It’s time to continue our PGA Sims set-up series by looking at my approach to my Houston Open DFS Sims set-up, which includes a look at notable factors all PGA DFS players should be aware of.
I get asked all the time on NBA DFS shows ‘hey Eric, who are you ROI boosting in the Sims?’ Now, we have the best data in the industry so personally, I get worried about doing that too much and potentially sabotaging solid lineups to make suboptimal plays. Not to say I don’t tweak a small thing here or there, but our elite player and ownership projections in conjunction with the desire to do precisely zero stacking in NBA allow me to set-it-and-forget-it a large majority of the time.
PGA DFS, on the other hand, has some interesting nuance. On a weekly basis, you’ll want to consider introducing correlation into your lineups that isn’t always picked up by simulating lineups based on ownership and player projections. The most common way of correlating lineups in the golf world is to jam five-or-six guys from the same tee time wave, as accounting for any sort of potential weather draw can have you bypassing those not playing for that angle.
However, one thing I set up in the Sims on a weekly bases no matter what are skill-set mini-stacks, meaning a bomber with another bomber, a noted scrambler with another noted scrambler, etc. So let’s talk about a pair of twosomes I will be deploying for the Houston Open with the help of the Stokastic Sims tool.
PGA DFS – Houston Open DFS Sims Set-Up
THE INJURY BUGS
1.) Wyndham Clark + Jason Day
One of the main things to keep an eye on between now and lock: will Wyndham Clark tee it up Thursday morning, and what will happen to his ownership if he does? The report from Houston is that Clark tweaked his back at the gym early this week but was able to still practice (although not known to what capacity), and as we’ve seen plenty of times in PGA DFS: injuries scare the living crap out of the public. A couple notable examples:
-Dustin Johnson, 2017 Masters — At the height of his powers, Johnson hurt his lower back randomly falling down stairs at his Augusta rental home. People were apprehensive to roster him, he came in with super-low ownership for the Masters favorite, and despite warming up on the range that morning, eventually had to withdraw with the injury before his opening round.
-Tony Finau, 2018 Masters — Finau dislocated his ankle celebrating a hole-in-one during the Par 3 competition. His ownership was minuscule, he smashed for cheap finishing T10, don’t Google pictures of the injury.
-Hideki Matsuyama, 2024 Bay Hill Invitational — Threw in a recent example as Hideki, fresh off torching everyone with a final round 62 to win at the Genesis, had reports his back was causing him discomfort on Wednesday. He was sub-5% owned and was in 2nd after the first round before finishing a respectable T12.
Which leads me to this: no matter what, Clark’s ownership will take a hit based on this news. And considering he’s the second-favorite to Scottie Scheffler this week as well as my second-highest owned golfer in my first run of the Sims, I’ll be evaluating the public sentiment around him all the way up until lock:
And who is someone I’m interested in pairing him with? Why, the oft-injured Jason Day, of course! It would appear this is the healthiest Day has been in quite some time, and the form is coming along for the ride based on his T6 result at Pebble as well as a solo 9th at the Genesis. The iron play has been spotty of late, but Day still moves it off the tee and the putter has been red-hot.
Say, that sort of sounds exactly like Wyndham Clark of late, too. Not a perfect skillset overlap, but I do believe Memorial Park will play easier in March than it did being a part of the Fall Series. And as such, give me two of the hottest putters on the planet in my *gulp* non-Scottie Scheffler lineups. Just please — PLEASE — double-check on Clark’s status before lock.
Houston Open DFS Sims Potential Pairings: Beau Hossler, Doug Ghim, Akshay Bhatia, Justin Suh
2.) Scottie Scheffler + Vincent Norrman
Yeah, the Thanos of of the PGA TOUR is currently my highest-owned player and I don’t see how you get away from it this week. He’s sporting Tiger-like odds at 3.5:1 in the betting markets. He may have learned to putt with his switch into a custom TaylorMade Spider X Tour that is NOT what the ones off the rack look like. And his ball-striking continues to be historically, mind-bogglingly, not-even-of-this-planet good. Probably why he’s won twice-in-a-row and will be in like half of my (and probably the field’s) lineups.
But who the heck do you pair him with in large-field GPP’s on the bottom end of the board that will be remotely low-owned? I wanted to give you the wildest name I possibly could that, if he actually pans out, will make you extremely unique on a week where the overlap of Scheffler lineups with chalkier 7k/6k options will blow your mind.
Enter Vincent Norrman. He’s not showing up a ton in the Sims tool at the moment — just 4% on my first run — but a quick little ROI boost should have him paired with plenty more of Scheffler. Nothing crazy, just 20-25% or so to get him in 10%+ of my lineups should do the trick:
But I’m a little confused how a noted bomber of the golf ball with his 307.3-yard average off the tee (10th) is getting overlooked on a course that’s 1) looooong at 7,400+ yards, 2) is expected to play even looooonger with softer conditions in March than in November, and 3) has seen the rough cut in half compared to previous iterations of this tournament on this track.
Now, Norrman has been completely horrific on the greens in 2024 thus far, but as a last year’s winner at the Barbasol where he gained 5.2 strokes on the field putting, the ability to turn it on is there. So although a mere 5% chance to be optimal according to the Stokastic Top Golfers Tool isn’t exactly a home run, at just 2.1% ownership I am willing to embrace the volatility of a cheap pure bomber like Norrman on a set-up like this every single time.
Houston Open DFS Sims Potential Pairings: Stephen Jaeger, Jake Knapp, Cameron Champ, Joel Dahmen
