The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Honda Classic
We had another nice week in finishing of the early swing of the PGA season as sticking with DJ paid off for us nicely as he cruised to an easy win on Sunday afternoon, putting on another impressive finish in the final round, making Rory look foolish on the front nine before Rory was able to finish strong on the back with the pressure off and zero chance to unseat DJ. When DJ is at his best, he really is the best player in the world with everything that he brings to the table. It did not look like his head was in it early on as he shot +1 over the first three holes where -1 should be easy for him and I thought he might give up the lead, but Rory just could not do anything to start out the day and once DJ starting throwing darts at the pin and sinking putts, there was no looking back.
Going into the week, I had highlighted DJ, JT and Rory as golfers that I liked the best at the top and ended up settling in on DJ and JT. I was not too happy going into Sunday as I normally swing and miss every time he is in my core and it looked like I would get my normal output from him again, but he did find his game in the last round and shot -9 so it was not as bad of an underperformance as it could have been, but missing out on Rory did hurt as I only put him on one or two of my $5 teams.
Much of the rest of my core players played really well last week. DJ and JT were leading off at the top, but we got a Top-10 out of Tiger who played incredible from tee to green and if he had brought his putter, he would have certainly been in contention on Sunday. Sergio played really well along with Cam Smith, both of whom finished T6. Cabrera Bello (19th), Fleetwood (19th), Hatton (19th) and CHIII (14th) all played really well and were strong plays in all formats. The only guys in the core that ended up underperforming a bit were Kuch and Phil. Phil actually put up a decent amount of DK points after a rocky start and Kuch was in contention after two rounds before totally crumbling. Owning either one did not completely kill your lineups, but neither put together four complete rounds which was disappointing.
I had another great week for cash games with a clean sweep to keep my winning streak going at six weeks. I did follow my own advice and had a little less exposure to cash than normal which of course I regret after winning, but it was closer than normal as I did manage to locate the biggest grenade in the value range, Marc Leishman, who put on the putting performance of a lifetime last week. He played so miserably during the first two rounds that I was actually nervous that he would withdraw before the 3rd round. I literally took a break during my workout on Saturday morning just to be absolutely sure that he did in fact tee off to start the round. By the middle of the 3rd round, I felt almost certain that he was going to lose 10 strokes putting for the week, but he did manage to sink one long putt on Saturday which helped to keep him at only -9.328 SGP for the week. Think about that for a minute, that’s an average of over -2.3 strokes per round. I quit counting the four and five footers after losing my mind on Friday and by the weekend, I just assumed that anything outside of five feet was going to be missed. Fortunately, his tee to green game was good enough over the weekend to put him into position to make some very short birdies which I needed to get my cash team across the finish line for the week as strong performances from Tiger, Cantlay, CHIII, Fleetwood and Hatton (Hatton was definitely an emotional rollercoaster to follow) carried me for the week.
In GPP contests, I was unable to avoid the grenades in my best lineups which kept me just out of some nice cash opportunities. I owned about equal shares of Casey and Leishman for the week, but Leishman’s presence over Casey on my best $150, 3 max lineup kept me from a 3rd place finish. In the $5, I managed to have a couple of lineups with four of the six players from the winning lineup, but that was only good for around 300th place. Overall, it was a nice week for me with a cash game win making it profitable overall and about a break even week for GPP contests as DJ got me into position in a couple of spots, but I was not able to make the right combo to cash in for a big win.
This week, we make a big leap out to the east to begin the Florida swing of events which will include the Honda Classic, Arnold Palmer Invitational, The Players Championship and the Valspar Championship. I mention each of those events as the courses in Florida are all somewhat comparable to PGA National where the Honda Classic is played each year. The courses are on the shorter side overall with tighter fairways and what seems like water hazards on the majority of holes that allow for some big numbers each year. Given that all of the Florida events will be played within the same month, the weather will be similar for all four which in and of itself is an enormous factor in determining the outcome for each tournament as the winds provide an incredible defense of the courses this time of year.
The big difference that we are preparing for this week with the Honda Classic is that for the first time in recent memory, the weather does not look like it is going to be a factor at all. I cannot remember a year where the weather was so mild that it did not knock a few shots off of scores across the board. The last couple of days have seen high winds, but the forecast for Thursday to Sunday is nothing short of perfection at this time. Check out the link here for updates on Wednesday to see if anything happens to change before lineup lock on Thursday morning. Even if the weather appears harmless for the week, try to stay in the habit of stacking both waves. Do 5% AM/PM and 5% PM/AM this week just to stay on the safe side. If nothing changes, it will be irrelevant and those teams will blend in with the rest of your rosters by the time the weekend hits. If, however, the weather does change for the worse and one wave gets better conditions than the other, you will have given yourself a small hedge over the rest of the field as most people are going to ignore this step with good weather pending. Doing these little things as a GPP player is going to give you a small edge over time against those opponents who do not take into account such details.
For an in depth look at the course this week, check out The First Tee from Adam Daly where he dives into the key details each week to help get us ready to start our research. The key points this week are that this is a Par 70 course that plays at over 7,100 yards. By distance, that does not sound long, but since it is only a Par 70, it is actually on the longer side overall, especially considering that the narrow fairways will force most players to club down off the tee to a wood or an iron in order to keep it in play. Water is a factor on 14 of the holes this week which will make this a traumatizing event to follow on ShotTracker. Be prepared to see the word ‘drop’ again and again this week, although I am really interested to see how the course will play with such low winds this week. My thought is that players will go a little lower than what we’ve seen in recent years and the winning score should end up closer to the -13 end of the spectrum as opposed to the -8 from JT last year. The greens are Bermuda so that is a huge shift from the poa we’ve dealt with in recent weeks. Be sure to take regional considerations into account for the field this week. About half of the players on tour live in Florida and many are in the area around PGA National. For those players that have struggled on the Poa courses, returning to the southeast will be a welcome break as many of those players will see an immediate turnaround on the greens. Even Tiger remarked last week that he was happy to be finished up with Poa greens for now so you can bet that many others are thinking the same thing after missing so many short putts these last couple of events.
Key Stats
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Par 4 Scoring: 15%
Proximity: 10%
Scrambling: 5%
Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 5%
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