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Archives for October 2018

Golfing In Florida In July Was A Bad Idea

October 19, 2018 - Updated June 20, 2019

It’s been 15 months since I made one of the most insanely idiotic and dangerous decisions of my life. I’ve only told this story a few times to close friends but recently had pictures I took from that dreaded day pop up on my iMac’s Photos App which led me to reliving it one more time.

We live in Michigan. Cold half the year. Warm half the year. With bits of hoodie and shorts weather the other times. It’s important to take advantage of those warm months.

But I ended up in Florida in July last year because I did not speak up when it was proposed we go down to see Andrea’s brothers family in Indialantic, Florida along with her other brothers family who still lives in Michigan.

I won’t go into all of it but a few weeks after it was mentioned she pulled out the Delta SkyMiles credit card and said she was buying the plane tickets to Florida. I might have said something like “What?”.

Basically, an entire weeks long trip had been planned in the previous weeks and I was going. Along with our nearly 2 and nearly 3 year olds. Who had never been on a plane yet.

“Fine. Fine. I’ll go to Florida and sweat my balls off. Fine. But I get to go golfing once.” Those were my only demands. And she agreed.

Hello Florida!!!

As we drove our rental car from the Orlando airport, to Melbourne, over the causeway bridge, through Indialantic, and towards our rental house in southern Melbourne Beach we passed a golf course two miles from the house we rented with her brothers family. “That’ll do”.

We get settled in the first two days and start sweating our balls off. Correction. Balls began sweating the quarter second it took me to step from the air conditioned airplane to the air conditioned jet bridge.

Pool water was 85 degrees. Had a beach day where the sand was so hot you couldn’t step on it. Thankfully a canopy was brought. Ok. I’ve been a team player. Its me time. I’m going golfing.

Its Golf Time

I pulled up my GolfNow app the night before and searched for the golf course we passed on the drive in. What popped up was Spessard Holland.

Spessard Holland Golf Course Melbourne Florida

They didn’t have any Hot Deals and since I needed rental clubs I decided to call when I woke up knowing I’d have to get out early to beat the heat.

And that’s what I did by 8 am the next morning. Got a tee time for 9am with cart and had to pay a few extra bucks for clubs. Ten minutes prior to me leaving Andrea told me her brother (the one who lives in Florida) wanted to play. Told him to meet me there at 9 which he did. We had never golfed together before and he plays maybe once a year.

Furthering my idiocracy I did not bring any golf balls. Stupid me. And for some reason I decided to buy a dozen recycled Titleist Pro V1’s (which sucked). Didn’t want to spend big money on real ones and I didn’t want to buy the cheap Bridgestone’s (should of) the pro shop had available.

Took a brief look at the course before heading into the pro shop and saw water everywhere. Mostly small ponds and creeks. But just about every hole had water. Since I’ve never played there before I was probably going to find a water hazard or two or three during the round.

And most importantly with it being Florida there were probably gators in every one of them. So I’m not going near those ponds trying to fish out a golf ball.

Holy Sweat Box

It became apparent on the putting green it was going to be the hottest round of golf I’ve ever played. For some dumb reason the only golf shirt I packed was my wanna be Tiger Woods red Nike Dri-Fit when I should have packed a white one. You think I’d know better at the age of 37 that dark colors are not the best to wear when the sun is blazing like 400 degrees.

Weather at 9am was 84 degrees with 76% humidity. Barely a breeze from the ocean. By the end of our round the temperature hit 91 degrees with humidity at 57%. Basically miserable.

The thought of “I should not be out here” hit me before we even teed off. And the 2 liter Sunkist bottle I filled with water the night before, put in the freezer, and was still a block of ice when I pulled into the parking lot was now all water. It had been in the golf cart for 10 minutes.

On The Tee From Huntington Woods, MI

Is what nobody said as I looked down the first fairway. And for good reason. There were no other ass hats out there golfing. The course was basically to ourselves. I wonder why?

My tee shot on the first hole was a harbinger for how the round was to go. As I made my down swing I could feel my hand start to slip off the grip resulting in me slicing way right and almost losing the club on the follow through. Ridiculous.

Spessard Holland Melbourne Florida 1st Hole
1st Hole

Thankfully I brought my golf glove which helped a little but I really needed two. And by the end of the 4th hole the glove was soaked. I needed a backup which I did not have.

Spessard Holland Melbourne Florida 3rd Hole
3rd Hole

By the 7th hole I had to ditch the golf glove as my hand was swimming in it. Thankfully the rental clubs came with a towel on the bag which I had to use before every shot. Again, ridiculous.

I squeezed the club so fricking hard on every shot after that. Outside of obvious reasons I really didn’t want to see a 6 iron fly from my hands and into one of those gator infested ponds (I didn’t see a gator. But its the gator you don’t see that gets you) and then have to pay for it.

Making The Turn

We went inside to take a quick break from the heat and for me to fill up on some water. As I stood in the pro shops air conditioning I started to think things like:

  • “Don’t go back out there Brad.”
  • “What are the signs of heat stroke?”
  • “Its just golf you big dummy.”

Up to this point in my life I’ve played golf in 38 degrees weather where there is a dusting of snow on the fairways and greens (that happens in Michigan), the occasional passing thunderstorm, rain and 44 degrees, and temps so frigid that you have to wear Under Armour and bring your own portable golf cart cover to block the wind.

I didn’t quit during those rounds so I’m sure as hell not quitting now.

So I filled up my 2 liter with water and headed out to the 10th tee. That’s right, I drank an entire 2 liter of water on the front nine.

Sunkist 2 Liter Water Florida

As I sat there waiting for Chris to come out of the clubhouse I see he bought a Coke. What a fucking savage. I’m dying over here and he buys something that will dehydrate you even more. You haven’t been living in Florida that long broseph.

New Rules

After he jumps in the cart and I explain to him he is a savage for buying the Coke I tell him the goal for the back nine is to not die.

To do that there will be no practice swings and no club changes. Thought the pitching wedge was the club for the shot but realized you needed a hybrid to punch it out? Too bad. No going back to the cart. You use the fucking pitching wedge.

Spessard Holland Melbourne Florida 13th Hole
13th Hole

This worked so well as we cruised through holes. It helped that no one was on the course either. And when we caught up to a threesome which included a Father and his seven year old son with another guy I politely asked them if we could play through because I was dying from the heat. They laughed and let us through.

Spessard Holland Melbourne Florida 14th Hole
14th Hole

Drama On 18

Of course we would catch up to a foursome on the last hole whom was moving very slow. And to make matters worse it was a drivable 258 yard Par 4.

These people were in the fairway some 100 yards out from the green when we rolled up to the tee box. Six minutes went by before they were all on the green.

I’m standing on the tee box thinking I could possibly hit them on the green. Since the fairway went to the left and back to the green it made the hole shorter if you went as the crow flies. I’m guessing to clear the front bunker and hit the green you’d have to carry the tee shot 240 yards. Which is doable for me.

So I waited. Dripping in sweat. I haven’t had a good drive all day with these rental clubs but I don’t want to chance it, connect on one, and hit these people. Chris decided to tee off and hit a palm tree 200 yards down the fairway.

These people are still on the green. I couldn’t take it any longer.

SENDING DRIVER!!!!!

Of course I’d save my best drive for the last hole. I caught it perfectly and as I turned through my follow through I saw it heading right for the green. Oh Shit!!

Chris is saying “You might him them” and I’m all like “No shit.”

As the golf ball is making its descent from the clouds it disappears from sight. Chris and I look at each other like what happened.

No one on the green turned to look back at us while extending their middle fingers.

It can only be assumed I did not hit anyone but none of them even flinched as the golf ball must have landed somewhere near by.

As we drove up to Chris’s ball they finally left the green. We could not see my ball yet. He played his shot near the green and we drove up.

There was my ball in the bunker. With a line in the sand from it falling back into the bunker. I cleared the bunker by 2 feet but it hit the downslope on the grass, hopped straight up, hit the slope again, and rolled back into the bunker. Six more inches and its on the green.

I still don’t know how they didn’t flinch as it landed no more than ten feet from where they were standing. It must have made a sound.

Anyways, your boy got up and down for par.

Après Golf

Turned my clubs in. Confirmed dinner plans with Chris and our families for later on and darted to my rental car. Made it back to our rental house before the A/C really even kicked in. I was so glad to be back at the house.

A full body detox is the best way to describe what happened out there. And all of it stuck to my shirt and shorts. In all of my years on Earth I cannot remember a time where my clothes stank like that. It was gross.

I filled up my 2 liter for the 3rd time and sat on the couch for two hours. Thats how long it took me to get back to feeling like a human being again. I was so over-heated and drained.

Good thing Spessard Holland was a short course. Any longer and I think I would have stopped at the turn. It’s too bad because I liked the course. It’s a really good practice course.

Par was 67 and there was only one Par 5. Par 4’s are just long enough where you can hit driver but it also forces you to hit a lot of irons and wedges. Which is where the better players distance themselves. There was water on 10 holes with thick vegetation off the fairway. And with it being short you could probably play in less than 4 hours even when its busy.

I shot an 88 with 5 penalty strokes. Seeing how I felt like death the entire round, played with recycled ProV1’s, rental clubs, and dealt with my hand slipping on every shot I’d say I played ok. Chris shot a 99.

Spessard Holland Golf Course Scorecard Melbourne Florida

Never Again

Two weeks prior to me posting this we went to Florida without our kids to see Chris and his family again. October in Florida is way better than July. I brought some golf balls and two golf gloves on the trip with the thought of tackling Spessard Holland when its not death outside. But I didn’t make it out there. Actually enjoyed the beach and did other Florida type things like an air boat ride.

I don’t know how people live in Florida in the summer months. Give me the gray Michigan winters over the heat anytime. At 38 years old I now hate Michigan winters. That’s how bad the sun, heat, and humidity made me feel down there.

I will tell you this.

I will never visit Florida in July ever again. If you see me there it’s because I was forced by gun point.

My Blog And Hosting Account Were Hacked

October 19, 2018 - Updated October 19, 2018

Beep bop boop lets go log into GMail and check out some emails.

New Owner for BradGibala.com?

Who is this other Brad Gibala who would take ownership of BradGibala.com? I thought I was the only one.

Hmm. That person’s name is not Brad Gibala. It’s xjbbgvql. What kind of name is that?

What’s this other email from my hosting provider saying they detect malware on my site?

Dammit. I’ve been hacked!

What are the up to 250 visitors a day who visit BradGibala.com going to do with their lives?

A Long Time Coming

I’ve been building websites and blogging for over a decade and not once to my knowledge has a website been hacked. And this is with 20+ blogs running at one time during my peak years.

To think this hasn’t happened already is something. Especially since I haven’t done that much extra security. Same password on most of my sites for 5+ years and WordPress automatically updates when a new version comes out.

Assessing The Damage

Whoever did the hacking went right to work. And it wasn’t just this blog they attacked. It was my entire hosting account which had malware injected into it.

Over 3,000,000 new pages were created on this site alone. Amazing!!

Sample Hacked WordPress Japanese Keyword Pages
3 Million Of These Stupid URLS Were Created

It was so many new pages that my hosting provider shut me down as I went over my allowable usage for the month on October 3rd. I’ve never been close to reaching half of that in a typical month.

It was not visible to the naked eye but when I searched for my blog on Google it was picking up some Japanese on my home page and hacked pages. Instead of being Brad Gibala who likes golf and fitness I was now a KS-06 Engineer who sold 20 Piece Maintenance Tool Kits from Fujisawa, Japan.

You know, the kits look quite handy.

How It Went Down

Everything points toward the hacker accessing my hosting account through an old theme on a niche website I have not updated in years. WordPress was updated but the theme had not been brought up to new WordPress theme standards.

I never touched the theme because I had spent a lot of time getting it to look that way years ago and it worked for quite a while bringing in affiliate sales.

I am not sure exactly if this was how but my hosting provider told me there were malware files on that one site to start with and it spread from there eventually accessing the main website on my hosting plan which is BradGibala.com.

All of the other websites were considered sub-domains on my hosting account which means they share the bandwidth, etc.

Where To Start?

Thankfully my hosting provider was a big help. I’ve been using SiteGround for a couple of years after moving from HostGator and the customer service they provide is fantastic. Tickets are replied to in less than an hour and in most cases there is someone there to chat with immediately with a solution to a problem. They told me which files were malware and to delete them.

But that was not good enough in the eyes of Google.

Turns out the Googlebot was picking up Japanese hacked content that SiteGround could not. Google calls it the “Japanese keyword hack”.

First thing I had to do was delete “xjbbgvql” as an owner. Bye Bye Son’ ah Bitch.

From there I had to delete the 5 sitemaps they uploaded to my Google Webmasters account. I don’t believe they were able to access my Google Accounts.

How they verified ownership was by creating a fake Google Webmasters account, getting the HTML code, inserting the file into my blogs header, and verifying it in the fake Google Webmaster account.

Since they verified their ownership they could upload sitemaps with millions of pages each with thousands of links on each page. The internal links these pages created was equally impressive. I like my home page and all but not 79k times.

Internal Links After Japanese Keyword Hack

All of those pages and folders were deleted. But man that’s some serious Blackhat SEO sort of shit all in the name of trying to game Google.

Wasn’t Enough

I thought I did everything possible to get rid of the spam from my hosting account but Google denied my request to allow your good friend Brad Gibala back into their search results. They put me in timeout while I fixed things.

It wasn’t until I followed the steps in Google’s video describing how to deal with the damage from spam did I start making some headway. It was a big help. First thing I needed to do was “Fetch As Google” to see what the homepage code looked like.

Hacked WordPress Header Fetch As Google
Still a KS-06 Engineer

In the video they talk about cloaking and to look in the header files. SiteGround ran my site through Sucuri and they could not detect any bad files.

But when I searched for what the index.php and wp-blog-header.php files were supposed to look like and compare it to what I was seeing in the File Manager inside my hosting account is when I saw something fishy. The two were not the same.

Hacked Index.php WordPress File
That long string of numbers at the top is some bull shit.

And when you switch to the editor in the index.php file it looks like this.

Hacked Code WordPress Index.php File
Many many more amounts of bull shit.

Wp-blog-header.php had the same shit in it. I confirmed with SiteGround and they replaced the files while I was on chat with them.

After replacing those two files, then “Fetching As Google” in Webmasters, I could now see the Japanese content was gone.

I sent the reconsideration request to Google to have your boy back in search results. The next day I was.

Aftermath

“You’re either winning or learning” is an inspirational message I read on a coffee cup one time. And this is one of those situations where I was learning.

It’s been awhile since I played around in cPanel or used phpMyAdmin to snoop around in databases. Neither of which I find to be fun but its something you should at least be familiar with when running a blog.

The hack happened at an interesting time as GoDaddy was sending me emails saying a bunch of domains were about to auto renew. In those domains was the one that was hacked.

Looking through the databases and files for the niche sites I haven’t touched in years for malware or bad files struck a nerve with me.

Why am I keeping these websites?

Most of the domains were “exact match domains” for keywords or phrases that used to bring in some traffic back in the day. But not anymore.

We’re talking about ten websites that made $100 to $1000 a year through affiliate sales or ad clicks. But that too doesn’t happen anymore. Many haven’t made a dollar in years.

And I have no interest in updating them or paying someone to do so. Basically, they are dead.

So instead of going through all those databases and files anymore I checked the delete box next to the folder holding all the content in those sites and clicked yes when it said do you want to “Delete All”.

Many of these sites had 10 to 50 posts so we’re not talking about a lot of content. But this action kind of continued on with what I did last year in consolidating a couple of blogs I had been running into this one. Cleaning up more of the internet if you will.

What It Accomplished

I now have 10 less blogs that are doing nothing for me to manage or worry about getting hacked. It also saved me over $130 a year in domain renewal fees. None of which were worth anything anymore.

I’m still extremely butt hurt about all of this because SiteGround recommended me downloading AntiVirus software to my computers and seeing if they were infected. I have an iMac and MacBook Pro so of course I’ve never used those before. Because, you know, those sorts of things like never happen to Apple products and stuff.

I followed the steps in this video recommending which programs to use on Macs to remove Malware, Viruses, and more in 2018.

After spending many hours downloading and running through millions of files between both computers it found one bad file between them. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!

Sequence Of Events

From the moment I received the new owner email to sending my second re-index request was two and half weeks. We went on a five-day trip to Florida to see Andrea’s brother and his family which added time due to me not opening my laptop once.

Google Webmasters Hacked Emails

I did not think it was a big deal after cleaning everything before we left but as I said above I missed a lot. Google sent me other emails alerting me to an increase in 404 pages and the hacked content. Thanks BIG G.

Stats

Check out some of the behind the scenes numbers before, during, and after the hack.

Blog Traffic Before And After Hack
Let’s see what happens with the other guys brake pads.
Blog Pages Crawled Before And After Hack
If I reach 750k real blog posts feel free to tell me to shutup.

Let’s Get Back To Blogging

Just let me check everything again. Head on over to Google. Type in Brad Gibala and let’s see what pops up since even though everything looked good two days ago I want to see how the blog is being re-indexed.

Still Hacked
FUCKING FUCK. FUCKETY FUCK. FUCK.

Yup, I’m a KS-06 Engineer again.

What the fuck is going on here. I thought this shit was clean. Back to SiteGround I go telling them I got hacked again. And back to them telling me everything looks good on their side…but its not.

I head back to the same files that were hacked and sure enough that code is back. So I delete and replace again. Mind you that I’ve deleted entire blogs from my shared hosting account and changed every password possible.

And I head to Google to search for anything that can help my WordPress blog from getting hacked. After doing a little bit of digging I find Wordfence.

With 2+ Million downloads and basically a 5 Star rating I install it and see what the free version can do.

Hopefully Secure

Wordfence found 7 additional files with malware or spam injected into my site that SiteGround did not detect. It also told me I should probably delete a couple of plugins that haven’t been updated in years even though they still work.

Appears there were even some old core files from previous versions of WordPress that were left behind and malware was injected into those. All sorts of fun!!

I logged back into Google Webmasters and “Fetched As Google” again. I am not a KS-06 Engineer.

Lets Hope So

I would like to tell the Earth that I have retired from being a KS-06 Engineer and have no intentions of ever being one again.

If I shall ever become one again I will do my best to burn down the internet.

Daily Fantasy Golf Experiment: I Lost Money

October 1, 2018 - Updated October 3, 2018

Daily Fantasy Golf Experiment
I once hit a golf ball from right here.

When I heard daily fantasy golf was a thing I wanted in. What could be more exciting than watching golf besides now having a reason to watch golf.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been playing daily fantasy golf since 2016 and I don’t know if its something I should be doing. I win sometimes (nothing big) and lose more of the times. The “its fun” justification might be costing me a fair amount of money which is not fun.

So this is what I am doing for the 2018 PGA Tour golf season. I am going to submit one entry each week on DraftKings and FanDuel to one of their featured tournaments under $10 and post the results here.

If I make more money (even $1 more) than my entry fees at the end of the 2018 PGA Tour season (Starting in Jan 2018 to the 2018 Tour Championship) than I will play in 2019. If I do not than I will quit playing daily fantasy golf every week. I will allow myself to play in the four Majors plus the Players Championship. But that’s it.

I will play my “Bro Bros” strategy on DraftKings and “Course Horses” strategy on FanDuel and keep track of them in reverse chronological order with the most recent tournament at top.

**Oct 1 Update** – 2018 PGA Tour Season is officially over. Check out my results and thoughts below. Everything above is from my original post in Jan 2018.

2018 Tournament FanDuel DraftKings Fees Won
TOUR 2018 Tour Championship FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 Tour Championship DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $21 $0
BMW 2018 BMW Championship FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 BMW Championship DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $17 $9
Dell 2018 Dell Technoligies FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 Dell Technologies DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $17 $0
Northern Trust 2018 Northern Trust FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 Northern Trust DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $25.54 $10
Wyndham 2018 Wyndham Championship FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 Wyndham Championship DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $25.54 $0
PGA 2018 PGA Championship FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 PGA Championship DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $105 $80
Bridgestone 2018 WGC Bridgestone Invitational FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 WGC Bridgestone Invitational DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $25.54 $0
RBC Open 2018 RBC Canadian Open FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 RBC Canadian Open DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $25.54 $0
The Open 2018 The Open FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 The Open DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $105 $0
John Deere 2018 John Deere Classic FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 John Deere Classic DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $25.54 $0
Greenbrier $25.54 $0
Quicken Loans 2018 Quicken Loans National FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 Quicken Loans National DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $25.54 $0
Travelers 2018 Travelers Championship FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 Travelers Championship DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $25.54 $0
US Open 2018 US Open FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 US Open DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $96 $130
St. Jude 2018 FedEx St Jude FanDuel Fantasy Golf Results 2018 FedEx St. Jude DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $11 $0
Memorial $53 $0
Fort Worth 2018 Fort Worth Invitational FanDuel Golf Fantasy Results 2018 Fort Worth Invitational DraftKings Fantasy Golf Results $11.77 $23.57
Byron Nelson $11.77 $7
Players $14 $0
Wells Fargo $13 $6
Valero $10 $0
RBC Heritage $12 $0
The Masters $78 $118
Houston $9.55 $0

 

 

Corales Puntacana WGC Dell Match Play $9.44 $0
API $9.55 $0
Valspar $13.55 $0
WGC Mexico $9.55 $10
Honda $9.55 $0
Genesis $9.55 $0
Pebble Beach 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am FanDuel Fantasy Golf 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am DraftKings Fantasy Golf $8.44 $0
WM Phoenix 2018 Waste Management Phoenix Open Fanduel Weekend Fantasy Golf 2018 Waste Management Phoenix Open DraftKings Weekend Fantasy Golf $4 $0
Farmers 2018 Farmers Insurance Open Fanduel Fantasy Golf 2018 Farmers Insurance Open DraftKings Fantasy Golf $8 $0
CareerBuilder 2018 CarrerBuilder Challenge FanDuel Fantasy Golf 2018 CareerBuilder Challenge DraftKings Fantasy Golf $7 $5
Sony Open 2018 Sony Open FanDuel Fantasy Golf 2018 Sony Open DraftKings Fantasy Golf $7  $6
Sentry 2018 Sentry Tournament Of Champions Fanduel Fantasy Golf 2018 Sentry Tournament Champions DraftKings Fantasy Golf $11 $0
Totals $896.04 $404.57

** Waste Management Phoenix Open started when I was on vacation in Cancun, Mexico where DraftKings and FanDuel are blocked. I was able to submit two weekend contests on DraftKings as I returned home on Friday.**

Results: $896.04 entry fees – $404.57 in winnings = $491.47 lost

Wow! I suck at playing daily fantasy golf.

Let’s side step the money that I lost and look at the amount of times I cashed in. Out of 107 entries I cashed in 16 times. Thats a winning percentage of 15%. No bueno.

Looking into it further I cashed in just 4 times at FanDuel with 12 wins at DraftKings. For some reason it was harder to win at FanDuel versus DraftKings. And that doesn’t count the number of times I finished a few points out of the money on DraftKings.

My Plan Went Bye Bye

For the most part I stuck to my plan of playing my “Bro Bros” on DraftKings and “Course Horses” on FanDuel. It wasn’t until the last month that I abandoned the “Course Horses” and went with the free lineup tool on RotoGrinders.

I still didn’t win with the tool but the Course Horses wasn’t working and I got tired of looking up all the stats. Figured the tool took all the stats and previous results into play anyways so why not.

And I started to submit more than one entry halfway through. Kind of got bored watching one entry.

Got Screwed Just Once

Out of all the lineups I submitted I had only one player withdraw during a tournament or prior to his tee time. And that was Louis Oosthuizen at the PGA Championship which “tee’d me off”.

I checked his status an hour before lineups were to lock and there was nothing saying he was “questionable” so I kept him in. At 2:00 pm he decides to withdraw from the tournament for a back injury that was not in his report.

Why this sucks is DraftKings has a rule where lineups lock when the first player tees off at 7:20 am. I could not replace him. Not even with any of the 40 or so guys who had not teed off yet. He was in one of the last groups to tee off so my choices would have been limited.

I contacted customer service at DraftKings and explained to them what happened. Let’s just say they said “sorry about your $20 entry” over three email exchanges. And they would not refund me because I had this happen a year prior and used my one time refund. Basically, I should have known Louis was going to withdraw.

The entry did not come close to cashing but it would have been nice to replace him with whomever I could have with the salary remaining that had not teed off.

Almost Cashed In

There was really only one tournament where I had a chance to win a big prize and that was at the U.S. Open.

After the 3rd Round I had an entry on DraftKings sitting in 35th Place out of 186,746 entries. On FanDuel I had an entry sitting at 15th Place out of 54,419 entries.

All I remember seeing is me being up collectively $3500 before heading to bed.

The difference between 1st and 35th is placing. “If my guys shoot par tomorrow I have a chance” is what I was thinking.

Turns out I would have been right.

Sadly, only 2 of 6 shot par or better on both entries the last day which pushed me back to 2392nd place on DraftKings winning $80 and to 212th place on FanDuel cashing in $50.

It definitely made watching the last day of the U.S Open way more entertaining.

Strategy

You can spend all day researching strategies on how to win at daily fantasy golf. And I’ve tried a number of them with help from the PGA Tour stats.

  • Average Salary – Draft guys around the average salary mark.
  • Studs & Duds – Draft top two or three guys (studs) and then whomever (duds).
  • Highest Points – Draft by points starting at top then with remaining salary.
  • Bombs Away – An entire team of long hitters.
  • Greens In Regulation – A team determined by the best GIR players.
  • Best Putters – A team of the best putters.
  • Birdie Makers – A team of guys who lead the PGA Tour in birdies made.
  • Country – A team of guys all from the same country.
  • Bombers & Putters – A combo of long hitters and the best putters.
  • Bro Bros – Draft 8 bros who are good enough to win every week and that you don’t mind watching. And then have other bros on your bench to plug-in when your starters are not all playing in the tournament or because of salary cap reasons.
  • Course Horses – Guys who play well on particular courses. Check the tournaments past results and see what guys finished in the top twenty-five the past two years. If you see their name twice then pick them.

Before starting my experiment I tried all of them but none worked. Yes, I have finished in the money a few times but it did not give me an advantage. Why?

Daily fantasy golf is different from other daily fantasy sports in that its the only sport that gives points for where you finish. And it’s because golfers play in tournaments, not games.

There are no matchup advantages. And most golfers don’t get injured during play.

Yes, some golfers withdraw because they put up an 80 in the first round leaving them no chance at making the cut. From time to time a golfer might withdraw during a round because of an injury. But those are rare. Its happened to me three times.

Typically a golfer will withdraw before the tournament or disclose an injury giving you time to pick someone else. Golfers do that sort of thing because golf is a gentlemen’s game.

To win one of the big tournaments you need all of your guys to make the cut. Another reason why daily fantasy golf is awesome. Its like real golf. You suck, you’re out!

Pick 2018 Bro Bros Why?
Starters
1. Rickie Fowler He looks like he likes to party. I like to party. And he’s sponsored by Quicken Loans where a lot of cool people I know work at.
2. Dustin Johnson Sending Driver!
3. Brian Harman Reminds me of my brother. A short-ish lefty.
4. Patrick Reed Very good player who also appears to have a dick side of him. And every team needs a dick.
5. Phil Mickelson Reminds me of my Dad. A tall lefty. Similarities end there. Phil can still play.
6. Brooks Koepka Every team needs a do it all versatile athlete.
7. Kevin Kisner A gamer. Always seems like he has something to prove.
8. Tony Finau Every team needs a big man.
Bench
1. Jonathan Vegas Viva Las Vegas!
2. Gary Woodland Always seems to be lurking while tattooing the ball.
3. Jason Dufner He’d be that guy on the softball team batting .800 with every hit being a single. And after reaching 1st base he asks for a runner. There’s always space on the roster for an .800 hitter.
4. Jason Kokrak Touch the sky Phil Coke. I mean Kokrak.
5. Steve Stricker The adult. Been there done that. Gives zero fucks about your 350 yard drive.
6. Brian Stuard Is from Michigan. Went to Oakland University. Close enough to home.
7. Ryan Brehm From Mt. Pleasant, MI where my alma mater Central Michigan is. I don’t care that he went to Michigan State.
8. Adam Hadwin Since I live 30 minutes from Canada I figured why the hell not.
9. Kiradech Aphibarnrat The John Daly of Thailand.
10. Tiger Woods Because Tiger Woods.

It’s quite an honor to be selected to the 2018 Bro Bros. Even if you’re riding the bench. On to greatness!

*After 7 tournaments I added one more bench player. Was running into issues where there were not enough guys playing where I could even submit a lineup.

*After 11 tournaments I added another bench player. Mostly because I can.

Scoring

In most golf tournaments the difference between 1st place and 20th place is typically ten strokes. That’s two and a half strokes a day over four days. These guys are good. They all make birdies and eagles. It’s just who can consistently do it better over four days.

All five or six of your guys have to finish in the top 20 to get the points for where they finished. That’s where the difference is in finishing in the money with daily fantasy golf. To show how important this is take a look at the DraftKings daily fantasy golf scoring works.

DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Scoring
DraftKings Golf Scoring

 

Look at the difference between 1st Place (30 Points) and 20th Place (5 Points). All because of ten strokes over four days of golf. FanDuel golf scoring is basically the same. You need to pick winners.

We all want to pick that long shot to win like in horse racing but it rarely happens with golf. When I check the top ten entries on DraftKings and FanDuel at the end of the tournament I rarely see golfers names I do not know.

Almost all of the golfers picked were owned by 10% or more of all entires. And in those entries there were golfers owned by 20% or more of all entries. What this means is there really aren’t any “sleepers” with daily fantasy golf.

FanDuel vs DraftKings

I don’t feel one is better than the other and it’s because each site now runs their contests the same. Prior to 2018, FanDuel had you draft 8 guys but now they are like DraftKings which allows 6 guys.

DraftKings has more contests with larger cash prizes than FanDuel. DraftKings also has contests for the European Tour which I have entered twice but not again as that’s too many players to get to know.

I don’t prefer one to the other but after finishing my experiment I found to have better odds at DraftKings.

Which Contest?

I prefer to play the tournaments. Theres something about the chance of winning a huge cash prize for $3. If you finish in the top 30% you should at least get your money back.

If you want to have a better chance of making money than play 50/50s or Double Ups. Basically, you enter with $10 and finish in the top 50% than you win $20.

These are not fun to me. What would suck is if you finish in first in one of those. If you entered with $10 and finished in first in a tournament you’d probably win $100,000.

Satellites and Qualifiers seem interesting but as I understand them you play these at a discounted price to win a ticket to one of the larger tournaments. The way I see it is if you have money than why not just enter the larger tournaments?

Refer A Friend

DraftKings – Create an account through my link, deposit more than $5, and get a 25% of the deposit back in DK Dollars which can be used on DraftKings to enter contests.

FanDuel – Create a new account through my link, play $20, and get $10 to play on FanDuel.

Summary

I’m kind of glad this experiment is over. It became kind of a drag as it went on.

My best guess is because I knew I was losing. And while losing $491 isn’t a devastating financial blow to me I could have spent it some where else. Like on actual golf. That’s about 15 rounds at the course I play every week. Which is a lot of golf.

And I hated it when my guys didn’t make the Friday cut. It kind of ruined watching golf on Sunday when the kids would take a nap.

I also hated it when all 6 of my guys would make the cut and I did not cash in.

Only eight entries on FanDuel had it where all six made the cut. Sadly, only three of those times did my entry make money. The other win had five make the cut with players winning the tournament and finishing in the top ten.

What’s odd with DraftKings is of the nine entries that had all six make the cut they all won money. And two entries made money with five players making the cut.

Just like in real golf I am a better feel player versus a stats or technical player. At some point the game is fairways and greens. Everything else is everything else.

And the results of my experiment say I’m better at picking players then a strategy based on stats or an algorithm is. Or at least an algorithm I know how to use.

Maybe the weekend tournaments where you choose from players who did make the cut but there are no points for placing would be better.

In the end, I should not be playing daily fantasy golf every week. The results say I’m not that good at it.

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