Fantasy Golf Tournament Preview-BMW PGA Championship (European Tour Package)

OVERVIEW

To hold myself accountable and keep track of how things are going on a week to week basis. This should help me get better at identifying key players as well as sharpening my eye when it comes to player pools. In the “Studs section” I suggested fading $11,600 Patrick Reed (15^th), playing $11,100 Pieters (10^th), taking an underweight approach on winner Sergio Garcia at $10,500, playing Matt Wallace at $10,700 instead (3^rd). Not a bad start if you didn’t listen to my underweight approach on Sergio and played him like you would any stud. In the values section I recommended $9,100 Sam Horsfield (49^th), Gavin Green at $9,000 (40^th), Ashley Chesters at $7,700 (15^th), and listed Lee Slattery (40^th), Jeff Winther (36^th) and Niklas Lemke (67^th). Not great, but everyone made the cut. The salary relief section included Hideto Tanihara (27^th), Lorenzo Gagli (MC), Brandon Stone (21^st), Ben Evans (MC), and Daniel Gavins (49^th) so while we did miss some cuts, we also had two players who were cheap and paid off greatly. In our core we had Joost Luiten and Mike Lorenzo-Vera and Matthew Southgate all finish (T10) so I’m happy about where I landed with the core. Unfortunately, if you used Luiten & MLV it was impossible to jam Sergio or Wallace in with them.  Overall, I’m happy with how the Euro picks have been as we’ve hit the winners the last two events, but I need to get better at providing you with ways to build around these players and that’s why I’m doing this reflection piece.

This week we head to the United Kingdom and the esteemed Wentworth Club for the BMW PGA Championship. There’s plenty of course history to go off of for most of the field and the event has been held here for long enough where finding players who fit the course should be easier than the last two weeks on unknown courses. Wentworth is a challenging tree-lined course with undulating terrain. The fairways are tight and require players to hit the ball from right to left AND left to right off the tee. Greens in regulation is a primary stat to target this week, so we’ll want to make sure our player pool primarily consists of strong iron players. The winds are tough to judge here (similar to Augusta for some) as they swirl, and the trees don’t do much to block it. Players who don’t hit the green in regulation will need to scramble well as there are plenty of bunkers and shaved surrounds to give them fits. Par is a good score here.

TOURNAMENT BACKGROUND

• The Course
• Wentworth Club
• Par: 72
• Yardage: 7,280 yards
• Greens: Bentgrass
• Location: Surrey, UK
• Past Champions:
• 2018: Francesco Molinari -17 over Rory McIlroy
• 2017: Alex Noren -11 over Francesco Molinari
• 2016: Chris Wood -9 over Rikard Karlberg
• 2015: Byeong Hun An -21 over Thongchai Jaidee & Miguel Angel Jimenez

 KEY STATS TO TARGET

• Strong Emphasis – SG: OTT + SG: APP, Par 5 scoring, Birdies or better, Scrambling
• Important – Par 4 Scoring, Greens in Regulation, Course history

 Sign up for an FGI account today to see the rest of this post.