The US Open has finally arrived. We’re heading to North Carolina to play this one at Pinehurst No. 2, and I’ve run our PGA DFS Sims tool to help dig up seven things you must know for this year’s action at Pinehurst. You can take the tools for a spin for only $14.95 with code “PINEHURST” — but only for this week!
US Open DFS: Seven Things You MUST KNOW for Pinehurst
PGA DFS Sims Settings
First, let’s look at the parameters I used for our simulations:
- DraftKings
- 10,000 Lineups
- Marquee Contests
- 25% to First
This will closely resemble what the $15 Milly Maker will look like. Essentially, what the Sims does is simulate the contest millions of times to find the most likely outcomes, lineup distributions, player exposures, etc. to try and replicate the slate before it even happens.
So that’s what we’ve done here, and here are the results.
US Open DFS: The Seven Things You MUST KNOW for Pinehurst
1. The Most Common Two-Man Golfer Combos
Here are the two-man golfer combinations we expect to see the most of this weekend:
- Scottie Scheffler & Sepp Straka: 7.25%
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout & Scottie Scheffler: 7.05%
- Russell Henley & Scottie Scheffler: 5.82%
- Hideki Matsuyama & Scottie Scheffler: 5.46%z
- Viktor Hovland & Xander Schauffele: 5.24%
- Sepp Straka & Viktor Hovland: 5.15%
- Collin Morikawa & Viktor Hovland: 5.01%
- Sam Burns & Scottie Scheffler: 4.95%
- Byeong Hun An & Scottie Scheffler: 4.84%
- Hideki Matsuyama & Viktor Hovland: 4.83%
Although 7.25% might not sound like much, in a 235,200-lineup contest, that amounts to 17,000 lineups with Scottie and Sepp.
2. Most Common Three-Man Golfer Combos
Here are the three-man golfer combinations we expect to see the most of this weekend:
- Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Christiaan Bezuidenhout: 1.52%
- Xander Schauffele, Viktor Hovland, Sepp Straka: 1.19%
- Scottie Scheffler, Russell Henley, Christiaan Bezuidenhout: 1.16%
- Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Sepp Straka: 1.14%
- Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, Christiaan Bezuidenhout: 1.04%
- Scottie Scheffler, Sepp Straka, Christiaan Bezuidenhout: 1.03%
- Scottie Scheffler, Hideki Matsuyama, Christiaan Bezuidenhout: 1.03%
- Scottie Scheffler, Hideki Matsuyama, Sepp Straka: 0.97%
- Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, Sepp Straka: 0.96%
- Scottie Scheffler, Tommy Fleetwood, Sepp Straka: 0.96%
Again, 1.52% might not sound like much, but that’s still 3500 lineups with Scottie, Hovland and Bez as a starting point.
3. Golfers on the Most & Least Top-150 Lineups
Let’s start by looking at the golfers who appeared more often on top-150 lineups versus the field, meaning that our PGA DFS Sims expected a strong result from them:
Golfers with Increased Ownership
- Scottie Scheffler: +48.84%
- Dean Burmester: +25.11%
- Sahith Theegala: +21.36%
- Corey Conners: +18.53%
- Adam Scott: +12.94%
- Nicolai Hojgaard: +11.43%
- Collin Morikawa: +10.18%
- Adrian Meronk: +9.50%
- Cameron Young: +5.70%
- Akshay Bhatia: +5.41%
Golfers with Decreased Ownership
Now, let’s do the opposite: here are golfers who appeared less often on top-150 lineups versus the field:
- Xander Schauffele: -18.39%
- Viktor Hovland: -17.95%
- Hideki Matsuyama: -16.63%
- Bryson DeChambeau: -13.64%
- Tommy Fleetwood: -11.38%
- Justin Thomas: -8.91%
- Byeong Hun An: -8.40%
- Tom Kim: -8.21%
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout: -8.16%
- Alex Noren: -8.14%
4. Low-Owned Golfers – How Many Contrarian Picks Did Lineups Feature?
This weekend, there are 115 golfers projected for sub-5% ownership. Of all the lineups in the Milly Maker, we expect around 50% will have at least one of them and 12% to have at least TWO of them. Only 1.3% of lineups are expected to have three of them.
5. US Open DFS Ownership Ranges
Total ownership (the sum of each golfer’s ownership in your PGA DFS lineup) is a big indicator of how much ROI that lineup will achieve, as taking a bunch of chalk won’t distinguish you from the field. We want to target highly projected lineups with low ownership. Here is how total ownership breaks down for each range:
- Above 120%: 0.26%
- 110-120%: 4.16%
- 100-110%: 15.49%
- 90-100%: 29.30%
- 80-90%: 26.03%
- 70-80%: 15.48%
- 60-70%: 5.39%
- 50-60%: 1.13%
- 40-50%: 0.17%
- 30-40%: 0.00%
So how did the top ROI lineups compare? Of the top 50 lineups by ROI in our Sims, only two were above 100% total ownership. The average total ownership of the top 50 lineups was approximately 85%.
6. The Most Duped Lineups
Here are the FIVE most DUPED lineups, per the PGA DFS Sims tool:
1. Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, Tom Kim, Corey Conners, Russell Henley, Christiaan Bezuidenhout
2. Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, Tyrrell Hatton, Byeong Hun An, Sepp Straka, Christiaan Bezuidenhout
3. Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick, Min Woo Lee, Sam Burns, Corey Conners, Sungjae Im
4. Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg, Corey Conners, Byeong Hun An, Billy Horschel, Sepp Straka
5. Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg, Min Woo Lee, Russell Henley, Brian Harman, Christiaan Bezuidenhout
7. US Open DFS Salary Cap for Pinehurst: How Much Money Are Players Spending?
This weekend, 84% of PGA DFS lineups for the US Open are expected to spend $49,800 or more of their salary cap. If you want to get different but still play chalk, then just play lineups with less total salary than that. It’s a great way to get different while not losing much upside:
Here’s the spending breakdown by range:
- >$48,500: 0.04%
- $48,600: 0.09%
- $48,700: 0.16%
- $48,800: 0.20%
- $48,900: 0.22%
- $49,000: 0.33%
- $49,100: 0.65%
- $49,200: 0.85%
- $49,300: 0.96%
- $49,400: 1.12%
- $49,500: 1.72%
- $49,600: 2.15%
- $49,700: 3.18%
- $49,800: 12.16%
- $49,900: 32.65%
- $50,000: 40.66%
PGA DFS Conclusions for the US Open:
Avoid the most duped two- and three-golfer combos whenever possible. They generally are going over-owned, but you can still play them — just make sure to get different
Spending under $49,800 is a wise move and will result in more unique lineups.
The sweet spot for ownership is somewhere in the 80%-90% range. Too low and you’ve got a bad lineup projection, too high and it will be over-owned.
Having 2-3 sub 5% owned golfers is a great way to differentiate your lineups.
Just because golfers don’t appear in the top-150 lineups doesn’t mean they are bad plays individually, it just means that it’ll be harder to achieve positive ROI lineups featuring them, due to high ownership, overused player combos or other factors.
