The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – BMW Championship
Welcome back to the world of golf for the final two weeks of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. I have to say, it felt wonderful last Tuesday night to lay down in my bed at a normal time and sleep through the whole night. As I am not as superior at managing my time as Jeff, this is something that only takes place a few times each year so it left me feeling rested for a few days until I stayed up late on Friday to write about cash game strategies for the NFL, which I hope you were as successful with as I was (Thank you, Scott Tolzien). This week, I am going to try something a little different to see if I can get this thing cranked out at a reasonable hour to get it into your hands a little earlier than normal. I think if I can just isolate myself from enough distractions, I can find a way to get this done on Tuesday nights each week which I know will make all of your wonderful folks happier along with the FGI Team.
I always love this time of year for sports. The NFL is just getting under way and Vikings fans are still pretending that this is going to be the big year, the baseball playoffs are close at hand, college football is back in full swing and of course, there are still $10 million up for grabs for the winner of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. My only regret is that by this point, golf has fallen so far off the radar for most casual fans that these last few events just do not get the full attention that they deserve. Last season had a pretty epic finish with Rory diving in late to steal the check out of DJ’s hands at the last moment. The season prior to that saw Jordan Spieth complete one of the greatest seasons in recent memory and the year before that, Billy Horschel stormed the field finishing 2nd, 1st and 1st in the final three events to best Rory and take home an unlikely title.
This year, momentum down the stretch is a huge factor yet again as the group of players that has been pushing towards the top the last couple of months is the same group that is playing well now. This should be a great indicator for us as to how to approach this tournament from a DFS perspective. These events over the last few years have not had a lot of surprise winners. While Horschel may have been an unlikely winner of the title, if you weren’t at least considering him by the Tour Championship, you were doing something wrong. With so much at stake and everything to play for, none of the top guys are showing up this week and gliding along to mark off another weekend of golf. This is not the St Jude before The US Open. Everyone is going to come out ready to play on Thursday morning and everyone understands the value of positioning going into the final week where anyone sitting in the Top-5 going to the Tour Championship can win the FedEx Cup Playoffs by winning the tournament.
In terms of roster construction, this means that you need to make a few changes to your normal process. Seventy golfers are in the field this week and there is no cut to deal with. If stars and scrubs was not on your mind before now, it should definitely be at the forefront moving ahead. We also have another cut of sorts this week as only the Top-30 players in the standings will move on to the Tour Championship. Anyone who qualifies for the Tour Championship earns an automatic invite to The Masters next spring so you better believe that some of these players around the bubble will have a little more spark than normal. Finally, DraftKings has done an interesting job of pricing the field for the week. In most events, we get a decent range of $6k players to work with to help us to stretch our money out a little more at the top. This week, however, DK put a hard floor on its pricing and stopped it out at $6,900. This takes a lot of options for stacking out of our hands at the top. Do you like Spieth and Rickie this week? That’s great, you’ll have to make two teams to play them both because it is a mathematical impossibility to play them both together.
You’ve got a couple of different options for approaching lineup construction this week. If you want to start out with a player at the top priced guys like Spieth, you’ll still have room for either one player in the $9k range, two players in the $8k range or you can fill your roster with players from the middle $7k to low $8k range. I don’t love the first option. If you go Spieth/Casey to start, you better be very comfortable with the players you are working with in the lower $7k range. In looking over the numbers, there is not a lot that stands out in the model or in the research that indicates that any of these guys should be a lock for the week so while I will have a few lineups that start off this way, I will probably opt to give myself a little more breathing room at the bottom. I want to lock in 3-4 guys that I feel really good about and then work around those groupings again and again with the guys I am a little less sure of and hope that I can peel away at the mess near the bottom to find the guy like Daniel Berger two years ago who storms back from a miserable slump to finish second like he did in 2015. I do believe that there is just enough value in the lower $8k range and upper $7k range to build some really good teams if you are starting with one stud at the top.
The course itself is a 7,200 yard, Par 71 and offers up plenty of scoring opportunities. There are only three Par 5 holes on the course and while they all play on the longer side, scoring has not really been an issue in the past and players will need to do well with them in order to keep up with the leaders. -16 and -22 were the winning scores here in 2013 and 2015 respectively which means that outside of the Par 5’s, there were plenty of other scoring chances as well, particularly the Par 4, 15th which is only around 330 yards. The bombers have tended to have an advantage here in the two times the event has been held here, but there are different paths to success here as Zach Johnon and Jason Day, the two winners, play vastly different styles of golf. Approach play looks to be key here from short and intermediate distances as players will have to make decisions off the tee as whether they want to try to play drive and wedge golf, or club down to stay on the fairway and work with a longer iron shot. For the best write up each week on course breakdown, be sure to check out Adam Daly’s column over at The First Tee each week. He also has exceptional details about the course, specific holes and how certain key stats lined up on the course. It’s the best place to start your course research each week.
A quick glance at the weather tonight shows us nothing but sunshine for the first couple of days of the tournament. The winds are going to be low and storms are not in the broadcast. As this is a no cut event, weather is not nearly as important as it would be otherwise, but if there is ever any chance to get an edge coming out of the gates, its a good place to look. The tee times this week are tighter as well with the first group going out around 9am EST and the last around 1pm so there would not likely be a great opening to stack a team for weather this week, but we do want to keep healthy habit patterns going so always be sure to take weather into consideration.
I am actually excited for the contests this week on DK. Jeff and I begged and pleaded with some no name, useless middle manager over there to try to get a 150 max entry event at a lower dollar level and had given up in trying to work with them on it when out of nowhere, they shocked us all by adding a $5, 150 max entry event for the second to last event of the season. I will probably even throw in a few extra lineups than normal for this event as it really helps to open up some options when you’re not limited to 20 teams. If you are excited about this event being available, let them know how much you like it AND how much you want to see it as a regular, weekly option going into next season. I can’t wait to dust off the lineup generator to see what we can do this week.
As far as the key stats for the week, our friends at Fantasy Golf Metrics provided their usual expertise in contributing the numbers:
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Birdie or Better %: 20%
Prox 175-200: 15%
Prox 100-125: 10%
Scrambling: 5%
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