Week 18 Notes, Tourney of Champs Picks, DK Own
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Tournament of Champions
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READ: ToC Picks & Preview
Field: 38 (Cameron Champ WD)
Course: Kapalua (Plantation)
Par: 73
Yardage: 7,596
Greens: Bermuda
No Cut
Past Winners
2021: Harris English -25
2020: Justin Thomas -14
2019: Xander Schauffele -23
2018: Dustin Johnson -24
2017: Justin Thomas -22
2016: Jordan Spieth -30
2015: Patrick Reed -21
Key Stats
Strokes Gained: Approach
Par 4s Gained
Proximity Gained 100-125 Yards
Opportunities Gained
Par 5s Gained
The Golf season is officially back with this week’s Tournament of Champions, with 39 of the 40 winners from the 2021 year – with Xander’s Olympic win counted, and with Rory not playing. The most notable absence would be Dustin Johnson, but with the return of 2016 TOC winner (and course record holder) Jordan Spieth for the first time in four years.
Other than Justin Thomas’ 2020 victory in heavy wind, the winning score at Kapalua has been -20 or lower every year since 2015, and the Par 73 has quite a few easy holes when the wind is down. Any skillset can win here, with Zach Johnson, Patrick Reed, and Spieth winning three straight years from 2014-2016, and Dustin and Xander winning between a pair of JT wins. (Harris English won last year in a playoff over Joaquin Niemann, with Thomas coming one stroke short, still not helpful in finding a singular style which is conducive to winning.)
BETS
Spieth 22/1 – Nothing in his recent form suggests this is a good bet, but Spieth is a former champion at this course, he knows the greens here well, and if one of the skills this week will be draining long putts, he has to be on the list. Betting elite golfers when their prices drift has been profitable over the years (Cantlay at Memorial, DJ at Travellers) – that is, if Spieth’s actually that guy.
Reed 28/1 – Losing in a playoff to Thomas in 2020 and having won in 2015, if Reed’s irons get hot, he can tear this course apart. Good putting, strong irons, and magic around the massive greens here is a winning combination, and he did show some life in the swing season.
Morikawa – JT and Morikawa have the same profile – elite irons, and when they putt, they win. Morikawa’s the best iron player in the world right now, and if he putts, he’s gonna rip this place to shreds.
One of these guys will win now that I’ve passed.
Xander – Coming from nowhere on Sunday to steal the 2019 event from Woodland, Xander has course history, the winning monkey (kind of) off his back after winning the Olympic Gold, and
Sungjae Im – After winning the Shriners with a Sunday 62, Sungjae was playing well the last stretch he really played, and has shown the ability to make birdies in bunches, and win at events where the winning score will be -20 or lower.
Berger — For many of the reasons as Sungjae.
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DraftKings
With it being a no-cut event with only 39 people, it’s a lot harder to find unique combinations. That said, leaving money on the table is the likeliest way to find that uniqueness. Per Rick Gehman, ~83% of lineups spend $49800 or more, and ~94% spend $49500 or more, so leaving money will unlock those unique combinations.
In terms of the cheap plays, figuring out which of the guys in the 6k range are going to pop is going to be just as important as which combination of players you play at the top. Reed below $8000 and Kisner for the stone minimum seem likely to be overwhelming chalk, with Xander’s no-cut record and JT’s two wins here also likely to pop at the top of the board.
Weather
Not that weather will really matter in a no cut event without waves, but there’s nothing. A small chance of rain on Sunday, but it looks like the weather is going to be warm and calm in Hawaii. If you want to check back closer to lock, here’s the weather station I’m using
DRAFTKINGS OWNERSHIP
These are my guesses for the five highest owned this week
Xander Schauffele
Justin Thomas
Sungjae Im
Cameron Smith
Jordan Spieth
I’d guess Reed, Gooch, Dahmen & Homa to be the highest owned sub 8K.
Additionally, we always want to make sure Fantasy National is up to snuff for tools and data, and I’m FIRED UP to announce a BRAND NEW feature to the site. If you click on “Distance/Accuracy” on each player profile, you can now see how players shape the ball off the tee! I know this is something people have be looking for for years and now we’ve got it.
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EXTRA GOLF
I did a snake draft on DK with 3 others, and here were the results
Pat Mayo @ThePME
4 Man @DraftKings ToC snake draft. I’m IN. First three to click can draft with me right now https://t.co/ysorhzWWoEWeek 18 Notes
Since It’s Tournament of Champions week on the links, so let’s look at some of the Bonus Champions through 17 weeks of the NFL season
300 passing yards
Tom Brady / Justin Herbert (8)
Matthew Stafford (7)
Allen / Burrow / Cousins / Carr (6)
100 rushing yards
Jonathan Taylor (10)
Chubb / Henry / Damien Harris / Mitchell (5)
Dalvin Cook (4)
100 receiving yards
Cooper Kupp (10)
Davante Adams (8)
Justin Jefferson (6)
Godwin / Lockett / Deebo / Chase / Andrews (5)
GALAXY BRAIN: Matty Stafford and Friends
Sleeper picks are fun, but there will be no shortage of value guys in the final week of the regular season. Those names aren’t super clear as we sit here today … they will come into focus as we get closer (you can see some early leans in the lineup below). I think the key to this slate is figuring out the QB position and Matthew Stafford profiles as an option that may just fly under the radar. First, let’s look at the top of the board (outside of Stafford):
Josh Allen: Past 5 weeks – 18th in points per pass, completing 58.1% of passes
Aaron Rodgers: Wants to play, but GB has clinched the top seed in the NFC
Tom Brady: Decimated WR core, limited motivation
Kyler Murray: Hopkins was dinged up 4 weeks ago, Murray has 4 TD passes in those 4 games
Joe Burrow: Clinched the division, extreme chalk
Lamar Jackson: Health, 45 opportunities (passes + rushes) vs PIT in first meeting and just 1 TD
So yea, I’m OK with paying $6,700 for Stafford. The QB position isn’t usually very chalky, but Allen and Burrow figure to drive things this week and that’ll greatly impact roster construction. Leverage. Assuming those two are popular, their receivers are going to gain steam and that could drive down Cooper Kupp’s roster% a touch. Maybe. Even if it doesn’t, getting Stafford in this spot is appealing in a double stack sort of way. This season, his aDOT is 13% higher when Odell Beckham is on the field, something that figures to be the case plenty on Sunday with a division title on the line. Speaking of Beckham … he’s the Ram receiver I’m passing on. Is Stafford throwing it deeper since he joined the team? Yes. Fact. But over that stretch, 45% of Van Jefferson’s targets have been of the deep variety (compared to 26.7% for Beckham). It’s true that Beckham has been getting valuable looks of late, but we are swinging for the fences and – at a discount – I’ll roll the dice on deep targets in this specific matchup. The Niners allow the 2nd highest deep CMP% over the past 6 weeks and if past trends hold, that means Jefferson is well worth the $5,100 price tag. By the way, the only team worse at defending deep passes over that stretch is the Cardinals. A Cardinals defense that allowed Jefferson to score in both games and Stafford to rack up 567 yards with 5 TDs this season.
- I have a shot at 70 touches with my three running backs (one of which gives me leverage off of potentially the most expensive passing stack of the week
- YOLO narrative with Roethlisberger’s career coming to an end vs a beat-up defense (Perriman a very reasonable pivot if you’d prefer not to subject yourself to another Steelers game)
TOOLS: Run The Sims Optimizer, Simulations & Projections only $100 from now through the Super Bowl
Week 18 Spread Picks
This overall competition is coming down the wire between Geoff and I, while Cust has a chance to crack 100 lifetime losses on his free money picks. But serious, this is the most hilarious Cust Corner of the season. I don’t think it’s all that close either.
WATCH: Week 18 Spread Picks + Cust Corner
— PM