Value Report: CJ Cup Byron Nelson

The Zurich Classic brought forward a mix-up on the PGA Tour from Scheffler’s dominance and provided an interesting week in the DFS streets, to say the least. Many welcomed the format with open arms as contests didn’t have a problem filling, but the shake-out on the leaderboard come Sunday afternoon had quite a few questioning the Zurich’s future. What always seems to stand true on a week like this is there are going to be players fighting for a life-changing opportunity come the back nine and to me, it’s always amazing to watch how they can control their emotions amidst the tension. From a projection side, McIlroy/Lowry winning in the playoff was the nut outcome as that duo was ETR’s stand-alone top play and left us all with a strong leverage stance on the field.

Summing up the ownership by hand in the Pitch + Putt, we saw two teams in the $6ks break through the double-digit ownership mark. Steam was heavy around the Coody twins, but I still was quite shocked when the cards flipped as this mark had only been reached by one other team in the history of this event from a DFS perspective. Suh/Hoey had joined them, and Dumont de Chassart/Stanger were quite close to making it a full trio (which they did easily in higher dollar contests). All three of these teams missed the cut and really provided upside for those who went off the board in this range. Blair/Fishburn and Trainer/Ramey were the 2-3 in scoring on the slate and combined for 2.15% ownership, which wasn’t even needed in the winning lineup. Brehm/Hubbard and Echavarria/Greyserman were the two teams that carried a bit more ownership, which proved to be the path in large field lottos.

What was missing from the above, of course, were my selections, which I’d classify as quite a poor week. Missed cuts from the highest owned of the sub-$7,500 golfers should be what I’m actively rooting for most weeks as this column is hoping to avoid those traps when a fade opportunity presents itself, but with just 80 teams to pick from, all three received a confident nod from my end. Phillips/Bridgeman was a team I was quite impressed with as they managed to far outscore their finishing position ending as the 10th-best team on the slate. And then at a near minimum salary, Hoffman/Watney once again snuck their way to a very solid finish. More than virtually any other team in the field, their chemistry far outweighs their individual playing abilities and I’ll absolutely plan on attacking again next year. I doubt he’ll admit it, even though I gave him a tip of the cap for his flag plant, but I’ll take approximately 16.67% of the credit for Jeremy shipping the Long Drive as he rounded out his elite team with the Hoffman/Watney pair.