Daily fantasy golf gamers have a brand new toy to play with this week on DraftKings.
The business chief has launched a brand new PGA Tour recreation format to coincide with one of the vital fan-friendly occasions on the calendar.
For the primary time, daily fantasy sportsbook contests will run alongside the WGC-Dell Applied sciences Match Play match.
DraftKings Match Play
The sector for the WGC-Dell consists of 64 gamers divided into 16 teams of 4. They’ll play a round-robin format inside their teams earlier than advancing to the elimination stage on Saturday. The drawing was broadcast on TV earlier this week.
On the DFS aspect, DraftKings’ new Match Play format follows the identical blueprint as its normal contests. Every golfer is assigned a wage, and customers should fill a roster of six golfers that matches with a USD50,000 wage cap. As soon as the match begins, customers accrue factors primarily based on the real-world efficiency of their roster.
Scoring shall be a bit completely different than daily fantasy golf gamers are used to, although. Right here’s the breakdown for factors:
- Holes gained: +3
- Holes halved: +0.75
- Holes misplaced: -0.75
- Holes not performed: +1.6
- Matches gained: +5
- Matches halved: +2
As you’ll be able to see, whether or not a participant makes an eagle or a double bogey is immaterial from a scoring perspective. The one issues that matter are successful holes and matches. There may be additionally a +5 bonus for a streak of three consecutive successful holes and a +7.5 bonus if the golfer doesn’t lose any holes within the match. That signifies that an ideal rating for a golfer in every match is 60.3 factors.
The WGC-Dell begins on Wednesday, a day sooner than most PGA occasions. The biggest contest within the foyer is a USD5 entry with a USD400,000 prize pool.
PGA match play fundamentals
In match play, gamers aren’t competing for the bottom whole rating amongst a discipline of 100-plus golfers. As an alternative, the sphere is damaged down into heads-up pairings who merely compete for a greater rating on every particular person gap.
Each gap is its personal contest, and it might both be gained, misplaced or halved (when each gamers shoot the identical rating). The participant who wins essentially the most particular person holes wins the match. It’s extra like a drag race than the Indy 500. And it’s arguably the purest type of golf. It’s the way in which you and your buddies most likely play at your own home monitor.
The scoreboard appears somewhat completely different for match-play occasions, too. Somewhat than the standard score-to-par notation (-4, for instance), matches are tracked solely by the relative rating of two gamers. You might even see a participant listed as “3 Up,” which means they’ve gained three extra holes than their opponent. What number of strokes that participant has really taken is irrelevant.
The match-play format additionally signifies that some pairings gained’t have to play the total 18 holes. If the identical participant wins every of the primary 10, the match is already determined. That’s a uncommon excessive, however it might lead to a successful rating of “10 & 8,” which means the participant is 10 holes forward with solely eight to play. Ties, referred to as “halves,” are attainable if each gamers win the identical variety of holes.
“Dormie” is one other match play time period price studying for the weekend. It signifies {that a} participant’s rating matches the variety of holes remaining. A participant who’s “Dormie three,” for instance, is successful by three holes with three to play. She or he would solely have to halve one of many remaining holes to win the match.
Golf innovation!
DraftKings has been the motive force for daily fantasy golf, partially due to the authorized specifics surrounding DFS operations. The federal legislation that governs them, the UIGEA, stipulates that contests have to be primarily based on “a number of” occasions. It’s not clear if the 4 rounds of a golf contest would depend as a number of occasions within the eyes of a decide.
DraftKings is working beneath the idea that it’s all clear, although. It was among the many first websites to supply PGA contests. Up to now, it hasn’t met any resistance from lawmakers or legal professionals. The identical could be stated relating to its NASCAR contests, which additionally toe the road.
After testing the authorized fencework, DFS operators have been on an innovation blitz during the last yr or so. FanDuel created an entire division, FanDuel Labs, which is charged with growing new codecs and recreation varieties. It’s been busy, too, rolling out concepts on a near-weekly schedule, it appears.
Some intelligent options have emerged from second-tier DFS operators, too. Increase Fantasy and Draft are each tweaking their merchandise on an ongoing foundation, seeking to discover one thing that tempts customers away from “the massive two” websites. Increase, for instance, now provides Jackpot contests. Even Yahoo is twiddling with its platform, just lately including a brand new function referred to as QuickMatch.
DraftKings has definitely not stagnated, both. It started to supply single-game contests late within the NFL season, a number of months after rolling out its Choose’em format. They now even have single-game contests for different sportsbook, like daily fantasy soccer and daily fantasy basketball. DraftKings provides extra sportsbook than any of its rivals, together with issues like Euroleague basketball and League of Legends. And now it’s innovating golf, too.
Along with the Match Play format, DraftKings additionally provides its Basic format for PGA, together with shorter, weekend-0nly slates.