welcome to another episode of Mike's money picks today on the podcast we are going to be breaking down the underdog pup cup drafts which I know it's an odd name but this is their FedEx Cup playoff best ball drafts they have in Underdog it's a big tournament $10 entry with a big prize pool up top so we're going to be breaking down here on this show what the format is how you can take advantage of that format to build the best roster who should be some um players that you consider how should you consider the strategy for building this r and we're going to do a live draft here at the end of the show so pretty much everything you're going to need to know to win the pup cup um you're going to have here in this show now keep in mind we are recording this super duper early believe it or not my preview for the Open Championship is going to come out tomorrow so certainly some things are going to change here in these drafts in between now and when the contest starts we're going to go over um what we expect some of those to be here on this show so that way maybe this episode can be a little Evergreen and no matter when you're watching it as long as it's before to start of the FedEx Cup playoffs it can help you out now reminder if you are new here please subscribe to the channel that way we can be with us for the rest of the PGA Tour season as well as all of our NFL and college football content and if you like best ball drafts we have plenty of content for NFL and college football for that as well and please please please like the video on YouTube as well as rate and review the audio it really does help me out a ton when you guys do that if this is any help to you please hit the like button um so that way I can know that it did help you and um also if you want to you know give me or ask me any questions you know shout me out whatever on on Twitter at Mikes money picks I'd be more than happy to answer any questions or talk about any strategy as we get closer to um when this contest actually starts but without further Ado let's go ahead and dive into the format and the strategy of the pup cup all right so here is the basis of the pup cup so basically the pup cup is a 10 round six player draft that you're going to join a Lobby you're going to join a draft and you're going to draft 10 Rounds with with the six of you and you're going to have six six dang it you're going to have six players drafting 10 golfers which gives you 60 total picks right now stumbled over my words for a little bit there but I hope you guys get the picture so the FedEx Cup playoffs is 70 golfers in this um event the pup cup is going to continue through the duration of the FedEx Cup playoffs right so the FedEx St Jude invitation on the first event of the FedEx Cup playoffs has 70 golfers in it the BMW Championship has 50 golfers in it the TOUR Championship has 30 golfers in it the same concept is going to apply to your pup cup draft room where you're gonna have to win your draft room um for the FedEx St Jude Invitational if you want to advance to play in the BMW um uh championship and then you're gonna have to advance from another room to play for the grand prize at the Tour Championship so here's the bottom line six golfers are going to count for your score out of the 10 that you draft each and every week so do you have to hit home runs with all 10 of your picks no no you just need six good ones but what that means is you have zero chance of winning the pup cup overall if you don't have six guys in your roster that make the Tour Championship and theoretically with 30 guys making the Tour Championship that means that there are going to be five on a five rounds of golfers that are theoretically going to make to our Championship because that's theoretically the top 30 five time six so what you have to have happen is you have to have a little bit of an anticipation for who is going to play well at these courses and play well in these events in order to make it to the end right now what's unique is we recording this in the middle of July the FedEx Cup playoffs do not start for another four or five tournaments so what's interesting is if you do a draft right now there's a chance that you could draft somebody who does not even make the FedEx Cup playoffs for instance you know we're looking at the top 30 right now Sam Burns is ranked 30th it's pretty safe that Sam Burns is going to get in the FedEx Cup playoff being ranked 30th I don't think 40 guys are going to pass him to get in the playoffs but if he doesn't play a lot of events or if he doesn't play well at the FedEx St Jude and at the BMW then he could very easily get past and not make it to the Tour Championship similar concept for the guys that are 30 to 50 similar concept for the guys that are 50 to 70 now I do want to shout out a few guys that are ranked 50 to 70 that I think are trending in the right direction so minw Lee has played outstanding for the last two months he just hasn't played a whole lot of events he is playing in Scott this week if I had to venture a guess I would say that he's probably going to play in the 3M or the Windam so that way he can get some extra FedEx Cup points he sits at 55th right now in the FedEx Cup standings but I think it is highly likely that he elevates that by the time the FedEx Cup Playoff starts and I think the same thing about Aaron Ry Aaron Ry is kind of on his linsanity run right now um he's playing the best golf of his career if you think that he continues it throughout the duration of the FedEx Cup playoffs then this is a great spot to draft Aaron Ry um because he is currently 57th in the standing so he is sitting squarely in the FedEx Cup playoffs but if he continues his great play he is going to elevate himself into the top 50 and into the top 30 now interestingly enough we got to talk about the bubble because Aaron rise 57th 58th is Taylor Moore 59th is Jordan Speed 60th is Mark hubber those are currently the last three guys that are in the FedEx Cup or I'm sorry that they're the FedEx Cup playoffs ends at 70 my bad the last three guys that ended the FedEx Cup playoffs right now are Lucas Glover Adam Scott Adam shank with Victor Perez Andrew putam Nikolai hoard Justin low and Keith Mitchell sitting just on the outside looking in now again I am recording this during the Scottish op there's still four more events where um three more events excuse me where guys can accumulate FedEx Cup points in order to get into the FedEx Cup playoffs so basically here's what this amounts to if you're going to draft a guy from down here then you need to have faith they that they are going to play in events and up their game um in order to qualif qualify for the FedEx stj championship and then you're going to need them to play well in the FedEx stj Championship um in order to reach the BMW Championship now with the time of drafting there comes with a little bit of risk a little bit of reward obviously if you're listening to this you know either before during or after the Windom Championship which is the last event the FedEx Cup uh regular season then you're going to have a much clearer picture of who's going to get in the FedEx Cup playoffs and and who's not but also everybody that you're drafting with is going to have a much better picture of who's going to get in the FedEx Cup playoff and who is not so if you think that you have an edge in long-term predicting um who's going to play well in the PGA Tour season then you need to draft as soon as possible because you can buy guys when they're on the way up as opposed to after they are already up and hope that your opponents are going to draft some guys who are going to fall out of the FedEx Cup playoffs in between now and then and give yourself an advantage because the last thing you want to do is enter this thing with only nine guys in the FedEx Cup playoffs as opposed to everyone else having 10 now there is a matter of well you know not just drafting the guys that make the FedEx Cup playoffs but we need guys that are going to be good when they get there right so what I want to look at is the three courses that we are going to play in the FedEx Cup playoffs TPC South one for the FedEx St Jude Castle Pines for the BMW and East Lake for the Tour Championship who are guys that play well at those courses well will zat Tores in two appearances at the FedEx St Jude has finished eighth and first If he if he makes it it would stand a reason that he would would have a very good chance at playing well even though he is not currently playing all that well um as I'd record this in the middle of July Tom Lewis is not currently playing on the PJ tour I would not worry about him he is second in course history at the FedEx St Jude though Daniel Berger is third with a T2 and a T5 if he makes the FedEx Cup playoffs then that's certainly a good spot for him um Dustin Johnson is on live disregard him Justin Thomas is probably the guy with the biggest substantial sample size that plays historically well at TPC Southwind he's played here four times never missed a cut never finished worse than 26 and has a win on the docket SI theala has played here each of the last two years finished 13th both times um Kum morwa has played here four times never finished worse than 26th either so um there's a lot of guys with some pretty interesting history here at the FedEx St Jude Invitational um let's carry over now to East Lake because we got to do something different for Castle Pines so when it comes to East Lake the undis uted king of East Lake is Xander shafley in each of the last five years he has finished no worse than fifth at the Tour Championship also it's really hard to calculate Strokes gain at the Tour Championship because of how they do starting Strokes Underdog does not take the starting Strokes into account so you're not going to get points based off their finishing position you're going to get points based off of how many actual Strokes they took to finish the round and Xander is simply the best the best when it comes to East Lake so he is going to make a compelling case to be a very top of the line first round pick because of his historical performance at East Lake if you were able to make it to East Lake you want sander shafley on your team Windam Clark is another guy that has played well East Lake he finished third here last year um let's see Victor havland um been at East Lake four times won the Tour Championship last year coming from behind um so I do think that Victor's pretty good at East Lake as is Rory he has won I believe three total tour championships tends to play well here every year Justin Thomas has played well here pretty much every time I'm trying to look for some guys with actual sample size here Adam shank was very good at this event last year as was Russell Henley sep Shaka has been pretty good at East Lake Max H has been pretty good at East Lake so those are some names to consider there that have played well at East Lake now I mentioned that Castle Pines is a brand new golf course for the PGA Tour so um basically here's what we know about Castle Pines it is a par 72 it is a Jack Nicholas design and is going to be played in Colorado in the altitude so even though it looks like a long distance on the scorecard it is not going to play for a super long course now what I did was I went on bets bur got DOL bets Birds golf.com their tool called the rabbit hole and I made a quick little model for Castle Pines what I looked at was Strokes gain for courses that are shorter than average Strokes gained at Jack Nicholas courses Strokes gained at par 72s and strokes gained in strong Fields evenly weighted all 25% across the board and what it popped out was Scotty chef steer Xander Schley K morawa John ROM you can disregard that he is on live do not draft John ROM in the PB cup um but I use the the Open Championship field because all the top names are in it Roy mooy five ludic oberg six t Hatton seven you can skip that one as well Victor havind eight Patrick Klay nine chrisan bazen who 10 SEIU Kim Russell Henley hii matama Tommy Fleetwood and sah thewa rounding out the top 15 Denny McCarthy popping up at with a good history at Jack Nicholas courses as well um and then Windam Clark popping up at 19 with a great history on par 72 tracks so um those are some early names that you can consider for Castle Pines so all the names that we just talked about I would be inclined to give them a little bit of a bump and think that they're going to play um above their Baseline and above where we think that they are going to be at these three events all right so now that we've talked about the um timing the for format the strategy the courses let's go ahead and let's join a live draft and let's all right so we have joined a draft and after a few minutes of waiting we finally have a full draft Lobby and now we are about to draft and we got the three slot which I actually like because the three slot guarantees me one of the big three Sheffer shley mroy so I think the three spot is a great spot to draft from I'm going to honestly be content with whichever one of the three of them Falls to me obviously I would prefer sheffler over the other two just because he is clearly the best golfer in the world but I will be content with either Xander or a Rory following tumia 3 um given the choice between the two of them I'd probably take Xander but I'm really ecstatic that I'm getting one of the three if I had to be honest one thing I would recommend with this contest is doing multiple drafts um simply because you really never know who's going to be the guy that you had to need um like last year I don't think anybody really saw it coming that Victor hoplin was going to Rattle off the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship in back toback weeks so if you do multiple drafts from multiple Spots You're Going to naturally get exposure to um some of the guys like Victor hin that you just may not have gotten exposure to if you just did one or two drafts um so the start of this draft has drawn pretty chalky um you know I kind of narrated it over the first round but Sheffer sha went one and two I took Rory number three con morwa has gone number four ludvig oberg has gone number five and I gotta say that's exactly how I would rank the top five right now um and I would be kind kind of surprised if it ended up being um another order by the time that um you know the the FedEx Cup playoff started Windam Clark has now gone Sixth and I gotta say um I really would like Tony fow to drop to me to pick 10 um I think Tony fow's Ball striking lately has been incredible I've been on the record for saying that I think he is going to win before the summer is over um so let's see if we can get him to fall three more picks to me at number 10 well Justin Thomas has just gone number seven he was honestly a backup plan I was considering if F now didn't fall to me um right now sitting in front of me are Patrick Klay who was just drafted at 8 and now Hideki Manama is sitting at the top of the board on Underdog and I really hope that Tony fow can fall to me at 10 and I will feel pretty confident about a m Roy now start yep SII thewa just went number nine totally understandable as a pick but I'm going to take fale here at number 10 and I would love to either get vikor havin or AE baa to fall back to me um although don't necessarily think that that's going to happen that's just um the two that I would prefer what I'm really doing with my strategy right now is I'm really looking for guys who are striking the ball well I think that's probably the thing that's the most sustainable um from drafting it now um you know to a team that's not going to be used until like the 1 of August so um you know I got two guys in maroy and fale maroy clearly one of the top three players in the world fale one of the best ball Strikers in the world right now um so at the end of the second round Matt seyama and baa have gone Shane has gone with the first pick of the third round um so now that I can't get baa I would be ecstatic to get Victor havin here at 15 and the guy in front of me drafted Fleetwood so I'm going to take Victor hin and I know Victor hin has not had a great season so far but his ball striking is trending back in the right direction um and he has great history at East Lake and um you know he won the BMW Championship last year I know it's not the same course but very clearly he um had a way for his game to Peak around this time last year so I feel pretty confident getting him at 15 that that's going to be a pretty solid selection and I'm really hoping that this ends up being a unique build and that by the time the contest starts Victor havin is not viewed as a third round pick that he's viewed as maybe a first or a second round pick and I've got some uniqueness on the field in that regard Ben an went right behind me at the 16 spot followed by Sun JM so we've got a few more picks before it comes back to me I am eyeing Tom Kim or sep straa if they could get back to me um don't really have a whole lot of faith in that but those are the two that I'm looking for um for context last year I did because of the timing of when they released the contest last year I only did two of these drafts last year um I was in the middle of football season starting when these drafts were going down um this year I'm not coaching football so um you know I have a little bit more time to do some drafts but last year I was able to get one team through to the BMW Championship but it did not make it to the tour Championship what ended up happening was I just didn't have Victor havind at the BMW and then the other one the other team that I drafted just and just played like crap in the FedEx St Jude and it didn't end well for me so um I'm hoping that this being the first team that I've drafted this year I'm hoping that we can um get on the right track here with this one and end up playing well so um because I have been narrating Tom Kim went at the 18 spot followed by Pavone Henley and hom back to me at 22 and I'm going to very happy take sep stria um you know he's at his best at courses like TBC Southwind where driving accuracy is necessary and um you know not to spoil too much about my Open Championship preview for tomorrow's episode but I happen to think that sep Strack is a really good play at the Open Championship and a good Open Championship from sep staka should increase his draft status as well so I'm hoping that with the guys I'm drafting right now maoy fow havin and stria I'm hoping that fow havin and straa are to elevate their status in between now and the start of this tournament and I end up with a very unique build all right now coming back to me Davis Thompson and Brian Harmon have gone at the end of the fourth round Christian bazay hoot started the fifth round Cameron young was next and now I am kind of caught with my pants down here a little bit I do not know who I'm going to take nine seconds you know I'm going to go back to the ball striking narrative I'm going to go with Cory Connor um I think if I had a little you know maybe if I wasn't narrating so much maybe I could have had a little more time to think but that's that's okay um Conor's at 27 I can feel okay about that um I think if I had it do over again I might have taken sewo Kim but we'll be okay um Tom hogi has gone picked 28 Sam Burns picked 29 this is a very ambiguous range right here um like there's a lot of these guys I would value to be like quite even um you know Cory Connor for instance the guy that I just took he's currently sitting at 31st in the FedEx Cup Standing so if he just plays well in the FedEx Cup playoffs he should absolutely make the Tour Championship um anyway after I picked Connors it is quickly coming back to me hogi went and picked 28 Sam Burns picked 29 Thomas dietry picked 30 I actually really like that dri pick um and so now we've got once this pick Autos there'll be two more before me Chris Kirk has gone next and I might be able to get sewo Kim at pick 34 yeah that's the plan if I can get sew Kim I'm gonna I'm G to be really happy um Stephen jger is currently the top guy on the board and if this guy Autos which I expect him to oh no he took Jason day not Stephen Jagger okay um so Jason day just went 32 pick 33 is going to [Music] be hopefully not seim he took Stephen jger so I'm going to take sewu Kim and I'm going to get both the guys that I wanted really like sewu Kim at um Bermuda courses and also siuk Kim one thing that's really interesting if you're concerned about his positioning in the FedEx Cup standings now he is historically one of the best players at the Windam Championship which is the last event for the FedEx Cup playoffs so he is certainly going to play his way up the board that week or at least we think he will and then roll right into TBC Southwind which is a great course fit for SEO all right now Robert McIntyre has gone 35 Matt Fitzpatrick 36 which leaves me with two more picks before it gets back to me and I've got a lot of options interesting interesting conundrum here will zot torus just went 37 that's actually a guy that I was going to consider minwu Lee has gone 38 that is actually who I was really kind of honing in on um I am going to go with Denny McCarthy and I know that that might be a little bit of an outside the box selection to some but Denny McCarthy historically good at Jack plus courses for Castle pins and also he is the Simply the Best putter of the golf ball in the world in my opinion and anytime you have a guy that has a marketable skill like that there's a chance that he just puts in everything and goes nuclear um just like you know if you if you play Bryson in DFS there's a chance that he just hits every drive to 400 and and has it really easy or um you know you play Scotty Sheffer and he just hits everything to two feet right like if a guy's the best in the world at something there's a chance for him to just go nuclear in that one aspect so Denny McCarthy at 39 I've got a guy who can get hot if need be JT Poston is gone at pick 40 followed by Keegan Bradley at 41 and my favorite pick if he could get back to me would be Aaron Ry here in this next round Taylor pendrith has gone 42 so I've got three picks in between me and the guy drafting right now and if I can get Aaron Ry I will feel really good because Aaron Ry I mentioned earlier he's kind of on his lens sanity run right now he is playing some really good golf best golf of his career and I expect it to continue he's doing it in a very sustainable way he's still gaining a ton of Strokes in the ball striking categories so if he is able to keep that up through the FedEx Cup playoffs and I'm gonna get myself a steal up he just got taken at pick 44 dang it all right so now back to the drawing board and I am going to be back up here in just a second let me see if there's anybody in the course history piece that I can find not exactly Cameron Davis has gone right before me you know what I'm just gonna take Jordan spe and I'm just gonna trust that speed's Talent will get him um on the right side looking in by the time the FedEx Cup Playoffs start and trust that speed's Talent will get him through to um the later rounds of the vs Cup playoffs I just looking at what was available to me at the board um I didn't like a lot of what was sitting at the top and so I don't mind going with Jordan spe what is now an ADP bargain because his ADP was 39 and I got him at pick 36 now two guys that I was actually eyeing um just went 47 and 48 so that kind of hurts Ben Griffin 47 Austin ekro 48 Alex noren 49 to start the ninth round with two rounds left we are almost done actually I'm going to go with Sheamus power here at pick 51 this is a guy who's ball striking is really good right now um and I feel pretty good about him making the FedEx Cup playoffs right now he currently sits at um 62 um so he's currently in that range where he should make the playoffs and um if he plays well in the FedEx stj then he should be on to the BMW Championship now got one more pick and this is where you can get a little bit creative you're gonna want to make sure that you um you know with this early on in um the drafting season with with there being so much golf to play in between now and the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs you can get a little bit different with this pick one guy that I think I'm looking at right now is going to be Taylor Moore Taylor Moore much like Denny McCarthy a guy that can get supremely hot with the putter he's also a really good driver of the golf ball and and to me those two skills tend to play well at Nicholas courses and so hopefully maybe he can be a guy that can show up at Castle Pines and play well he is currently 58th in the FedEx Cup Standing so as long as he doesn't tank in between now and then he should definitely make the FedEx Cup playoffs and can definitely make the um the later rounds of the PCO playoffs if he plays well trying to see if there's anybody else further down the board that I might like and I'm seen a lot of guys that just aren't currently qualified so like if if you have strong convictions about a guy this would be a time to take them right now to just think that the guy's gonna play themselves in like maybe I don't know like a like a Doug gim or a um Riis satun or Ryan Fox like if you are have strong convictions about somebody that 10th round is a time to take him and I'm going to take Taylor Moore and feel pretty good about it and feel pretty good about my entire roster um the end of the ninth round was Cole hor Taylor followed by Jake nap Harris English Patrick Rogers to start the 10th I took Taylor Moore at pick 58 guy behind me took Nicholai hoard at pick 59 I actually really like that pick as well I think he's supremely talented um I don't know what his travel schedule is going to look like though and if he's going to play enough golf to get himself into the field but that is how our draft ended up so um hopefully that gave you a um a pretty good picture of what a draft looks like and and how your kind of strategy should look like thinking um and how we go through the draft but I feel pretty confident that I've gotten some guys who um you know as I record this very early in the draft season I'm hoping that all these guys their stock is going to go up in between now and the time of the actual start of the FedEx Cup playoffs and I will have a roster that is constructed now that could not be constructed later on in July or the start of August but but here's the bottom line that's not going to mean anything that they don't go out and play well so I have successfully given myself a roster that if they go out and play well should be a unique build should be a combination of players that no one else has and is a combination of players that I feel pretty good about their form heading into the F Cup playoffs I I don't always think that my live drafts turn out well but that one I actually really do was happy to get the three pick was happy to get the combination r f now really like getting my my guy Taylor Moore at the end as well all right so that's going to do it for this episode guys if this helped you out in any way with the pup cup draft then please hit the like button on YouTube please rate and review the audio and also go ahead and subscribe to us because we've got a ton of other baseball content for NFL college football um and then once the regular season starts we're going to have NFL and college football content as well if you're watching this on release dat our Open Championship preview is going to be out tomorrow if you're watching this after the Open Championship whatever tournament's going on this week we will have a preview coming out generally they come out on Monday nights so make sure you subscribe to the channel and you can be here with us before that but other than that hopefully this was able to help you guys out I love this beste ball draft format I really do enjoy it hopefully you guys too and hopefully this was able to give you guys some information that is going to help you win the pup Cup on Underdog fantasy thank you guys for watching the list to this point Have Fun drafting best of luck to you in the pup cup and I will see you guys next time