Large-Field GPP Breakdown: Sony Open

 

I have to admit, it felt great to be back following PGA DFS once again. The Sentry is definitely one of my least favorite tournaments of the year, mostly because of the no-cut format along with the ridiculously easy course setup, but there is something to it being the first time we see the best players in the world tee it up right after New Year’s. Despite my efforts with my article, I only ended up playing one lineup last week, mostly because I got bogged down with some dad duty. I will be back this week, however, to play our first full-field cut event of the season! Before we get to the Sony Open, however, let’s take a look at the winning lineup from the flagship GPP on DK.

 

Sentry TOC – Recap

I’m a bit glad that I didn’t play a ton of entries last week, as I probably would have gotten smoked! Not only did my flag plant of Tommy Fleetwood fizzle out pretty early, but the chalkiest player on the slate, Collin Morikawa, ended up paying off his tag and saw himself in the winning lineup in large-field contests. Morikawa’s ownership got all the way up to 40.4% even in the flagship GPP on DK, and I saw numbers greater than 50% in smaller-field contests. At those ownership levels, I stand by the general full fade on Morikawa despite the results — golf is way too variable of a game, especially with all of the best players in the world available to beat him. Here are some characteristics of the winning lineup:

• It featured a “normal” build as outlined in last week’s article: Scheffler, Morikawa, Spieth, Poston, Kirk, and Benny An.
• The lineup had a cumulative ownership of 119.3%, much higher than my range of 70-90% by a wide margin. Despite past results showing us this ownership range was most likely, we saw a very chalky lineup go unduped and win the $200K to first.
• As I said earlier, I’m pretty glad I didn’t end up playing a full MME set this week. With my ownership constraints and my style of play, I likely would have thrown in a ton of bottom-feeder entries. Congrats to the winners of the week!

 

Sony Open – Preview

We’re back this week for the Sony Open, where the players will be staying in sunny Hawaii (tough life) for the first cut event of the season. The Sony has traditionally attracted a lot of good players because it’s the week after The Sentry. Who’s going to say no to an extra week golfing for money in Hawaii in January? Exactly, not many. This year, we’re blessed with a pretty solid field at the Wai’alae Country Club, where this tournament has been hosted for many, many years. As always, Tom gets into the course in his weekly Course Preview and Fits article, but what I will say is that we’re going to get a slightly different experience this week than last. While the course is not a super tough course, it’s not the total cakewalk that Kapalua was, which is music to my ears (especially for R4 showdown). Here are the winners of the last five Sony Opens:

• 2023: Si Woo Kim (-18) over Hayden Buckley (-17)

• 2022: Hideki Matsuyama (-23) over Russell Henley (-23) in a playoff

• 2021: Kevin Na (-21) over Chris Kirk, Joaquin Niemann (-20)

• 2020: Cam Smith (-11) over Brendan Steele (-11), playoff

• 2019: Matt Kuchar (-22) over Andrew Putnam (-18)

As you can see from the above, we’re going to get scoring this week in Hawaii once again. That being said, it’s important to remember that Hawaii is obviously a resort/island course. There is always the possibility of some winds getting blustery and impacting the play for a day or multiple days. As always, we’ll have all of that factored into projections for both classic and showdown. This course seems to be fairly straightforward, with not a lot of distance overall and pretty standard lengths on most of the holes, no matter what the par score. From a field perspective, we’re looking at an actually deep field that is a stark contrast to what we’ve seen recently in the fall events. Ownership should be much more spread out this week, unlike last week where we saw a couple of players in each price range take on a lot of ownership (Scheffler, Morikawa, and Cam Davis). That makes picking your leverage spots a little bit tougher, which is a bummer because you all know I like taking strong positions on chalk I deem to be shaky. That being said, we can still find those spots this week and I’ll try and help with that in the contrarian plays section. Because of the very spread-out nature of the field, I once again expect the field to be playing into “normal” builds, where they play one player from the high price ranges and fill out with multiple $7K or high $6K players (10-9-8-7-7-6). When I first looked at the field, it felt to me that the top of the field wasn’t as strong as we usually get, depending on your thoughts on Aberg and Hatton. I’m wondering whether that $10K range will take less ownership, allowing more people to play in the $9Ks and $8Ks. Traditionally, DFS players don’t love doing that, though, so a normal build is the most likely outcome this week. Given all of this, I expect to target the 60-80% cumulative ownership range as I normally do, with more of my lineups in that lower range if I can make it work. Let’s talk about some players now in the expected chalk section.

 

Expected Chalk, How to Play It