Each week in this column you’ll find my favorite pivot plays in DraftKings tournaments. This isn’t to say to eat some of the chalk — sometimes the popular plays tend to be popular for good reason, and you should use some of those players in your lineups. Remember, never pivot off a good play to a bad play just because they’re projected to be lower owned. That’s moronic. A shrinking of a lower-owned play or two, however, can grant you a lot of leverage in what a mostly coin-flip situations. 

DraftKings strategy

The match play format splits the field of 64 into 16 four-player groups. The four players in each group will play a round-robin where only one player will advance to the knockout stage. So every player is guaranteed three matches unless they withdraw from the tournament. The knockout stage begins in the round of 16, from there, it’s a single elimination all the way to the final where the victor will be crowned.

If you’re playing for the best possible lineup, you need to be certain you take at least one player from each quadrant to ensure you at least have a chance of getting all four players in the final four. Also, don’t pick two players from the same group. That should seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how often it happens. I suggest consulting the bracket for the event before committing to a roster.

Rory McIlroy, $10,200

This one is easy for the ownership break: Rory is playing like crap and all the other expensive players are not. That’s the recipe for a pivot play amount the elites. Rory has advanced from the group stage two of four years at Austin CC, and his recent struggles have been a result of some big individual hole scores. Fortunately, in match play, there’s no difference between carding a five or a nine — it’s just one lost hole. 

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Matthew Wolff, $6,900

Kevin Na, Harris English, Daniel Berger and Wolff are all competing for the first time since withdrawing the last time we saw them. Berger would be the sensible play since he’s in a weaker group overall, one that features English, but he’s still going to take up a chunk of your salary ($9,000), so there’s more risk to your overall lineup. That leaves Wolff as the great unknown. 

Wolff has struggled since his back-to-back runners-up at the U.S. Open and Shriners, and a lot of the issues have been off the tee. Which is odds, because the 18 months previous, he was one of the premiere players on Tour with a driver in his hand. The gamble here, is not only is he healthy, but he’s figured out his swing issue on the tee box. It’s a lot to ask. 

Still, he’s just $6,900, so an awful performance doesn’t sink your lineups, and if he’s right, his path to go deep in the bracket is there. His skill set is weirdly unique to his draw against Jordan Spieth, Corey Conners and Matthew Fitzpatrick. While players like Kisner and Kuchar have experienced a lot of success at this course over the years, bombers have had more overall success historically. If Wolff can just go back to driving the ball at his previous elite rate, he can certainly escape his group littered with short smackers.