PGA Ownership Report: WGC-Bridgestone

by Sean O'Donnell (hokie2009) Last Updated 2016-07-04 02:46:55

Here’s the data for the $300k Birdie in this week’s Bridgestone Invitational!

Full field ownerships (for the $3, the $33, and cash games) can be found here!

And we have a co-ownerships matrix that shows who the highest owned pairs of golfers were in this week’s $300k Birdie:

Alright RotoGrinders! Always a fun week when there’s high drama before high noon on a Thursday! But we’ll get to that in a minute.

This week presented a lot of challenges ownership-wise, as we’re all kind of “calibrated” to a certain type of format, with 140-150 golfers, and a cut, etc. This week there were less than 60 golfers, and we get to pick 6, so simple math says if we pulled them out of a hat everyone would be 10% owned – so the anchor is in a different spot than normal! Let’s see how far everyone strayed from that point with their selections.

Brooks Koepka (24% GPP, 48% Cash) – I had a feeling this would be the chalk. The logic goes like this – me has a reputation for “scoring” more than anyone, with the downside being random missed cuts due to a horrific 9 holes or so. Remove the downside in this format, and the sky’s the limit! What’s not to like!? So the only thing keeping people off of Koepka in GPP was a deliberate fade due to ownership, and I bet those that stuck with him aren’t too worried about 24% when that number could have been 30%+ in theory. It will be very interesting to see how he performs! Koepka has always been a hair away from launching into the stratosphere talent-wise, but maybe we’re seeing some consistency develop? He would be scary-good if it did. We’ll know more in about 72 holes.

Dustin Johnson (21% GPP, 11% Cash) – I was very curious to see this one, coming off his big win. This is a curious spot both for DJ and for his DFS fans. Uncharted territory! How will everyone react? The DFS community reacted to some slim pickings at the bottom-end salary-wise by avoiding Dustin Johnson in cash games for the large part, but he’s our third highest owned golfer when we move over to the $3 GPP. As far as DJ himself – I think as a fan this is a fascinating little couple months coming up for DJ. Will he rest on his laurels, or will that big the burden off his shoulders, mentally, to free him up to just go on a run of epic proportions like we’ve seen in recent history with Jordan Spieth and Jason Day? It’s not out of the question. But it very much could go either way at this point.

Jason Day (19% GPP, 15% Cash) – Speaking of Day … we’ve got a pretty similar situation here as we did with DJ. Both chalk, both kind of just that extra little bit more expensive than most people like to build from in cash games. It’s not like they’re off the radar in cash but there’s definitely a change in philosophy, and for some good reasons. There was a lot written this week about lineup construction. Day also had some pretty high odds to finish in the top 5, etc. this week so I could see making it work in cash, for sure. Honestly, for somebody with such a high Vegas win percentage this week, I think typically we’d expect a few % more in the GPP. But like I said in the intro, this is an odd week to handle ownership-wise with a half field and no cut, so I think people just spread everything around more, deliberately.

K.T. Kim (13% GPP, 24% Cash) – This one is worth mentioning because it absolutely floored me. I checked around a lot and maybe saw him mentioned in 2 or 3 out of 20+ articles … which you might say “hey that’s about 10 or 15% what’s the surprise” but well it generally doesn’t exactly correlate like that. But what do I know! This one flabbergasted me and my only consolation was that smart people on twitter also felt the same way. It’s amazing how often that is our DFS consolation. In any case, it ALMOST seems like this guy was SO CHALKY that people knew about it, made sure they had him in cash, and avoided him in GPP. My theory was that he got picked a lot because you HAD to take probably multiple guys in his range to roster Jason Day or DJ, kind of, and there’s not a lot to pick from. But seeing as how Day and DJ are higher owned in GPPs and KT Kim is actually LOWER owned? Definitely takes some of the wind out of my sails confidence-wise going forward, but a good reminder that when we’re trying to project (GUESS?!) ownerships in advance, to always be prepared for a range of outcomes. This was actually outside the range I had in my head even, so, we’ll see. Always good to have a reminder that we can be better next time. In the meantime, go Kim!

Daniel Berger (17% GPP, 25% Cash) – The G.O.A.T. becomes the GOAT … with one single stroke of the golf ball. So to kind of illustrate the impact this has – having somebody do what he did is comparable to having TWO golfers miss a cut in a normal event, because you’re missing 4 rounds that everyone else has. Also the real kicker is that when I say “everyone” I mean “everyone” because to continue this analogy it would be as if 83% of the field (everyone without Berger) is guaranteed a 6/6 lineup now. It’s devastating. And it only seems to happen to really strong plays. What he did was egregious. It happened to me with Jim Furyk last year in the playoffs, in a no-cut event, and I had every SINGLE dollar I was willing to risk that week risked on Jim Furyk, no questions asked. It’s absolutely brutal. Nothing is sacred. My heart goes out to you fellas!

Good luck everyone! I hope we can put Berger’s demise behind us and enjoy this weekend because it’s really a fantastic course to watch competitive golf on!