The Daily Spin – AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (UPDATED)

RECAP

As I sit in my office recapping the tournament last week, I cannot help but to look at the lower right hand corner of my computer screen to see the temperature here in the Twin Cities of -1. The weather last week was absolutely perfect as a fan attending a golf tournament. The temperature reached about 60-65 degrees each day with the sun shining down brightly and a light amount of wind coming off the ocean to keep everyone cool while following their favorite group of players. More than once, I had to stop and look out at the ocean to appreciate just how beautiful the area is and what a perfect place it is for golf.

I spent three days out on the course between Wednesday and Friday and really enjoyed the tournament. The trip out to San Diego in January is always one of the highlights of the year for me. It comes at just the right time of the winter as it gives me a brief reprieve from the endless cold and snow up here and gives me a chance to connect with close friends and family and to really appreciate the time that we get to spend together. After being in the fantasy sports business for over seven years, it is important to take a moment here and there to reflect on some of the really special experiences that I have had in the time that I have been covering the PGA Tour. I have attended probably a dozen events over the years, connected with a lot of our subscribers and built some amazing friendships. Though there are weeks where this can be a bit of a grind as we pick through some weaker than average fields, ultimately, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities that I have every week and for the unique freedom that comes from running a business that I genuinely enjoy so much.

As for the results last week, it was very close to being a perfect success….so close. Typically, most of my efforts go towards my cash game lineup each week and building that one strong lineup to get me to another payday. However, when I go out to San Diego, I always like to throw in a high dollar, singles entry lineup into DK and FD to have a little extra on the line as I follow around my players on the course. It is also fun to wind up Stat Boy when looking at our competing lineups each night.

I used the same lineup for cash games and GPP contests on DK. The big decision again came down to whether or not I wanted to pay all the way up to get Jon Rahm. After going that route at the AMEX and not liking the look of my team (or the result), I opted to take a little more risk at the Farmers and decided to deploy the extra savings to other parts of my roster. I probably should have just played Rahm at Torrey and dealt with the salary cap repercussions. He’s so reliable there every single year and the other top names can be very hit or miss. I used Xander Schauffele as my top player and while he was not terrible, he was nowhere near Rahm and he’s been up and down at best at Torrey Pines so the extra $1,100 of savings was not likely to be that helpful overall in my build. Xander finished T34 for 76.5 DK points while Rahm posted a T3 for 111.5 points, a 35 point difference. Fortunately, I got a little lucky with one particular play last week on DK and FD that helped to spark my squad. Fortunately, over on FanDuel, where pricing is always softer, I was easily able to use Rahm in my lineup without feeling like I needed to sacrifice at other spots so I received the full benefit of his stellar play over there.

Luke List looked like a strong play going into the tournament as he’s carried over strong play from the fall into the winter and with his off the tee and iron play, a longer course like Torrey Pines is a nice fit for him, especially since putting is tougher there for all players which means those 3-4 footers that Luke will miss do not hurt quite as much as usual, though on the back nine on Sunday, it sure did look like two short misses had ended his hopes. But Luke fought really hard throughout that final round and a -6 in the 4th round at the Farmers is commendable under any circumstances. Even in the playoff, there was a chance for him to fail after a mishit tee shot, but after laying up out of the bunker, he hit his third shot to a foot of the pin and Zalatoris again missed a makeable putt to seal the win. I love when players like List finally get over the hump for a win. The emotions are so raw and seeing his wife and two young kids there to share in the moment was really special. Casual fans at home that only tune in a couple of times a year do not realize how important a win like that is to List’s career and the type of security it brings to him over the next few years as well as the opportunities it unlocks.

Here is a quick look at where List has finished on tour over the years and just how close he’s been to falling back to the lower tour. In 2013, his rookie year on tour, he finished 166th and went back down to the lower tour. He returned in 2015/2016 and just barely made the playoffs, finishing 122nd. The following two seasons were a relative success and he recorded finishes of 50th and 45th. However, the next three were really tight with finishes of 92nd, 119th and 102nd. This win buys him three years and gets him into several marquee events this season as well as the TOC in Hawaii next January. This season will almost certainly be his biggest money maker as well. At age 37, he was reaching the point on tour where a bad year or two may have ended his career so this helps to ease some of that pressure and will allow him to focus on his game and not the playoff standings. Of course, stories like this are even better when they are tied to my fantasy rosters 🙂

The only player that I missed on last week just happened to end up in both of my lineups on each site. Max Homa started off well enough on the North Course carding a -4 on Wednesday, but then fell back on Friday after an early birdie. He was one under the cut line going to the 17th hole and then missed a 5 foot par putt to end his hopes, though he did birdie 18 to dig the knife in a little deeper. It was disappointing as Max is a California kid and has excelled on these types of courses over the last couple of years. He has up and down moments, but generally, I feel like I have a good read on where to play him and where to avoid him. Sadly, his miss kept my GPP teams from hitting much better paydays, but I still like the play and have no reservations about it.

The other two key contributors for me on DK were Ryan Palmer and Justin Rose. Palmer continues to be good at the Farmers each year and would have finished even better until a couple of late bogeys dropped him back to 16th place. Rose played solid golf again and looks like he may be on his way to a strong comeback this season. He was in the middle of the fairway on his tee shot on the final hole Saturday and inexplicably dunked his approach shot in the water. A birdie there would have gotten him into the playoff, but the eventual bogey knocked him back to 6th. The improvements in his tee to green game are noteworthy as his irons seem to be reemerging which is what catapulted him to being the top player in the world just a few years ago.

Keegan Bradley made both rosters for me last week and though he did nothing over the weekend, he fought his way through the cut, which is really all you can ever ask for when you roll the dice on playing him in your lineups. I trailed him for part of Thursday and Friday and he really is a magician with his irons. On a course as demanding as Torrey South, he navigates his way from tee to green really well. It makes watching him putt that much more painful as he leaves one stroke after another out on the course. Fortunately, I was not on the course on Saturday to watch him lose over 4 strokes putting, but at least he saved it for after the cut.

The final player that I used on FanDuel was Maverick McNealy. Though he melted down over the first 16 holes on Saturday and fell out of contention, he managed to finish with a birdie and an eagle and when you combine that with the hole in one that he posted, his 30th place finish still managed to produce more fantasy points than Ryan Palmer.

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