John Deere Classic: Player Pool
The People's Major!
Back when I started taking golf DFS and/or betting more seriously was when I first tried my hand on making my own player pool. I didn’t have a Substack or any sort of following.
It was two years ago and I’ll never forget making the player pool for the John Deere Classic and JT Poston standing out to me a ton. He went on to win wire to wire and that’s when I realized I might have something here.
Might have been luck, because of how insane golf and golf variance can be, but here we are - still making player pools, still writing about it, still chasing that high. And we’re back in Silvis, Illinois for the John Deere Classic - the People’s Major as I call it.
TPC Deere Run is not going to overwhelm anyone. It’s a birdie fest. It’s a “weak” field, although there are a handful of solid golfers there this week and it would have been slightly better if Cantlay & Cam Davis (Rocket winner) didn’t WD, but I digress.
It’s a course that rewards golfers who hit the ball well on the way to the green and it’s an easy putting course. So, again, we’re going to lean into our solid tee to green and ball striking golfers that have plus putters and take us away.
Straka is the defending champ here and there’s no reason to think he won’t be extremely in contention this week either.
Rai showed that he is strong in these birdie events like last week at Rocket.
Clanton was awesome at Rocket, I wrote him up here last week & also got to meet him with my four year old on Tuesday - very nice kid, great golfer. Won’t be as under the radar as last week, but still an outstanding play.
Sungjae returns to the winner’s circle this week (I hope.) I love him. Accuracy, trend, the time off, a course that suits him and will also cater to his perceived weakness (can be very streaky with the putter).
Cashmere Keith makes an appearance. He MC’d last week as a chalk bomb, so maybe the field is scared off of him? I did write about him saying he was fine and that it came down to putting for him and, well, he lost roughly two strokes to the field putting while the rest of his game was there. DGC’s hidden defense are the Donald Ross greens. Keith won’t have to contend with those this week. Expect a bounce back.
Davis Thompson is again solid. He is in the top 5 of clicks, however, with McCarthy, Sungjae, Rai & Straka. So, how you play him will mostly come down to whether you pair him with any of those guys. The price floor was raised to $6K so pricing I expect to be tighter this week and there isn’t as much good value.
The markets and the people are still low on Shipley. That seems… not smart.
Hodges, Dunlap, Power, McNealy - all fine. McNealy is priced up and gets closer to the high teens in clicks, but he’s less clicked then some of the other bigger names he’s surrounded by and had an underwhelming Rocket as a chalk bomb. The other three are all low double digits or high single digits. You’re fine to play them.
Kizzire, Skinns & Merritt are all $6,900 (nice) and all mid single digits. Good value pieces for you and all three are perfectly fine plays.
Spieth. Ok… He’s won here before. He’s going to be a lot less clicked than all the other top priced guys. However - he’s been bad. Only two top 10’s this year, one at Waste(d) Management to start the year and one at Valero. The caveat to that, is his schedule has mostly been signature events and majors and Texas. This is so far away from those type events both in course & field that I think you can legitimately throw out his season results to date and lean into the positives. He’s one of the most talented golfers in the field, his putting on the season isn’t nearly as bad as it shows in the model and the extremely strong course history. Makes a compelling case to play him.
Hisatsune & Kohles seem to be getting a little steam, especially in Hisatsune’s case, but I think they’re both good plays, Kohles again in specific.
Glover has been really good here and is low double digits. Fire away.
Ben Griffin again is fine at price point and will give you solid golf and is mid to high single digits.
I really, really like Nick Hardy as a lineup accent piece. The numbers suggest a breakthrough is coming and this will be an easier spot for him to putt. He’s made the cut all three times he’s played here in the past five years, he’s from Illinois & played college golf in Illinois. So, you have a lot of narrative street surrounding him as well. Better even yet is the fact that you might get him in between 1-3%. No one is playing him because the finishing results haven’t been there - yet.
Poston is a former winner here, he’ll do really well. He’s in the next level of chalk after the main five, but he’s perfectly fine depending on how you pair him.
Kraft is ok & no one is playing him, which is his biggest appeal.
Denny is awesome here at the Deere, but he’s one of the top 5 chalk bombs, so it just comes down to who you’re pairing him with. But, good play.
Michael Kim has won here before & was awesome at Rocket last week. I even wrote about him last week. Something appears to be there. Shocked he’s coming in low to mid single digits. Solid play again.
Silverman has quietly been awesome the past month, logging two top 20’s including last week and placing two more in the 30’s. No one is playing him and he’s a lethal putter. Always good to have in a putting type contest.
In order to save time, but what’s the honest to God truth - everyone else from Spaun down to Young gets the same type tag - they’re fine! Stevens, Day, Dahmen & Hubbard will reach to the high single digits & maybe low double digits in clicks but nothing that you’re running away from. Everyone else, no one is really playing and shouldn’t sink you.
Good luck - let’s get 6/6 through.