John Peterson

If you have been a member of Fantasy Golf Insider for a while you are aware of our affinity for Mr. John Peterson. Part of the reason we like him so much is that we were the first ones in the industry to be recommending him and since doing so, he has produced for us big time and made us and our members very profitable.  Another thing we like about Peterson is that he is very outspoken. He always seems to speak his mind and produces some hilarious tweets. One example took place several weeks ago when some fantasy golf fan gave him grief over Twitter for withdrawing from a tournament and obviously costing the guy some money in his contest. Peterson actually responded to the Tweet telling the person to pay attention, because he withdrew from the tournament on Monday, three days before tee-off. That is hilarious. If you are not following Peterson, we recommend you do so, because he is often worth some laughs.

One thing that is not a laughing matter is how Peterson has turned his game around this season. Last year Peterson missed eight cuts in 25 events played and only made three Top 25s. This year so far Peterson has made 15 cuts in 16 tournaments, including six Top 25s. An absolutely incredible turnaround and we have been there from the beginning of this great run.

Peterson was born in Fort Worth, Texas, home of this week’s tournament host Colonial Country Club. He played college golf at Louisiana State University where he was a three-time All-American and won twice, including the 2011 NCAA Division I Championship.  Peterson turned professional in 2011 and played in two Nationwide Tour (now Web.com) events and a number of PGA Tour events through sponsor exemptions.

Peterson qualified for the 2012 U.S. Open through sectional qualifying. In the third round, he was paired with his mentor and fellow LSU alum David Toms, and Peterson also got a hole in one at the par 3 13th hole. He finished the tournament tied for fourth, which earned him exemptions to the 2013 Masters and U.S. Open.

In 2013, Peterson became the first active Web.com Tour member to compete in the Masters where he took 60th. He also placed T67 at the U.S Open in 2013. His highest finish was a T8 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, no surprise since it was his old stomping grounds. He earned conditional Web.com Tour status for 2013 based on his 2012 PGA Tour non-member earnings ($327,091), which was equivalent to 172nd on the 2012 PGA Tour money list. He played in the Web.com Tour Finals and finished first to earn a fully exempt PGA Tour card for 2014. He finished seventh in the Web.com Tour Finals to earn his PGA Tour card for the 2014–15 season.

There were not too many highlights in 2014 for Peterson, but he had Top 20s at the Sony Open and FedEx St. Jude Classic.   This year has been a different story. Peterson currently ranks 22nd in driving accuracy, 45th in greens in regulation, 28th in Strokes Gained Tee-To-Green, and 48th in Total Strokes Gained. The only thing that our boy struggles with is putting, where he actually loses strokes to the field ranking 143rd, but we feel like he will continue to improve.

We really like Peterson’s chances this week in his hometown at The Crowne Plaza Invitational. He has been playing terrific golf including a T20 last week at the Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow. Before that he had a T48 at Zurich, T18 at RBC Heritage, T11 at Valero, and T35 at Arnold Palmer. He has played in the Crowne Plaza event once before in 2013 and he took 26th. We expect Peterson to produce another consistent Top 20 this week, but going forward our expectations are that those Top 20s turn into Top 10s and eventually wins in years to come. If you are interested in following John on Twitter his handle is @JohnPetersonLSU.