93. It's just it gets a spieth if you want it

Yeah, I think I think that's probably the the fields move right there

And obviously that could be Brooks as well if they prefer and and collie could be somebody else

But I think this is the style of lineup that that we'll see more often because

Out below like that Myzner and

McGreevy and collie and smotherman range there just isn't anyone that the field's gonna have conviction on

Well, I got conviction on a few of these guys. So let's try to build like a super high end line up here before we build a single entry

And try to get it that way. How would you start if you had to pick two guys from the top of this board? Who would it be

Uh, that we haven't done yet? No, that we just any anyone like any one of the top six guys seven guys

We'll say from can't lay up. Let's pick two of them

All right, let's go

Let's go fits and hobbling this time fits and hobbling and we can make this work pretty easily

We just said bud collie

So we can do the collie

Myzner McGreevy and just go that way which that would be really easy

We would just need one more guy in that range and there are other guys in the range is dark

And smotherman there's the lineup right there. Hav one fits Patrick collie more Myzner and smotherman fits

So I think that I think that this is twice we've landed on this sort of build

That I'm good with kind of saying that this is probably how a lot of people are gonna build their lineups

I think it will be yeah because again like this it

So much of especially single entry builds are are about what people feel comfortable with and

The number one thing that makes people uncomfortable is a player that they think oh god

This guy's not good. I do not want to be looking at this guy's name in my line if he's going to miss the cut

And I'm starting with like no chance of no a six for six

The type of lineups that we just built is a line up that people can look at and say okay

This makes me comfortable and that makes them click it

So how can we mess around with this a little bit more?

We throw in your or a $6,500 guy that gets us back to

$7,900 if we keep bud collian

Let's say we take bud collie out and go to Lucas Glover at 72

Now we're at 8,000 we can go so instead of going that like smotherman

McGreevy type spot we can just go back to this we can go fits Havland

Glover your that just needs to be a 72 and a 75 those are the guys that I prefer

You might prefer someone different the field might prefer someone different. I don't really care

But then it gets you back to Rasmus and Homa

Yeah, and and so the question there is like you know

How much better

Does

Do you feel you know Rasmus and Homa are to that group

Compared to how much better that initial group is to the Glover and you were of the price range and so

Again like to me. I think that the field is

Typically going to say that this to be there this 44 is not worth it, but

I could be wrong about that

I would agree with you. I think you'll see far more of the first line of I like this lineup better

I think I like

This line of better simply because I expected to be a more contrarian route and I do think I actually think that like

Homa hoi guard windum

I do think that they're a big upgrade to the

The Bud Collies and its mothermans

So for me, that's why this one's worth it

But I like I will say I think I like Kim and Blair more

Than then you were and Glover you could do Kim and Blair you could do

Kim or Blair and David Ford if you wanted to rather than Glover

You were like there's different combos that you can play with this with guys that I like and or that you can just

Finagle it that way that this might be the better version of that one we just built

But I like having especially with fits and hoveland

I do like having the hoi guard home out here as well as two guys that I think can win this tournament

Yeah

Yeah, exactly that's to me like that's why they are a meaningful upgrade is because you actually just improved your win equity by quite a bit

last thing we're gonna do

is

Build out a single entry or three max lineup and try to see if there's different ways that we can get different here

Strangely enough, I think that the move is actually back to the first lineup we made

I think that this is the style of lineup that I want

Yes, I would agree with that and I'd also say

We just want to make sure that we're we're getting some you know contrarian separators

Throughout this instead of just picking like all the the popular guys not that not that this is all the popular guys here

So the the way that you can do is the lineup right now the first one that we built in case you do not remember and you were not watching the video

You're listening to the audio podcast is spieth Brooks heats at Sunni Homa with Colley and Taylor Moore now

We just put in some guys I would be good with building a five one here and whether that's your whether it's Michael came whether it's Zack Blair

David Ford we just ran through a bunch of options of who it could be Davis Riley is another one that I think that is how I would want to play this

And it doesn't need to be spieth and Brooks at the top either like we can get up to fits we can get up to Bridgman

In my mind if we're going to build like if I threw away my personal bias of the guys that I really like this week

I would turn spieth and Brooks

Into watch this into bridgeman and JJ spawn now by line up the super contrarian and I've saved exactly this exact same amount of money

I was going to say

Bridgman and Figala but same same concept here, but if you think about

So what I guess the difference to me and I mean spawn who knows I think he's a I just a gigantic wild card

But I don't think he's going to drive you out of a tournament where the gala might

And every if you just compare iron spawns probably overall better if you compare putting it's probably pretty even honestly

I think you might be under selling

How well Figala is playing right now, okay, and but do you think that who do you think it'll be more popular spawn or the gala

I think it'll be Figala by a little bit but not by much and and that might change because spawn did actually

Finally play well again this past week now. It was oh, you know what it was it was a lot more of the approach play than I expected

There was I think it was his Saturday round that was like all putting but the rest of the week his ball striking was quite good

so I think the they might be close in ownership and

Now spawn is is definitely the the better long-term player, but it's weird because

So far this year Figala's been the better player last year spawn was by far the better player

But the prior year Figala showed us quite a bit and so to me like the the start that Figala has this year

Is made a lot more reliable by the fact that he was essentially this type of player two years ago and last year was just this you know extended slump

And and so I'm I'm pretty high on on Figala here

I think he's a pretty high probability play and no longer just

Someone that you're chasing upside with and also comes with this like huge downside risk

I think he's just a pretty solid play now. Okay. Well, what if I told you we had a hundred bucks left over I could just play Nikolai over both them

It's funny. I was gonna go the opposite route and say

We're spending a lot of time talking about Figala verse spawn and maybe the answer is just play them both

You went the route of let's play neither

So you so you could actually do that I believe with the the money that we have so I think just by simply starting with bridgeman

As your top player that that makes you pretty unique to begin with with the build that you want to go with now

I've built a one nine four eights and a six and I use Zach player at the bottom with Nikolai heats up soon a maxhoma and rasmus

I'm gonna enter that lineup because I like that lineup

But to do what you what you just said is the move would be take out heats at soon a who I I think he's at soon

He's gonna be popular

I think he'll be probably one of the more popular of the guys in the eights

And you just by spawn and the gala for exactly the same amount of money and then no one has this lineup

Yeah, I love this I also think like you could also take out

Bridgeman

Put in Nikolai again and go like super balanced here and now you take a Blair into one of that

Oh Taylor Moore or but call it go. I mean for me it's calling

This is like even a lineup where you could pretty comfortably play this mother man chalk because you know the rest of your lineup is so different

Both from the perspective of you have some

Contrarian guys at least guys that right now we expect to be contrarian

But also because you know that no one's gonna have this roster construction and so

That you can play whoever you want from that 74-75 hundred dollar range. All right. Well, that'll be my single entry three max for the moment

As we kind of continue to talk through what we like what we don't like. I think that the

conclusion of the conversation that we just had now watch these three guys

Be at the top of the leaderboard because this is what happens when we start doing this stuff

I might not play any of the top

five most expensive guys

Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think for me the big question is going to be how popular is zander because

He to me has the widest range of outcomes up here where

A lot of people might feel like

Like they like the lineups that we just built a lot more than the zander type of lineups

And so maybe zander is gonna be 15 to 20 percent

But then there's also a chance that he's gonna be 35 40 percent because he's very clearly the best player in this field

If he's the former I'm gonna play zander. He's the latter. I'm definitely not gonna play zander

If he's in between it's gonna be a tougher decision

So I don't know yet how I'm gonna approach that but

The the line of that we just built and the types of lineups that you can find with that like hyper balance type build

I do think those are going to look and feel a lot better than the rest

All right, well, you can build your lot ups a lot of people ask me last week about the title of the

T splits and like how you can do that on the rabbit hole

There's a little T button that's there

Maybe I can bring it up on the screen. They didn't know. Let's try this at all right bring this up on the screen right now

There we go this button right here show t times once they're released

We're doing this before the t-time release that they will populate there

So you'll know who's an AMT time and who's a PMT time that just default turns it off because they're not listed yet

If you turn that on they will be in there

You can save that in your settings and go through

Betspertsgolf.com slash mayo get yourself the discount over at the rabbit hole

And you can generate your lineups that way. I just want to throw that tidbit in play in that NCAA brackets free

The lineup of the link is down in the description. It's app only so you can't do it from desktop

You can only build your bracket from the app but it is free over a thousand bucks to the winner top three places

Play and in the description you can find Alex's discord which prints money buy it

It's it's been fun. Hopefully hopefully people continue to have that same experience

All right, let's have a better week at the valespar than we did at the players

I mean, I'm having a great run through florida

Although I basically lost all my money at the players still a ton during the florida swing

I'm just good at the this has been a constant theme over the course of draft kings betting over the past 10 years for me

I'm really good at the non-signature and non-major events

That's definitely the the pattern that that I've had throughout the last few years as well last year

Was a bit of an exception where I actually had some of my better weeks in those small field events including the torch

Ammage ship which I had never like even sniffed the good week before and then I I had a nice take down there

But but yeah, I agree. I think there's there's an advantage to these fields because

Number one we get more players who are course fit sensitive. Where's you know the some of the better players in the in the world

They're kind of good at everything and so when you go from one course that rewards this skill set more than this one

Doesn't really change the way they project whereas when you get into these weaker fields and these deeper fields

There are more players who are extremely sensitive to course fit and therefore you can find guys who actually project really well

And are low on instead of like constantly having to kind of make a trade off between probability of success and ownership

And and that obviously leads to a higher advantage when you can get the best of both worlds guys who project well at low ownership

And I feel like for me that the amount of time I spend following watching pays dividends in fields like this

And it gets me into trouble at major championships because I want to take these

$6,200 guys that I know are good

It's just I have not rated their class of play versus the very best in the world where again

AJ you are is a perfect example this week

I think you can hang with these guys honestly like there's a lot of good players here

But the whole field isn't stacked

He could pop here where if you put him at I mean it's funny because I want to say it said the same thing about yellow maraju

Last week and I would not have expected him to come inside the top 10 and very rarely is that going to happen

But like when you get to the masters just I need to be able to cross these guys off my list and just not worry about it

I had yellow maraju on the on the Friday showdown

Yeah Friday showdown and he was like 0.3% owned

And it was the only bad round that he played all week

And I it was also one of the like the best showdown days that I had and so

I would have had a take down for sure if I got his Saturday or Sunday round instead of his Friday round

But that's how it goes sometimes, but kind of like you know, I've been

My drafting season this year so far hasn't been

What it was the previous two years, but I do feel like I'm circling things and around it

And I just haven't had everything break my way at once all the same time

Like I've had some really good reads. I've had some really good calls on some low on guys

and whenever I've had those

Separating type performances

I just haven't had the final piece to the lineup like the Lowry failure this past week

It's a really kind of get over the hope over the hump for the big win. I bet you yellow maraju

Actually scored really well on Friday because I know that he rallied with a huge birdie streak to make the cut

Like he just played himself into a hole, but then battled back out of it

Yeah, he scored okay

But I needed like just another 12 points to go from a min cash to you know winning a couple tickets and and this and that and

Basically, you know if he had had a boring to wander around it would have been enough and

He he did he did give me hope with that finish. It just wasn't quite enough. I don't know exact players odds are to win

He's actually like not

He's only 225 to what I feel like he should be longer than that. They're actually rating him like he's not terrible

Yeah, which which makes me a little bit uninterested all right

Well, that'll do it on the Pat Mayo experience once again smash like sub to the channel

And I'll be back with Keith Stewart midnight on Tuesday for the final word on the valespar championship

I'll see you then

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