Genesis: Player Pool

Another limited field. Hooray.

I love this tournament, but I hate limited fields. It condenses clicks and it becomes harder to hit on value. Regardless, there’s plenty of reason to be excited about The Genesis, namely the return of Tiger to competition.

If you’re within 10 years of my age (late 30’s) in either direction, Tiger was your guy growing up and still remains the epitome of needle mover for golf.

It’s a limited field this year, with 70 golfers participating, and has different cut rules than most tournaments. It’s top 50 & ties PLUS anyone within 10 shots of the lead. Not impossible to have a missed cut, but a player is really going to have to give it their worst possible effort or have someone start running away early in order to MC.

It will essentially be catastrophic for your bankroll to not get 6/6 through. A lot of this week is going to be threading the needle in terms of fading chalk that doesn’t hit the ceiling outcome and identifying a piece that does the inverse.

Easy, right? It’s why we’re all millionaires. I’ve whittled down as much of the 70 golfer field as possible and we got to 28 names.

Riviera is a course that’s going to test every single club in a player’s bag and is tremendously tough off the tee and is an enormous challenge putting. Distance also matters, so finding our players that have a little bit of everything is going to be important.

Let’s just get this out of the way - Scottie, Justin Thomas & Rory are all good golfers and you don’t need me to explain that to you. Moving on…

Xander is interesting to me. Dealing with a wrist injury, I actually think he has a ton of upside and overall game for Riviera, even if his results have been good but not overwhelming. However, among the high priced names, he carries some of the lowest click percentages and that is a huge advantage when operating within a limited field such as this.

Adam Scott seems to be gaining steam among the field and while I still think he’s a good play on paper, if he starts trending north of 15-20%, I’m completely comfortable finding another name to click. I think his plus odds at a top 10 at your preferred sports book are worth taking a look at.

Hojgaard is well worth a look at his price point, especially if he’s coming underclicked. Elite ball striker, which eases some of my accuracy concerns. Biggest question mark is recent form with the flat stick, which is well below his normal baseline.

Chris Kirk has momentum, a win and hasn’t missed a cut so far in 2024. We’re less concerned on cuts this week, but I think he has a strong enough overall game to work here, even if he doesn’t have recent results at Riviera to draw on.

I like Jordan Spieth a lot, and while he’s a roller coaster, areas where he excels can help at a place like this. Does have very middling results here, however, as a fair warning.

I really, really like Sepp Straka this week. Three straight years making the cut, two just barely outside top 40’s and a T-15, excellent accuracy, well above tour average in the 150-175 range, solid scrambler. Such a low price point to get in at both in DFS & the betting market (DK Sports Book has him plus money for top 30 and above), you don’t need much to pay off.

I’m guessing Ludvig will get some steam, but I think he’s a great & direct pivot off of JT and this course seems tailor fit to the young super star.

I kind of like Jason Day a lot here. His base line performance has been positive and every category (save OTT) has gone up and the OTT was only very slightly dinged. He was T-9 here last year and doesn’t seem like he’s going to be played. He has a 10th at Sentry, 34th at Amex & a 6th at AT&T so far this season, so he certainly hasn’t fallen off the map. $200 cheaper than Adam Scott who is likely soaking up all the clicks in this range.

Homa comes down to clicks. I believe, from people I trust, that he’ll still be into the double digits. Whether or not that starts to push 20%, I’m not sure, and there are tough decisions to be made at the top of the board. I’m likely fading because he just hasn’t looked good recently, but there’s no denying how strong his course history is at a very sticky course.

Fitzpatrick has been rising not only my player pool board, but shown positive movement in his overall trend as well. Got the bad luck draw at WMPO and still came away with a 15th place finish. He has a mixed bag on course history with a ceiling of T-5 and a floor of missed cut within the last 5 years, but given price point and most people and optimizer’s plugging in the cheaper Adam Scott, I love the idea of rostering Fitz before he really starts popping in other models.

Good luck, it’s a must we get 6/6 through if we want to have any hope. Godspeed.