Value Report: Arnold Palmer Invitational

One of the biggest collapses in recent memory, Shane Lowry completely bottled it on 16 and 17 after being lights out headed to the Bear Trap. Golf is a sick game in that way, as Lowry has been quite dominant at the Ryder Cup, seizing the big moments and winning The Open at home with every bit of pressure on his back. But holding onto a lead late clearly has baffled him, as this is now the second time in 2026 this situation has happened. It’s incredibly difficult to model this type of behavior, especially as Jacob Bridgeman was triumphant the week after a similar display on 18 at Pebble Beach, so I’m still willing to look at Lowry as a similar player moving forward and will look to use it in our favor if the field leans heavily against him because of it. The beneficiary was Nico Echavarria, whose combination of spike irons and putting all came together for his third victory in four years on Tour. From a DFS perspective, the post-pricing withdrawals made it one of the chalkiest weeks we have ever seen and left those of us taking a contrarian angle empty in the pockets. Overall, though, on a field that weak, I’m more than willing to take on the field and will trust over time that those stands will pay out like they have at other similar field-strength events.

It was a more middling result this past week for the Value Report with zero top 10s on the week. However, we did have three golfers land in the top 20 for DraftKings points in the event. It was highlighted by David Ford, who, despite being T32, had the most DraftKings points of the bunch with his epic Thursday round, highlighted by back-to-back eagles. That was good enough for 14th on the slate, which again emphasizes the thought process of prioritizing scoring over just raw finishing points when it comes to DFS. Zecheng “Marty” Dou looked to be in fringe contention before opening poorly on Sunday, but his rally left him with a steady week at still minimal ownership, while A.J. Ewart really paid off on the bottom end. Ewart entered Sunday tied for sixth, and with his prolific college résumé, I expected him to thrive in contention, but being his first time in this spot on the PGA Tour, the nerves got the best of him. All three scored well enough to be in winning lineups on the week, but it was quite the stiff competition for value plays rising to the top at the Cognizant. On the poor side, Tom Kim had an awesome round Friday to rally for a made cut, but he didn’t do much on the weekend and came in quite higher owned than anticipated. The trio of Sam Ryder, David Lipsky, and Neal Shipley missed the cut by a combined four strokes, but overall, it was weak outings from each, especially Lipsky and his birdie rate.