PGA Mexico Open Chalk and Pivot Report
With 2024 finally here, that means one thing… The PGA season is finally starting back up. One of the biggest ways to be successful in PGA Daily Fantasy is finding an edge with pivoting off of the chalk. Unlike other sports, chalk or high owned plays almost never get there at the rate you would expect. It is basically a coin flip (50/50) whether or not the 20% owned guy gets there vs. the 2% owned guy that no one wants to play in the same price range. Now that doesn’t mean you need to play all of the leverage/pivot options, but you definitely need to think twice before jamming in all of the picks and plays the industry will try to get you to go for. Our goal is to identify the top 5 owned golfers in different price ranges using DFS Hero’s top of the line ownership projections and then find guys in the same price range for far lower ownership who stand out for reasons such as current play or course fit rankings. Let’s dive right in!
Socials
If you enjoy all of the content, there are multiple ways to show support! We have a Twitter and Discord Channel that you can join for up to the hour line up discussion and slate overviews! Click the links below to join/follow!
Heating Up Sports is officially partnering up with DFS Hero to continue to stress our core values of using analytical data to find edges in the Daily Fantasy landscape while also maintaining strong community values to help others and grow as a whole. I will be using their tools to power all of my articles and analysis. Come join the DFS Hero community today for 10% off your first month!
DISCLAIMER: All Ownership %’s are from DFS Hero’s AI generated and machine learning model. They might not be perfect, but they will be close. Other data sources come from PGATour.com, RickRunGood and Degen75. Definitely give them a look because their data and information is top of the line for PGA.
Tournament Info and Key Stats
Course: Vidanta Vallarta
Distance: 7,546 yards
Par: 71
Field/Cut: 132 golfers, 36 hole cut, top 60 + ties
Key Stats: Driving Distance, Approach from 150+ yards, Birdie or Better, SG: Approach, Par 3 scoring
Weather: Unless wind gets in the way, it is an island course… weather should be beautiful. No wave advantages currently
Breakdown:
Drivers paradise!
Have to be long with off the tee and with your irons to have success
The best golfers have won the last 2 years, but that is a very small sample size
Pricing is different this week. There are golfers under $6,000 which should help flatten ownership in the middle of the pack
Probably going to be a birdie fest, so go get your guys that can go low
This course has 5 Par 3s which is usually not the case. Factoring in Par 3 scoring should be a minor consideration because of that
Model Rankings
**Matt Atkins and Tom Whitney have only 4 rounds of data so their ranking is skewed heavily
Chalk #1: Tony Finau ($12,000)
Given you have a very expansive $5,000 and $6,000 range with what seems like 60% of the field making up that price bucket, getting to Finau looks very easy this week. To be fair, he is the best golfer on paper in this field by a good mile. DFS Hero is projecting him for upwards of 40% ownership which for me is disgusting. Finau is literally broken right now putting. He is outside the top 100 in this FIELD, not just the PGA when it comes to SG: Putting which for a birdie fest type of tournament is a major red flag. For someone of his caliber, for me to want to roster him he better be 1st in my model by a mile at that ownership projection and he isn’t even top 5. I think what is holding him back so much is he can’t putt to save his life and he isn’t the best scorer on Par 3s which feels like something to brush off but I can’t think of off the top of my head another PGA event with more than four Par 3s. He better be scoring in bunches on the other 13 holes if he wants to go back to back here. I just can’t see myself playing the game and rostering a guy at this ownership for PGA. I will live with the consequences if he nukes again and wins. Not to mention his leverage score is -30.1 which is by far the worst in the field (his optimal rate is just 10% compared to the 40% ownership projection).
Pivot: Balanced
I find myself giving out this tip when the field has just a few guys at the top and then the rest all feeling like the same middling golfer. That is definitely what we have this week. I guess if you wanted a true pivot, you could go to Grillo or Olesen who will be close to if not under 10% owned. However, Grillo is just way too overpriced even given the T5 last year here and a string of good finishes coming into this one. He doesn’t drive it far, is bad from the approach buckets you want at this course and isn’t exactly a crazy Birdie or Better guy (looking at the last 36 rounds for data). Olesen is just an unknown for me and even coming off of a T3 in his last tournament I just can’t do it. You also have Hojgaard and Detry up in the $10,000 range as well, but both of them are getting massive ownership as well (Hojgaard = 27% ownership and Detry = 17% ownership). If I had to pick one it would be Hojgaard because he is great from the 150-200 yard approach distances and is a ball striking savant. That is why I think the best pivot would be load up on the $8,000 and $9,000 range where you don’t have to throw in anyone in the lower $6,000s if not the $5,000s. I can objectively say that there are golfers in that $8-9,000 range that are basically have the same skill level as the likes of Grillo, Hojgaard and Detry but are thousands cheaper.
Chalk #2: Stephan Jaeger ($9,800) and Taylor Pendrith ($9,600)
They are close enough together in price and in the same ownership projection range that it feels warranted that I talk about both here. Each is seeing around a 20% ownership projection which is high, but I kind of understand it. First off, Pendrith is coming off of a T9 at the Farmers and has 5 top 15s in his last 8 (the 3 others were all MCs) and Jaeger is a great all around golfer who is 1 tournament removed from a T3 at the Farmers. Both model well, ranking top 30 in atleast 80% of the categories I looked at which can’t be said for many golfers. They both finished top 30 here last year with Pendrith T30 and Jaeger T18. The boom or bust play of the two of them would certainly be Pendrith and the floor/consistent play is Jaeger. I don’t have much to talk you off of either so honestly, go ahead and ride with them this week. The chalk up towards the top is usually the better chalk anyways and they check almost every box you could ask for.
Pivot: Erik Van Rooyen ($9,500)
Introducing the #1 golfer in my model for this week… Erik Van Rooyen. If you look at just his last tournament, he missed the cut. That alone will drive ownership down a little bit. However, when you look past that, he is 2nd in the field in SG: Approach, 3rd in Ball Striking, fairly long off of the tee, is a great Birdie or Better player and to wrap it up is top 20 in Par 3 scoring in the field. You can get him at a massive ownership discount with his projection only at 7% for this week. He has a win in the last 4 months and a substantial number of top 20s dating back to last August. I think a lot of people will overlook him here and go to the course history guys like Brandon Wu or Cam Champ below him and Pendrith + Jaeger above him. I think he has the same ceiling as all of them and you can get him at much lower ownership.
Tournament Overview
I am going to pivot in structure the rest of the way because outside of those 4 guys, the rest all are either in the upper teens for ownership or around the 8-14% owned range. All of them (Finau, Jaeger, Pendrith and EVR) are more than in play, just be sure to structure your lineup to not have them and the “chalk” pieces below all together (disregard EVR with this; his ownership is low in comparison). Calling someone a “chalk piece” when there are 2-3 guys (if not more) just around them at the same ownership feels like misdirecting you. I am going to name off a few golfers that I think will come in at higher ownership compared to the guys around them and some pivots off of in the same price range:
Chalk: Everyone listed below is between 7-20% in ownership projection which is either even or higher than everyone around them in price
Nicolai Hojgaard ($10,700)
Thomas Detry ($10,100)
Brandon Wu ($9,100)
Mark Hubbard ($9,000)
Davis Thompson ($8,900)
Doug Ghim ($8,800)
Jake Knapp ($8,700)
Cam Champ ($8,600)
Justin Suh ($8,300)
Michael Kim ($8,200)
Maverick McNealy ($8,100)
Alejandro Tosti ($7,800)
Jhonattan Vegas ($7,600)
Carson Young ($7,400)
Greyson Sigg ($7,200)
Sam Stevens ($7,100)
Chris Gotterup ($7,100)
Andrew Novak ($7,000)
Joseph Bramlett ($6,800)
Ben Kohles ($6,400)
Carl Yuan ($6,200)
Justin Lower ($6,100)
None of these guys are “bad plays”. The field is owning them because they check boxes you want to be checked. However, there are some guys around them that check boxes as well and are at far lower ownership. Please do not disregard all of these guys. Maybe take 2-3 of them and have your last 1-2 spots in your roster be pivots/lower ownership plays.
Pivots: Either 7% ownership or below that models well for me or has performed well in the last couple of months/at the Mexico Open the last 2 years
Keith Mitchell ($9,900)
Mackenzie Hughes ($9,400)
Aaron Rai ($8,500)
Charlie Hoffman ($8,400)
Austin Eckroat ($8,000)
Chesson Hadley ($7,700)
Nate Lashley ($7,700)
Vincent Norrman ($7,600)
KH Lee ($7,500)
Scott Stallings ($7,300)
Robert MacIntyre ($7,000)
Tyler Duncan ($6,900)
Patton Kizzire ($6,800)
Sami Valimaki ($6,700)
Victor Perez ($6,700)
Vince Whaley ($6,500)
Davis Riley ($6,500)
Robby Shelton ($6,300)
Ryan Moore ($6,000)
Padraig Harrington ($5,800)
Tom Whitney ($5,700)
