Key Concepts

Throughout my emails and write ups I'll use a variety of terms from golf and data analysis and strategy as well as betting markets verbiage. Here is a list of the most commonly used if you need to referrence:

Strokes Gained Abbreviations

  • SGTOT = Strokes Gained Total
  • SGT2G = Strokes Gained Tee to Green
  • SGOTT = Strokes Gained Off the Tee
  • SGAPP = Strokes Gained Approach
  • SGARG = Strokes Gained Around the Green
  • SGP = Strokes Gained Putting
  • SGBS = Strokes Gained Ball Striking (OTT + APP)
  • SGSG = Strokes Gained Short Game (ARG + P)

DFS and Strategy Terminology

  • Ownership - is a key factor in playing DFS. Most PGA winning lineups have a cumulative ownership of no greater than 80%. This is the total cumulative ownership of all 6 golfers in your lineup. Ownership is critical in building winning lineups and we need to understand where the field is playing to help determine how we are going to play each week.
  • Leverage - is the single most important factor for us week in and week out. Leverage is how we differentiate our lineups from the majority of others playing the same contests as us. The weekly ‘Leverage Report’ by price is a list of players who appear in optimal lineups at a higher rate than they are projected to be owned in the contest. For example, if Scottie Scheffler is projected to be 30% owned but his projections place him in the optimal lineup 50% of the time over 10,000 simulations, he is a high leverage player despite being owned by 30% of the field. That is an extreme example. Most weeks we are looking for players that project under 10% owned that appear in optimal lineups at a higher clip.
  • Upside - is a players ability to outperform his projections. Does a player posses upside to finish in the top 5 or top 10 this week, based on projections?
  • GPP - stands for guaranteed prize pool and are usually the largest contests on DraftKings offering $25k up to $1m to first place.
  • Any Number with “x” after it is referring to a multiple of that number. For example, 2x the field = “two times the field”
  • The Field - refers to the other players in a given DFS contest
  • Leverage Path refers to my favorite combination of 2 or 3 players each week to include in your lineups. By playing high leverage players in combination with each other we are limiting the number of lineups we have to compete with to win a large sum of money.
  • Tier 1 Play - refers to a player we are very high on this week. In most cases, the criteria to be a Tier 1 player is a projected ownership of under 15% where we want to have a position on that player in tournaments of at least 2x the field, so 30% of that player in our portfolio of lineups
  • Tier 2 Play - refers to a player we are also high on but for one reason or another they are NOT a tier 1. In most cases, the main reasons a player is Tier 2 is their projected ownership is greater than 15%, making it more difficult or expensive, to be 2x the field. Another reason a player is Tier 2 could be that the analysis we are running suggests that the player is a good play but maybe not all of the stars are aligned like in Tier 1 plays.
  • Overweight - means we want to play more of a player than his projected ownership. If Jon Rahm is projected at 10% owned and doesn’t auto qualify for Tier 1 or Tier 2, we may advise an overweight stance meaning we like Rahm but maybe not enough to play him at 20% automatically.
  • Underweight - means we want to play less of a player than his projected ownership. This is rare for us on weekly basis as we will likely advise “full fades” on players vs. an “underweight stance.” However, an example of this might be where Scheffler is so heavily favored to win we can’t completely ignore him but his projected ownership might be over 25% or 30%. He might be such a good play that we can’t NOT play him but it’s ok to play 10% or 20% in a strategic manner
  • Full Fade - means I am playing zero of this player this week because the numbers don’t support taking a position or they indicate there is a higher rate of a player failing to meet their expectation this week.