We’re sticking around Hawaii for one more weekend as the Tour makes its way to Waialae CC. If you want a more in-depth look at the trends of how the course is played, head over to the course preview article for this week where you can see the stats I’m targeting when making my player pool. Long story short, it’s a 7,000-yard Par-70 course that allows for some solid scoring.

Two Weeks in Hawaii

There’s a lot of buzz this week about golfers who teed it up at the Tournament of Champions and will also play this weekend. It’s pretty intuitive to be curious about how golfers who’ve made both starts have performed in the past. There’s some survivorship bias there because the golfers who play in the Tournament of Champions obviously won a tournament last season. By default, they will typically be a cut above the rest talent-wise, but it’s still worth checking if there are some trends we can pull out. We’ll go quick hitter style so we can get into ownership for the week:

• There are 46 golfers that have finished in the top three at the TOC. Just 8 of 46 (17.3 percent) have missed the cut in Waialae.  
• There have been 140 golfers that finished in the top 10 at the TOC. Just 23 of 140 (16.4 percent) have missed the cut at the Sony the following week.

Checking The Chalk

Up at the top, we have Justin Thomas ($11,400) and Gary Woodland ($10,800) shaping up to be the two highest-owned golfers above $9,500. Thomas makes sense this week as he’s coming off an exceptional ball-striking week with a slight lack of scoring. We like betting on the ball-striking to continue and we’re trying to catch the waves of the putter. In much the same way fantasy production follows targets and air yards in football, DK points follow greens in regulation in golf. Thomas hit nearly 85 percent of greens in Kapalua and finished in a “disappointing” third place. People will be drawn to him as a former winner and as a prime scoring regression candidate. Woodland is dealing with the death of his grandmother which puts his status into question, but assuming he plays (which I do), he’s in great form. He also has the added buzz because of his course history with four straight finishes inside of the top 13.

After the first run of ownership projections, it appears that Charles Howell III ($8,900) and Scott Piercy ($7,600) will be heavily owned. Since 2008, Howell has finished in the top 10 on six separate occasions. He’s coming off of a 14th-place finish, which doesn’t sound impressive when you remember there were less than 40 golfers in the field. But he improved each day and only carded two bogeys over the final two rounds. From a cut equity perspective, even at his price, Howell makes sense. Piercy is another guy who’s going to be heavily owned but seems like a bit of an easier fade to me. He hit just 72 percent of greens last week and didn’t score particularly well on the Par 3s. As we make our way to a Par 70 course, that’s a bit concerning. He came into Kapalua last week with excellent form and maybe he found something over the weekend but we’ve seen this movie before with chalky Piercy.

Stewart Cink ($7,300) will be chalky down in the $7,000 range along with Sam Ryder ($7,200). Both are guys that are near and dear to my #brand but we haven’t seen them in a bit. Cink’s most recent start was at the CJ Cup in October and Ryder played a few weeks after that in Mexico. I think there’s a case to be made for either of these golfers from a cut perspective. Ryder was 18-of-25 in cuts worldwide last season while Cink was 17-of-24.

GPP Pivots

Just a quick note on my intentions for this article each week. It isn’t necessary for me to give out all the guys I think are worth considering for your player pool. The express object of this piece is to give you an idea of where ownership is shaking out and give you an option or two at each price range that makes sense despite the fact that they are projected at lower ownership. If you’re playing GPPs, it’s important to have a pivot or two in each of your lineups.

Marc Leishman ($10,500) is most likely going to be lower owned than Thomas and Woodland. His long-term scoring average is as good as anyone in the field not named Justin Thomas. He’s hit at least 70 percent of his greens in regulation in seven of eight events. Leishman also has just three missed cuts since this time last year. He’s averaging 74 DK points over that span.

Sungjae Im ($7,500) dominated from his first start on during the Web.com season last year. He led the money list wire-to-wire. Im was hit or miss during the fall season with two top 15s, a 41st-place finish, and two missed cuts. Half of his 16 rounds in that time were in the 60s, though, and during that stretch, he was 28-under on the Par 5s. At low ownership, he’s worth a shot in a GPP.

We saw Joel Dahmen’s ($7,200) ceiling in spurts last season. He made five starts over the fall swing. Over that stretch, Dahmen averaged just over 74 DK points and finished in the 60s in 10 of those 20 rounds. When Steve Stricker ($7,300) isn’t dominating the old folks on the Champions Tour he’s grinding out cuts on the PGA Tour. In his last 11 events on the PGA Tour, he’s made nine cuts and averaged 65 DK points. You could do worse at that price.

Cash Locks

With this being the first full-field event of the season, it’s important to find guys that you’re willing to go all in on. Last week, we hit big on both of these picks with Woodland finishing as the runner-up and Jon Rahm finishing in eighth place. Let’s see if we can repeat last week’s results. The two cash locks this week:

• Marc Leishman ($10,500)

• Charles Howell III ($8,900)

Ownership Projections - WMPO