Mexico Open: Player Pool

Throwing some darts this week - yikes.

Draft Kings moved the salary floor down to $5,000 this week and we’ve already talked about just how terrible this field is. Pricing is soft, you’re not going to have to struggle to get your guys in. Point blank.

Most of this week is going to come down to how you handle Tony Finau & Nicolai Hojgaard, the only two golfers I’ve seen above 20%. I expect Finau to steam even further than projections with it being so easy to be able to plug him right in and get a lineup you feel fine with.

Finau is tops in score in my player pool - no shock - but unless I play multiple lineups - I’m not playing him in tournaments. Period, point blank. At his price and with the amount of clicks he’s going to garner, I’m taking a bet on the field over him because if he doesn’t win, he’s taking 30-40% of the field with him & god forbid if he finishes outside of the top 5 or even top 10.

He was 8th in the field last year in putting. He’s among the worst putters on Tour so far this year and if that doesn’t fix itself and quickly, the chances are stronger that he doesn’t reach his ceiling outcome needed to justify the roster clicks & the price tag.

So, some of these guys - Sloan, Whitney, Burgoon, Crowe, Coody, Atkins, Campos - are Korn Ferry grinders and to say that there scores should be taken with a grain of salt is an understatement.

Pulling back the curtain on some of them, however, is worthwhile.

I already talked about Burgoon and I think he’s an outstanding play both based on trend and making two PGA cuts already this year.

Tom Whitney is also a bargain basement find and logged a 13th at the Farmers Insurance Open this year. A third round 75 cost him a potentially higher finish. His tracked proximity is also terrific, a metric I think is useful with these expansive resort greens.

Trace Crowe won on the KFT last year and has a 25th at this years Farmers. His distance will be a plus where it’s bombs away - and rumor has it it’s playing much softer than in years past so distance & carry may carry a bit more weight than normal.

Parker Coody is 2/3 on PGA cuts this season and has lineage & pedigree in his background. I’ve seen projections in between 6-10% as far as clicks go, which is usually not what you want in the basement price range, but I think it’s absolutely playable, especially if you’re steering clear of Finau and/or Hojgaard.

Atkins played his way here from the RSM Classic back in the fall swing - likely not anything you’d need to chase.

Campos played solidly on the KFT last year and has a 20th this year at the Farmers. Worth a look!

A lot of these other names we’re more familiar with and I’m comfortable playing any and all of them - van Rooyen, Ghim, Hubbard, Olesen, Sigg, Pendrith, Rai, Jaeger, Eckroat.

I think pound for pound, Keith Mitchell is the best play on the board. So many clicks are being absorbed by the five names above him that you’re getting an excellent driver of the ball with plus distance, great proximity on approach and very low clicked with only one MC on the season (by one stroke) and he has a top ten, a top twenty and a top thirty on his resume already this season in much stronger fields than this.

Fishburn is a super thin play - MC’d both AMEX & Farmers - but had a good KFT season last year. Distance is a plus factor here and in this type of field you never know, but thin is definitely appropriate.

Ben Silverman might actually be worth a look - depressed salary, good proximity and has an 18th at Sony & a made cut at Farmers and narrowly missed (one stroke) the cut at AMEX.

Grillo is fine, so is Carson Young.

I honestly don’t have much to add on any of the rest - I think everyone from Vegas through Kim is perfectly fine if you want to play them.

Again, your biggest decisions are whether or not you’re going to play Finau or Hojgaard or both. If you choose to fade both and take a more balanced approach in the field and spend up to the salary max while also avoiding the mega chalk players, you’re going to be unique in that regard.

Of note, there are a couple players below that didn’t make the official player pool, but I think they deserved to be mentioned as potential plays:

Ryo Hisatsune ($9,200 - trend rank: 39), Harry Hall ($6,800 - trend rank: 6), Nate Lashley ($7,700 - trend rank: 29), Carl Yuan ($6,200 - trend rank: 42), Charley Hoffman ($8,400 - trend rank: 37), Dylan Wu ($6,900 - trend rank: 34), Andrew Novak ($7,000 - trend rank: 9)

Good luck - get 6/6 through!