Fantasy Golf Tournament Preview- The Players Championship
OVERVIEW
The PGA Tour’s “5th Major” is upon us this week as we head back to Florida for another Pete Dye Experience. This event has been won by all walks of life, but primarily strong ball strikers with hot putters for the one week. Some players continue to flash their putting here every few years (SERGIO). The course features some nasty Bermuda grass rough, small Bermuda grass greens and a ton of hazards – especially water. The course is considered a less than driver course, so targeting all types of players this week is the way I’d approach roster construction. The corollary courses are listed below so I won’t go into those as they’re all Pete Dye courses that don’t exceed 7,200 yards and feature Bermuda grass greens.
The in-depth look at previous winners last week didn’t produce any improved results for me last week, but as expected the cream rose to the top when it was all said and done on Sunday. As I touched on above, in the past 18 years the winner of this event has been or became a major winner ten times. Most of those players have won a PGA Championship at least once in their career as well. Probably because it’s the weirdest type of major and played on courses where one skill set isn’t going to set a group of players apart from each other. When making lineups this week I’d collect my player pool from various areas – Less than Driver, Pete Dye Specialist, Ball Striker, Strong Bermuda putter and use a process of elimination to get to my desired number of golfers for whatever contests you’re playing. The field is really strong, and you could make a case for almost 100 players in this field so you’re going to have to make some tough choices and take stands on players you might not normally play.
TOURNAMENT BACKGROUND
o The Course
• TPC Sawgrass
• Par 72
• 7,1800 yards
• Bermuda greens
o Location: Ponte Vedra, FL
o Corollary Courses: Harbourtown, Whistling Straits, PGA West La quinta,
o Past Champions:
• 2017: Si Woo Kim -10 over Louis Oosthuizen & Ian Poulter
• 2016: Jason Day -15 over Kevin Chappell
• 2015: Rickie Fowler -12 in a playoff over Sergio Garcia & Kevin Kisner
• 2014: Martin Kaymer -13 over Jim Furyk
• 2013: Tiger Woods -13 over David Lingmerth, Jeff Maggert & Kevin Streelman
o Past champion form leading in: I’m listing this to see if we can spot any kind of specific form to target this week. Si Woo appears to be the clear anomaly.
• Si Woo Kim: DNP – DNP – 22nd – DNP – MC – WD
• Jason Day: 5th – DNP – DNP – 23rd – 10th – WIN
• Rickie Fowler: 16th – MC – DNP – 12th – 71st – DNP
• Martin Kaymer: 18th – DNP – 23rd – 31st – MC – DNP
• Tiger Woods: DNP – DNP – DNP – 4th – DNP – DNP
KEY STATS TO TARGET
o Strong Emphasis – SG: Ball Striking, Birdie or Better %, Par 5 Scoring
o Important – SG: Putting, Scrambling, P4 Scoring from 450-500 yards, APP 200+, APP 125-150
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