Large-Field GPP Breakdown: John Deere Classic

Enjoy the Thursday AM start time this week, folks. After this week, we head to Europe for the Scottish Open and the final major of the year, The Open, which is being held at Royal Troon this year. The PGA Tour has blessed us with the John Deere Classic this week, which is going to be a wild ride. The John Deere has a long history on the PGA Tour, but it is certainly not known for its strong field or tough test like the next couple of tournaments. Before I start talking about this honestly ridiculous tournament, I’ll take some time to congratulate ETR’s great finishes in the FGWC last week, specifically Grex and jsf for their top-10 finishes! I believe Grex commented that this was the biggest single win of his career, so that calls for some celebration. From what I saw in Discord, it seemed like a pretty successful week overall, so it was great to see that success come through.

Rocket Mortgage – Recap

Unfortunately for me, my Sunday sweats turned into the Sunday scaries. Not only did I see my top-50 lineups going into Sunday drop out of the top 100, I also ceded my lead to Sky Hook once again in the contributor contest. While there is definitely a long way to go, it’s always disappointing to give up a lead to a guy who is literally traveling around the country in his RV. That being said, I can’t really complain about how I played — Eric Cole came through for me; I just didn’t end up with enough of the Aaron Rai–Askhay Bhatia–Cam Davis combos even though all three were in my pool. Not capitalizing on the Davis win was quite disappointing for me, mostly because a low-owned Davis is one of my favorite plays especially at low prices on an easy course. While I was overweight on him, it wasn’t by much, and it feels like a missed opportunity. Before we move on to the John Deere, let’s take a look at the winning lineup in the Summer Sand Trap to see if we can learn anything.

• It featured a normal build — 10/9/8/7/7/7. This lineup was not duped, but it actually finished with the same score as another lineup with a similar type of build. While I wish I could say the normal build caused this, that would be a lie. It just so happens that the first prize was split. 
• The lineup featured almost ~92% cumulative ownership, well above my 60-80% target when building lineups. One thing I noticed about my builds this week was how chalky they ended up being. Almost all the lineups I built in The SOLVER were in the 70-80% range, which is definitely a bit different than my normal MME sets with a wide range of outcomes. Well, the chalk hit this week, with Bhatia (30%) finishing second, Davis Thompson (25%) finishing second as well, and Min Woo Lee (20%) also coming in T2.

Overall, I got buried by the chalk on Sunday, where I was rooting for a low-owned ETR favorite in Patrick Rodgers and some amateurs that Sky featured on the Value Report to finish in the top five. Rodgers, of course, in spectacular “bug” fashion, went +4 on the day when a majority of the field shot under par. As Grex would put it, “I know what I signed up for when playing Rodgers.” And that’s all there is to it!

John Deere Classic – Preview