Cash Lineup Review: Valero Texas Open

Our Adam Levitan devised a tried and true method for reviewing his NFL DFS cash lineups every week. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. My goal here is simply to apply Adam’s structure to PGA DFS cash lineups.

To steal directly from Adam, I play around 50-75% of my action each week in “cash games”. Cash games refer to any contest in which roughly 50% of the field gets paid out, such as head-to-heads, double-ups, or 50/50s.

Each week, I’ll review my cash-game lineup in this space. Sometimes I’ll lose, but hopefully I’ll win more often. Either way, I’ll post it here and give you my thought process. For more on PGA cash-game strategy, see my How to Beat PGA DFS Cash Games article.

Masters week is finally here!!! Before we move on to The Masters though, and even before we talk about this past week’s Valero, I want to take a moment to review the Houston Open.

By the Wednesday morning prior to the Houston Open, I had decided it was a pretty awful slate for cash purposes, and I only played the initial head-to-heads I sold on Monday and Tuesday. As a result, I didn’t play my typical full volume in cash for the Houston Open and therefore didn’t write a cash review article. The primary reason I thought it was a poor slate for cash was that the slate was priced in such a way on DraftKings that you had to flip a coin on whether to play Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy at the top of the board, and that 50/50 decision had a strong chance to determine the results of the slate. Additionally, regardless of choosing Scheffler or McIlroy, all strong cash builds funneled lineups into playing highly volatile options in the mid-range that would not have been cash considerations for me on most other PGA Tour golf courses (e.g., Sahith Theegala and Mackenzie Hughes). Putting all of these points together, I thought the slate was highly volatile and involved more true coin-flips than I prefer for cash games. In the end, I managed a 6/6 and won a strong 95% of my head-to-heads, but I have no regrets about playing lower cash volume on slates that I expect heightened volatility.

Alright, now it’s time to review the Valero, which has a special place in my heart because it is the tournament that my Cash Lineup Review column debuted for in 2024. In that debut, I completely bombed and only won 14% of my head-to-heads, yet somehow I am still here writing this review one year later. Let’s dive into this year’s Valero.

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