It has been an interesting start to the Sony Open on virtually all levels.
We saw Sungjae Im and Tom Kim, the two betting favorites, meekly bow out before the weekend — and that's before we even get to what transpired with Jordan Spieth and his five-over Friday implosion to move from the first-round lead to an early ticket home.
That generated a wide range of emotions from bettors and DFS players alike, but all was not lost with the chaos we witnessed over the opening two rounds.
While Keegan Bradley missing the cut did hurt in numerous ways from a financial perspective, we kept the recent streak alive in our Best Bets by connecting on Greyson Sigg +100 over Robby Shelton. The concerns I had for Shelton with his ball striking and birdie rate ended up coming to fruition over a forgettable four-over output.
We will try to carry that momentum into Saturday and sneak out a winning week from the disarray in Hawaii.
If you aren't doing so already, you can find me on Twitter @TeeOffSports. There, I will provide a link to my pre-tournament model, a powerful and interactive data spreadsheet that allows user inputs to create custom rankings for golf. That sheet is released every Monday, so be sure to check it out and construct your own numbers from my database of information.
Potential Sony Open DFS Plays
Corey Conners, $9,300
With zero golfers on DraftKings carrying a price tag above $9,700, it renders this distinctive board we rarely see for an event.
It's important to note that most DFS sites aren't capable of readjusting on the fly, which becomes clear when we get these "pre-determined" price points that start to unravel when implosions happen near the top. But the mistake here might open up a game theory route for us to go massively overweight to Corey Conners on Saturday.
Look, there are only so many routes possible when it comes to roster construction when anything you want to build is right at your disposal. But I have the mentality that using the Canadian at an 80%+ clip is probably the correct path if you want to generate long-term bankroll growth.
Conners is one of four players who ranked inside the top 50 in ball striking in the opening two days but underachieved their projected output each time from within the top 20 of my model.
Despite this being a popular route that many will want to use, part of me wants to make things simple by going Conners and Brian Harman ($9,700) as my first two names and searching for my four other options from there.
 |
Greyson Sigg, $7,500
Sigg has been one of the big underachievers so far in the event, projecting as someone who should be flirting with the top 30 of the leaderboard through two days but has instead meandered through his rounds and made the cut by only one shot.
The American has yet to outproduce his ball striking, even though my model does believe him to be a net-neutral (or better) player with the flat stick in hand. His rise up my board creates an outlier experience when we compare him to the other golfers who have made the most significant strides from their pre-event totals to their two-day production.
Currently, the two biggest movers for me inside my top 10 would be Chris Kirk and Hayden Buckley — two golfers that rank inside the top four of the event — meaning Sigg's 58th-place total on the board is due for some positive regression if it's right about him being the third-highest equity gainer to enter my top 10 through two days.
Justin Suh, $6,900
Many forget that despite Taylor Montgomery's blistering start to his career, Justin Suh was the golfer who captured the 2022 Korn Ferry Player of the Year award.
Suh's full-time tenure on tour got off to about as poor of a start as possible, as he missed his first three cuts to begin his 2023 campaign. But the made weekend here in Hawaii will give him his fifth straight tournament of getting in four rounds of golf.
Suh's mispricing doesn't come as a shock since most of those finishes have yet to allow him a Saturday or Sunday surge, but that could change here at Waialae since he's one of seven golfers who has gained a minimum of 1.50 shots both off-the-tee and with his irons.
 |
Other DFS Options I Would Consider: Brian Harman ($9,700), K.H. Lee ($9,000), Cameron Davis ($8,600), J.T. Poston ($8,000), Chris Kirk ($7,600), Adam Svensson ($7,500), Nick Hardy ($7,300), Russell Knox ($7,200) and Keita Nakajima ($6,900)
