Today marks the first day of the British Open and with it, the PGA $3mm Millionaire Maker contest on DraftKings. The tournament entry was $20 per lineup, and this year there were 171,750 entries, summing to $3.4mm wagered. Only the top 300 finishers (or 0.17%) cash $500 or more, so it definitely makes sense to play a tournament strategy here.
The rules are relatively simple. For a full description, check them out on the DraftKings site. There are six golfers per lineup, and scoring breaks down into three buckets:
- Per Hole Scoring - the focus of this article
- Tournament Finish Scoring
- Streaks and Bonuses
Looking at the Per Hore Scoring methodology, what sticks out is it heavily favors golfers who shoot an equal number of birdies and bogeys in a round over those who shoot all pars. A player who shoots 9 birdies and 9 bogeys scores 3*9 + -0.5*9 = +22.5. A player who shoots 18 pars scores 18*0.5 = +9. In other words, given the same score, the rules favor players with higher in-round variance. A useful statistic to filter players might be the birdie-to-bogey ratio.
Our ultimate goal is to calculate an expected value (EV) for fantasy points for each player in the field. To calculate EV, we need several items and we need to know where to find them:
- Players in the field - PGA web site / Draft Kings
- Some way of estimating how many eagles, birdies, pars, bogeys and double bogeys or worse each player will get - More on this below
At this point, we make our first assumption: the hole type (par 3/4/5) matters and is an important factor for how a given player will score on it. Given this assumption, we will look to calculate an expected fantasy value per par 3 hole (EFV3), expected fantasy value per par 4 hole (EFV4), and expected fantasy value per par 5 hole (EFV5). Once we makes these estimates, we calculate the respective values by the number of par 3s, par 4s and par 5s at St. Andrews (FYI, there are two par 3s, fourteen par 4s, and two par 5s).
So how do we calculate EFV3, EFV4, and EFV5?
Well, on the PGA web site we can find eagle, birdie, par, and bogey rates for par 3/4/5 holes (double eagle and double bogey data not available).
Let's create an imaginary player named Tiger Gilmore who has the following stats:
- Eagle rates
- Par 3: 0.0%
- Par 4: 0.25%
- Par 5: 3.0%
- Birdie rates
- Par 3: 10.0%
- Par 4: 17.0%
- Par 5: 40.0%
- Bogey rates
- Par 3: 6.0%
- Par 4: 11.0%
- Par 5: 25.0%
- Par rates
- Par 3: 100.0 - 0.0 - 10.0 - 6.0 = 84.0% (Any hole a player doesn't eagle, birdie, or bogey is a par by process of elimination. This isn't 100% true because of double eagles and double bogeys or worse but we use this as a simplification)
- Par 4: 100.0 - 0.25 - 17.0 - 11.0 = 81.75%
- Par 5: 100.0 - 3.0 - 40.0 - 25.0 = 32.0%
As a reminder, here are the points awarded (bolded ones are the ones we focus on):
- Double Eagle: +20.0
- Eagle: +8.0
- Birdie: +3.0
- Par: +0.5
- Bogey: -0.5
- Double bogey or worse: -1.0
For any given par 3, Tiger Gilmore's EFV3 = eagle 3 rate * +8 + birdie 3 rate * +3 + par 3 rate * +0.5 + bogey 3 rate * -0.5. EFV3 = 0.0*8 + 10.0*3 + 84.0*0.5 - 6.0*0.5 = 0.69. In English, we expect Tiger Gilmore to win us 0.69 fantasy points for each par 3 hole he plays. So for a given round in the British Open, we would expect him to score 0.69 * 2 = 1.38 fantasy points on par 3 holes.
Repeat this process for par 4s and par 5s, sum up the expected fantasy points, and we have an 18 hole expected fantasy value for a player. Repeat that process for all the players and we have a way of ranking all players in the field against each other.
We hope this sheds some light on a straightforward but powerful way to estimate EV for golfers at this year's British Open. The same principles apply to all daily fantasy PGA tournaments.
We wish you the best of luck in the contest!
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