The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Prevew – Dell Technologies Championship

And there I was, off the grid for the last five days awaiting the moment I was finally able to sit down at my computer to start writing my column after a week out in the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man. As soon as I got out of my RV on Sunday and tried to send my first text message to see if I would have service, I received the red punctuation mark of death fulfilling my worst thoughts that I would be completely cut off from the world. It’s pretty amazing to think that 5 days is probably the most I have ever been disconnected from the world in my life. I did my best not to panic, as I could imagine Jeff being red faced with fists clenched, but it was well worth the journey and I do sincerely hope you understand my reasons for being late for the week. The trip itself was about everything I expected and more so it was a lot of fun and allowed for me to meet a lot of great new people…very few of which cared a thing about fantasy golf, meaning it’s been a week since I have had an actual conversation of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. It’s the longest stretch of time that I have been free of fantasy golf in about 4 years.

A quick recap of last week shows that we were just a tad too slow to jump back on the DJ train as he roared back on Sunday to defeat Jordan Spieth in dramatic fashion, showing us all again that he is hardly finished up for the season. This has been a pattern the last couple of years during the playoffs. Jordan Spieth was struggling two seasons ago after an amazing start to the year and managed to win the Tour Championship. Last year, after Rory McIlroy missed the cut in two of four majors, most had written him off before he won two of the final four playoff events last season to claim the $10 million first place prize. Now, as soon as DJ showed some weakness during the spring and summer months, he woke up last week and found a way to win. This also continued the trend that I outlined in my article a week ago where I discussed that in recent years, the best players in the world have tended to bring their ‘A’ game during the playoffs. I would fully expect this trend to continue over the last three events.

I’m not going to get into too much detail tonight about strategy since I am already a day late and a mile behind on my article, but I do want to touch on a few very key points coming into the week. The Dell Technologies Championship (formerly Deutsche Bank) is held at TPC Boston where the second round of the playoffs occurs every season. It’s a beautiful course and one that I know well as it played host to the 2015 Fantasy Golf World Championship where Jeff and I were robbed by Paul Casey, who inexplicably withdrew after shooting -3 over the first two rounds due to a minor injury that caused him to miss no time in the following weeks. I still remember the moment so clearly as Jeff uttered the words, ‘We’re dead’ as we were following along with Rory McIlroy on the 7^th hole that Saturday. We sat down on a boulder for about 30 minutes without saying more than a handful of words to each other. Things will not be right between ourselves and Paul Casey until he cuts us a check at least $80,000 or $180,000 if he had played his way into the Top-10 by the end of the weekend.

Needless to say, it is a nice course and plays as a Par 71 and is 7300 yards long. As always, Adam Daly did a bang up job on the course write up so I will not belabor the points that he made already since our time is short. What I do want you to keep in mind for the week is that there are only 97 players left in the playoffs coming into this event. With the cut rules remaining the same and 70 plus ties getting to the weekend, I cannot stress enough the need to be aggressive in the players you select for the week. 6/6 will only be a starting point on your road to success and more than likely, you will need to track down the highest finishing players to make it work. It will only take probably one player to differentiate your team this week so choose wisely. Of course, back in 2015, so many chalky players missed the cut that of 25 teams in the FGWC, there were actually zero 6/6 teams through to the third round. However, that should not be the norm for this event and I find that it is highly unlikely to take place this week.

Also, I see little added benefit to chasing down cash games this week. If you normally play them, then go ahead and stick with it, but your margin for error is small and there will be considerable overlap among many of the players that are owned so I do not see much need to take these on as the softer pricing and smaller field make it easy for even the bad DFS players to make good teams.

The key stats for the week from our friends at Fantasy Golf Metrics are as follows:

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%

Birdie or Better Percentage: 25%

Strokes Gained Putting: 20%

Driving Accuracy: 10%

Proximity from over 200 yards: 10%

Scrambling: 5%

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