I get asked all the time on NBA DFS shows ‘hey Eric, who are you ROI boosting in the Sims?’, as if we don’t have the best data in the entire industry where you’d be overriding potentially winning lineups to make suboptimal plays. Not to say I don’t tweak a small thing here or there in that sport, 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.
However, PGA DFS has some interesting nuance, as you might want to consider introducing correlation into your lineups that isn’t always picked up by simulating lineups based on player and ownership projections. The most common way of correlating your lineups in the golf world is by jamming five-or-six guys from the same tee time wave, as accounting for any sort of beneficial potential weather draw can have you bypassing the field not playing for that angle.
However, one thing I will be setting up in the PGA Sims on a weekly bases are skill set mini-stacks, meaning a bomber with another bomber, a scrambler with another noted scrambler, etc. So let’s talk about three different combinations of players I will be deploying for your lineups: four plays for the price of two!
Valspar Championship DFS Sims And Overview
FAIRWAYS AND THE FLATSTICK
1.) Sam Burns and Beau Hossler
If you’ve followed any of my golf content over the years, you knew two-time winner of this very tournament Sam Burns was going to show up in this segment right away. “Bermuda Burns” comes back to the Copperhead Course this week in decent form, so there’s no way I wouldn’t be clicking on him this week. But far more interesting than saying ‘oh, he’s had success here, let’s play him’ is parsing through WHY he’s been successful here. After all, we’ll need a low-owned skillset contemporary to reduce the ownership sum of our lineups as my boy is expected to be popular (currently 25.3% here at Stokastic).
That’s where I think the driving plus putting combo Burns has displayed this year — as well as things that really stood out in his 1st/1st/6th place results here the past three years — screams a Beau Hossler pairing to me. Despite erratic iron play we know can spike at any given moment, Hossler’s gained off the tee in four-straight events (Burns 15th in SG:OTT amongst this field this season). And as insanely good as Burns has been with the flatstick in 2024 (9th in this field SG:P), Beau’s been better (6th).
And wouldn’t you know it: the Stokastic Sims tool is pretty high on each based on my unencumbered run above with all standard settings, getting right around 20% of each. Will probably ROI boost them north of these numbers as this is the main skillset I’m looking for on the tight fairways and overall challenging set-up of the Copperhead Course.
Valspar Championship DFS Potential Driver + Putter Pairings: Min Woo Lee, Maverick McNealy, Doug Ghim
WIND WARRIORS
2.) Brain Harman + Keegan Bradley
Nothing like a brisk breeze to bring back Old Man Par’s relevance on the PGA Tour. With 15+ mph winds in store for Friday afternoon and well into the weekend, carving out a few names who thrive in those difficult conditions is a worthwhile task. And who better to start with than the reigning Champion Golfer of the Year, Brian Harman.
Harman is 5th in my model when factoring in moderately windy (10+ mph) course conditions over his past 50 rounds in such elements. Within those rounds, it should come as no surprise he excelled getting the ball up and down, ranking 36th amongst everyone on tour around the green and 2nd in strokes-gained putting.
What I didn’t expect to see, however, was noted ball-striker Keegan Bradley ranking ever so slightly better than him in those course conditions at 17th in stroke-gained around the green and 12th in strokes-gained putting. Now, I say all that knowing very well he just lost a ridiculous 7.2 strokes with the long blade at the Players last week, so if the y-word-I-shall-not-say are back, we’re probably in trouble here. But he’s a battler, and should he keep gaining off the tee like he’s been in 2024, the adverse conditions suit him and Harman quite well.
Valspar Championship DFS Potential Wind Player Pairings: Jordan Spieth, Brendon Todd, Ryan Palmer
