Large-Field GPP Breakdown: Ryder Cup

I’ve been bullied by our fearless leader Adam Levitan to write an article for the Ryder Cup, so here we are. I actually was not sure if I was playing this week before contests came out, and I must say I was shocked by the $200K-to-first Sand Trap Special that DK came out with. The balance of contests is actually not too bad, which was also a welcome surprise. So, here we are, writing a Large-Field GPP Breakdown for the subscribers that have made it this far into the year. This article is going to be a bit different than the other ones, as it’s going to be tough to predict ownership and many sites are struggling with projections for this week. We’ll get into why and how we might be able to attack this later on in the article. Since we had no contests over the last couple of weeks, we get to skip the “results” section as well, where I show you that I lost money trying to win lottery contests as Cody Main laughs in my face. Okay, let me teach you all a little bit about the Ryder Cup. We’ll start with the format.

Ryder Cup – The Basics

Before we get into the DFS of it all, let’s just talk about what the heck these golfers are actually playing this week. It’s obviously Team USA vs. Team Europe — if you don’t know that, you should probably just close the article and I’ll see you next week for Sanderson Farms. Maybe it’s the week after. I don’t even know at this point. Both teams have 12 players on the team, determined by points, results, “team chemistry”, and other bullsh*t that I won’t really get into. They’ll be playing golf Friday through Sunday, with lock at 1:35 a.m. ET on Friday morning. Please note this time if you plan on playing this week. I don’t want to hear about people missing lock and crying to DK Assist about 150 dead lineups. On Friday and Saturday, the teams will be playing two matches of “foursomes” and two matches of “four-ball”. Tom notes this in his Course Preview article, but just so everyone knows: “four-ball” is best ball, where players play the full hole and the pairing takes the best score of the two. “Foursomes” are what everyone calls “alternate shot”, where players play one ball and, well, alternate shots. On Sunday, every player on both teams will play in a traditional 1v1 match-play format. Matchups are still to be determined. Obviously, we very rarely see this type of format and I certainly have never played it in DFS. In these next sections, I’ll talk about how I’m attacking this slate given the unique contest structure.

Ryder Cup – Attacking DFS