The Tour is making its way out from the desert to the coast of California for the Farmers Insurance Open. It’s another multi-course event, though this week we have just two courses to deal with. If you’re looking for trends and a course preview, check out yesterday’s article.

Checking The Chalk

Some dude named Eldrick is making his 2019 debut this week. Tiger Woods ($10,500) is priced at just the fourth most expensive golfer. I have him as the second highest owned golfer on the slate after my first run of ownership projections. We saw him turn into the Tiger of old down the stretch last season as he put the exclamation point on his season with a victory at the Tour Championship. We’ll see how he comes out to start 2019 after a lengthy layoff. Tony Finau ($9,900) is paired with Tiger and also is projected to be highly owned this weekend. We haven’t seen Tony in a full field since Mayakoba, but he finished 16th there thanks to a hot putter. Since his last missed cut in the middle of June, he’s made 14 starts and finished in the top 10 on eight occasions.

Just below them, fan favorite Rickie Fowler ($9,300) could see a high share of the ownership this week. You have to go back to May to find a Fowler started that resulted in anything outside of the top 30. In the dozen starts he’s had since The PLAYERS, he’s had five top-10 finishes.

We often see the middle tier of golfers produce the highest ownership levels and this week is shaping up to be no exception. Hideki Matsuyama ($8,000) sits at the top of the ownership heap after the first run of the model. Hideki was in a decent position at the Sony Open until he shot 73 on Sunday to finish outside of the top 50. His ball striking was on point, though, and it was just a shaky putter that let him down. If you know anything about golf, you know that doesn’t come as much of a surprise. If Matsuyama does have a preferred surface, it’s Poa, which could bode well for him this week. It’s just a question of whether you want to eat that much chalk or not.

PGA DFS Twitter has dubbed this SpaunSZN. J.J. Spaun ($7,300) has some serious backing and has the results to prove it when it comes to ball striking. He hit nearly 75 percent of greens in regulation at the Desert Classic last week and eclipsed that mark in each of his last three starts over the fall swing. Spaun also has course history in his favor with ninth and 23rd place finishes over the last two years here. With an emphasis on distance this week, Kevin Tway ($7,200) is showing up in a lot of models this week around the industry.

GPP Pivots

The $9,500 and up range produced quite a few surprises when I ran my first top 15 model. Jon Rahm ($11,400) quietly finished in sixth place last week and as a former winner here obviously fits the course. He’s tied for sixth in my model this week as well, so I’m more than happy to lock him in as a potentially overlooked option this week. Rahm is currently seventh in the OWGR.

In the middle tier of golfers, Patrick Cantlay ($9,200) and Luke List ($7,700) look like they’ll see ownership in the low teens but have excellent chances to crack the top 15. Cantlay’s last three events have resulted in top-10 finishes, and he’s averaging over 100 DK points over that span. List is coming off of a missed cut but on Saturday he shot a 67 to flirt with the cutline. He carded just two bogeys in that third round to go along with seven birdies. Perhaps the most important stat of his week was that he avoided the signature blow up hole. A couple more made putts and the story on List changes dramatically.

I put Jason Kokrak ($7,100) in this section last week and he rewarded us with an 18th-place finish. This course makes sense for him from a distance perspective. Kokrak found some ball striking last week as he hit over three-quarters of his greens in regulation. His par 4 scoring was excellent as well, as he went 11-under on those holes to go along with 6-under on the par 5s.

Cash Locks

Mixed bag last week as we suffered the first MC of the cash lock section with Joaquin Niemann. Rahm did finish in solo sixth place though, so hopefully that helped salvage some of your lineups. Here are the two guys I’m willing to go all in on this weekend.

• Tony Finau ($9,900)

• Luke List ($7,700)

Ownership Projections - WMPO