Draft Kings Golf: Rookie Guide

[AKNel1]

I've been playing Draft Kings golf for around 3 months and admit it can be somewhat confusing and intimidating when you first sign up. The basic principle is simple, pick a team of 6 golfers - each with an individual value - and keep within a $50,000 budget.

After the first tee time on Thursday your team is locked in for the weekend and picks up points for pars, birdies, eagles, albatrosses (double eagles) and holes in one, whilst dropping points for bogeys and worse. A players position on the leaderboard also gains points provided they are in the top 50.

Bonus points are awarded for bogey free rounds, getting 3 birdies (or better) in a row (once per round only) and 4 rounds in the 60's.

For full details on scoring and game rules, here is the official guide

https://www.DraftKings.co.uk/help/golf

So how does the game work, basically its a pool system with roughly 20% of the entrants sharing out 90% of the entrance fees with the top scorer taking the biggest prize. But there are a multitude of different options and ways to play the game.

My personal point of view is that you should set yourself a weekly budget and stick to it. I also think that you should be looking to play at the highest entrance fee that you can afford. Generally, the higher the entrance, the less players you have to beat - as an example in the Players week, I won a $1000 beating just over a 1000 entrants in a $5 entry pool. Had that team been in the $3 pool with the $300,000 pot, I would've cashed just $150.

Head to Head / Double ups

A lot of the seasoned pros tend to play a high percentage of 'double up' games or head to heads as their 'bread and butter'. In these games it doesn't matter if you finish 1st or 450th as long as you are in the top 45% of entrants you double your stake.

It's a low risk strategy with a low upside but the idea is to keep your funds ticking over without the boom or bust risk of GPP's (Guaranteed Prize Pools)

Steps

Perhaps the most under utilised and hidden way to play. There are 4 'steps' and you can buy in at any level. Step 1 is a $2 entry, step 2 is $7, step 3 $25 and step 4 $88.

In the first 3 steps, you play against 9 others with the top 2 gaining a ticket to the next step, with 3rd and 4th getting a ticket to replay the same level.

When you reach step 4, you play against just 5 others with the top 2 winning $200 and the 3rd placed team getting a replay ticket.

This for me is a great way to start out, cheap to play whilst you learn how to play, with a nice hit when you land. You can start new teams every week or keep the same amount of teams in play by starting new teams to replace losing ones or teams that have cashed at step 4.

GPP's

This is likely to be the reason you've been drawn into playing daily fantasy sports games like Draft Kings. GPP's offer 4, 5, 6 and even 7 figure pools dependant on entry fee and total players. entry fees range from as little as $0.25 to several thousand $$$. My advice is look for the limited entry pools (ie 1 entry per person or 3 entries per person) as this levels the playing field somewhat.

This is where you can earn life changing money and you should be playing at least one GPP every week.

Satellites and Qualifiers / Promotions

This is a way to piggy back yourself into some big money tournaments, some of which will earn you guaranteed $$$ as an example currently running are satellites and qualifiers for the 'Fantasy Golf World Championship', 'Millionaire Maker' 'Thunderdome' and 'Coastline Classic'.

The FGWC is for 125 people only and you can only get an entry by winning a qualifier. The 125 then play off in a Fedex cup style battle with guaranteed minimum prize of $2000 for 125th place. The Coastline Classic gives 12 people the opportunity to play Pebble Beach, meet a pro golfer, take part in a fantasy golf game and they'll even give you $1000 towards the cost of your flights to get there. For further details see here.

https://www.DraftKings.co.uk/lp/2016-go ... ampionship

https://www.DraftKings.co.uk/lp/fantasy ... aire-fgm-2

https://www.DraftKings.co.uk/lp/2016-golf-thunderdome

https://www.DraftKings.co.uk/lp/2016-go ... ne-classic


So what do I do each week.?

I select 6 teams and play them in GPPs and play the same 6 teams in step games. If I have had a good week, I'll also enter the same 6 teams into satellites/qualifiers. I currently have 3 tickets for the Millionaire maker from a $9 outlay rather than the 3 x $20 entry fee, saving me $51.

How much do I spend on GPPs,?

I play what I can afford and if that is just 6 x $0.25 then so be it. Set yourself a budget and stick to it.

How do you select your teams ?

I break my teams into '3 balls' with 3 golfers and a 25k budget. With 4 blocks of 3, I get 6 different teams with all 12 players in 50% of my teams. Each block / 3ball has a 'stud' - a player with a value over $9000 for the remaining spots, I tend to have a shortlist of around 20 players and play around with different options until I get a block / 3ball that I like.

You can select more or less 3ball blocks to suit yourself, 3 will give you 3 teams, 4 blocks makes 6 teams, 5 blocks 10 teams, 6 gives 15 etc.

4 blocks works best for me as I find the blocks are weaker when you try to have too many players.


Hope this helps, any questions, just ask

[phil73]

Excellent post. Thank you very much. Also many congratulations on your win

I've been playing draftkings with not much success for the last 6 or so weeks and the amount of different contests is very confusing/intimidating at first.

I'm struggling to establish in my mind what makes a good draftkings golfer. I think that a golfer you may have chosen as a good long term OFL pick doesn't necessarily make a good draftkings pick. For draftkings you need to be picking more streaky players. I need to change my mindset to that.

PS The Euro tour was added to draftkings yesterday

[Man United's #1 Fan]

Excellent post indeed AK, are you on commission Many congrats on your $1k win a couple of weeks ago

I've been playing this regularly since The Masters, generally in 50 : 50 's (top 50% all win the same amount) and recently the US Open satellites, currently have won 4 free entries worth $80. Mixed success but won a fair amount last weekend with a team including Garcia Koepka and Knost in multiple leagues, picking up $100 for a $1 entry

In your Draft Kings research I would suggest it's worth checking out Fantasy Sports Labs : http://www.fantasylabs.com/daily-fantasy-golf/

I have not yet subscribed, may do the 5 days for $15 trial in the run up to the US Open, but the You Tube articles are very good CSURAM88 etc. You will often find research posted on a Wednesday when variables such as the likely influence of weather for each half of the draw will be pretty reliable etc. Some of these guys seem to be professional fantasy sports players and study everything in case there's an edge to be gained, but I still think even for the casual player there is a lot of useful stuff.

I play as ManUnitedFan23

Cheers

Colin

[AKNel1]

Two draft kings games this week, firstly the regular PGA event

30 man, $1 entry, top 2 win

https://www.draftkings.co.uk/contest/draftteam/24639971

And also a brand new European tour game

20 man, ****$5 entry****, top 2 win

https://www.draftkings.co.uk/contest/draftteam/24642713

[AKNel1]

Excellent post. Thank you very much. Also many congratulations on your win

I've been playing draftkings with not much success for the last 6 or so weeks and the amount of different contests is very confusing/intimidating at first.

I'm struggling to establish in my mind what makes a good drafting golfer. I think that a golfer you may have chosen as a good long term OFL pick doesn't necessarily make a good draftkings pick. For draftkings you need to be picking more streaky players. I need to change my mindset to that.

PS The Euro tour was added to draftkings yesterday

A player making 4 birdies and 3 bogeys will score better than a player with 6 pars and a birdie. So yes streaky players make good dfs players but are more likely to miss the cut, so its abalancing act.

To win big you need to have the top 2 and probably one more in the top 5 as the bonus points for 1st and 2nd are significant.

So you need a mix of potential winners, safe options who will make the cut and streaky players who can score heavily but also crash and burn.

[Hotpot]

Great post AKNel1, lots of great info for any newbies.

A couple of other points. Lots of GPP's fill up a day or so before the deadline so it might be worth registering early on in the week to reserve your place. You can edit your entry as much as you want up until the deadline.

The $50,000 budget is reasonably strict so if you bring in an expensive player you will need to look low down the list to complete your lineup. There's lots of players down there who you probably wont recognise so a couple of places that will help with this and provide other tips -

On youtube I view a weekly 30/40 min show where that weeks tournament is discussed in detail. Search for 'pat mayo hour'. Here is a link to this weeks show -



I also download a weekly podcast that can be worth a listen if you're out and have a spare 40 miins, search for 'tour junkies :pga and fantasy golf podcast'

[phil73]

Stolen from RotoGrinders forum re St Jude Classic

'Johnson Wagner -2 74, 66, 68, is a perfect example of a nice low priced pick.
Just barely made the cut and then shot 5 birdies, 1 bogie and 1 double bogie.
$6200 53 pts
Ryan Palmer +2 71, 68, 73, is a perfect example of a high priced dud.
Made the cut safely and then shot 1 birdie, 2 bogies and 1 double bogie.
$10,800 43 pts.
The salary difference between them is $4600.'

I keep on picking too many high priced duds!

[draregbhoy]

Hi all, do many of you guys still play DK golf? I've started recently with limited success. I've noticed this week though that many in the field at the Portugal Open are not included in DK player lists - is this common?