The Daily Spin – Arnold Palmer Invitational

RECAP

Anytime I walk away a winner at the Honda Classic, I will take it. It is usually a sign that we are really on and I am feeling fantastic about how the year has started in 2022. It feels like our DFS picks and outright betting plays have been really strong so far and we keep seeing FGI logos up near the top of a lot of contests and not just from people who buy in for big dollars every week either. Our own Stat Boy was near the top of the board in the $555 last Sunday and seemed to have a stranglehold on it until Daniel Berger inexplicably collapsed and threw away a six shot lead over the last 19 holes. In any event, it was a profitable week overall for most of us. I had Sepp Straka in about 10% of my lineups in GPP, but unfortunately was not able to pull together a 6/6 lineup as names like Sungjae Im and Tommy Fleetwood choked on Friday to miss the cut as players that were priced up near the top last week. Nothing is more frustrating than when you find the diamond in rough like Straka on the week when he hits big only to have some of the names you thought were locks go ahead and miss the damn cut. Fortunately, my cash game team came through with relative ease and I hit a couple of Top-10 bets on Adam Svensson and Same Ryder so I walked away feeling good and more energized for the rest of the Florida swing as my player pool came together really well this week.

I thought there might be some big things in store for my team in single entry contests for the week after a strong start on Thursday, but Tommy Fleetwood completely melted down on Friday afternoon to blow the cut. He started off so well on Thursday and looked like he might be a contender, but then did nothing on Friday, making only one birdie on the 18th hole to miss the cut by a single shot. It has been a couple of tough years on the PGA Tour for Tommy so perhaps seeing his recent results on the Euro Tour and his history at PGA National swayed me too much considering his overall game the last two seasons. Sometimes we do crazy things in thin fields and looking back, it seems like Tommy should have been an easier fade for me at that elevated price.

Billy Horschel was a lock button play for me in cash last week along with about half of the field. He’s played great off the tee and with his putter and now he’s starting to put it together with his irons. He struggled on Friday and just hung on to make the cut, but battled over the weekend and crawled back up to 16th for his fourth Top-25 in five starts this year. He’s building off of a strong 2021 campaign and he’s back in Florida where he typically plays his best golf so this could be another big year for Billy.

After spending up for two players, the rest of my roster was filled with golfers in the value range below $7k where we had some nice options to work with. Denny McCarthy continues to play well this season. Two seasons ago, things were looking promising, but 2021 was a little bit of a step back for Denny. However, he finished the fall portion of the season playing well and has kept it going through the first two months of the year. Though the tee to green game was not very good, his putter carried him, which is fine. Denny is a Bermuda specialist so as long as the part of his game shines that we are looking to for results, I will take it. He finished 30th for the tournament.

KH Lee seems like the new CBEZ this year after posting another made cut, but finishing 48th. He’s made the cut in all six of his starts in 2022, but finished no higher than 26th. The irons are not there for Lee at all right now which is definitely capping his potential for more upside, especially at events like Honda, but he is still making the cut every week which is a big improvement from previous seasons when he tended to run hot and cold making him too tough to project as a usable playing for DFS purposes.

I hate to say it, but for whatever reason, I always seem to come back to Chris Kirk. He’s a talented player that has made me money in his best years and it seems like these last couple of seasons we are starting to see the old Kirk again after getting his life together. He’s a player that can miss the cut even when everything is seemingly lined up perfectly so I always hold my breath when I roster him, but last week, he was in ‘good Kirk’ mode the first two rounds so he helped to carry my team even though he fell back over the weekend as expected. This is the time of year you want to use him so hopefully he can continue to run hot after his 7th place finish.

Finally, Lucas Glover rounded out my roster. I had thoughts of getting a little more adventurous with Sam Ryder or Adam Svensson, but could not pull the trigger as I just wanted a player with more experience to get to the weekend and get home without a problem. Usually, you can count on Glover to do that at PGA National where his accuracy off the tee and precision iron play help to steer him around the many problem areas throughout the course. He performed as projected, finishing 30th for the week. Like McCarthy, the parts of his game that we expected to be strong looked great as he was fine off the tee and on approach. If he could have added anything at all with his short game, he could have easily had a Top-10 finish. Fortunately, I did not need a big finish. Even though only one of my four value players outperformed their salary, a good, solid 5/6 team was never in danger on Sunday and cruised to an easy win. Now we are off to two of my favorite events of the season with the API this week and The Players Championship next week.

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