Large-Field GPP Breakdown: Sanderson Farms Championship

Get ready to learn Sanderson Farms, subscribers. We are finally back with PGA Tour golf after a short stint on the DPWT and the Presidents Cup. I personally am ready to fire the fademe projections once again, so you know I’ll be maxing the Sand Trap like it’s my job. It basically is right now, so there’s that. We had a nice look into what a world with “THE Kyle” projections might look like, which actually ended up pretty nicely, but I am definitely glad to be back to our normally scheduled program. Resident “ball-knower” Sky has his back against the wall in the contributor contest, and I fully plan on putting the nail in the coffin this week. Given that there wasn’t any content last week, I’m going to skip the Presidents Cup recap and go straight to the Sanderson Farms preview. I hope all of you have been having as much fun as I have losing money in NFL (except Cody)!

Sanderson Farms – Preview

We continue our fall season with the Sanderson Farms Championship, which has been a long-standing tournament primarily held in October over the last 12 years. I remember playing this in DFS last year and wanting to get ahead of the Ludvig Aberg hype, where he finished second in the tournament. We definitely do not have that much firepower in this year’s version of the Sanderson Farms, where Killa Keith Mitchell is a ridiculous $10.4K on DraftKings. I almost had to puke when I saw that. Before we move to the DFS portion of the preview, let’s take a look at past winners here at the Country Club in Jackson:

• 2023: Luke List (-18) def. Ludvig Aberg, Ben Griffin, Henrik Norlander, and Scott Stallings in a playoff

• 2022: Mackenzie Hughes (-17) def. Sepp Straka in a playoff

• 2021: Sam Burns (-22) def. Nick Watney, Cameron Young by one stroke

• 2020: Sergio Garcia (-19) def. Peter Malnati by one stroke

• 2019: Sebastian Munoz (-18) def. Sungjae Im in a playoff

If there’s one thing that you notice about many of the winners and finalists here, it is that driving distance seems to matter here a bit more than most courses. As always, course fit and these types of things are going to be built into the projections, and you now have the privilege of tagging the person that does the projections and asking him questions about them without getting a picture of him eating gazpacho. I suggest you utilize that benefit if you do have questions!

As with most fall events, there will be scoring on this course. I don’t expect too tough a test even though the field is definitely one that is lacking for talent. When we get these types of events, the field ends up leaning pretty heavily into basic builds, because they simply don’t want to make themselves uncomfortable by dipping into the $7K and lower range. What we likely will find is that they are going to go 10-9-8-7-7-7 or something of the sort. I wonder what discord mathematician harry_stamper thinks about this assumption. In normal weeks like this, I don’t get too fancy with my cumulative ownership ranges, knowing that spread out ownership is going to cause a ton of lineups to fall in that 60-80% range anyways. If you like playing overly contrarian, feel free to do so, of course, but staying in that range seems to be a sweet spot. These are the types of events where the way you utilize those ownership points really matters. I’ll expand on my thoughts later on in the article.

Overall, ownership is extremely spread out across the board here with only Keith Mitchell up top taking on over 25% projected ownership as of now. This makes it difficult to take huge stands on specific players, simply because you really aren’t gaining that much leverage on a full fade on some of the chalk. There are some places, however, specifically in the $7-8K ranges, where I feel like there is opportunity to take some chances and potentially find a surprise winner in there. Hell, if Luke List can do it, most of these other players can, too.

Expected Chalk, How to Play It