The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Mayakoba Golf Classic

It felt weird to get a normal amount of sleep last week so I am feeling really energized tonight as I sit down tonight to write the column this week. The PGA Tour is back in North America after a three week stretch to Asia and I, for one, am happy to have the cut back in play again for the next couple of events. While we had a lot of success in picking the winners over there in two of the three events with heavy shares of JT and Rory, there were plenty of ups and downs from the value picks that drove us crazy and made it challenging in cash games. It also hurt that although the events were cut free, there were still a handful of key withdrawals during the three weeks which took its toll on our player pool despite some really strong finishes from a lot of the players that we liked.

I like this traditional fall event more than most of the early season tournaments. With a quick turnaround after the Tour Championship, we dealt with some pretty meager fields for the first few weeks of the season as many of the better players opted to play in just one tune up event or skip all of the American events in the fall entirely in order to rest up for the Asian events. As a consequence, I was not a big fan of the first few events this year. They mostly included the younger player on tour, the golfers just barely holding onto their tour cards and a couple of decent names at the top, but very few elites. Most of these tournaments felt like alternate events as opposed to regular tour events.

This week feels a lot more like the sort of event we have always loved in the fall. We get a mixed field with a lot of very good players (though few elite) and plenty of options to work with in the value range. There is no clear cut player up top that you have to roster in all formats to be successful so owners will actually need to make some real decisions this week as opposed to plugging in the most expensive player at the top and then blending in affordable value picks the rest of the way. This is also an event where we have seen a wide variety of winners over the years. Kuch took it down last year, though the most memorable part was his caddie issues with El Tucan. In other years, we’ve seen a wide variety of winners so that helps to spread ownership numbers a little thinner around different price points which means that if we are big on the eventual winner this week, we may finally get some desired leverage as opposed to recent weeks where it did not help us out as much as usual.

El Camaleon Golf Club is a short, resort course that has hosted this event for the last 13 years (formerly the OHL Classic). It is on the easier side in terms of scoring as the winning score tends to fall somewhere close to the -20 mark each season if conditions permit. Though scoring can be easy, if the winds kick up, it can definitely be a problem this time of year as it is open to the elements and right next to the ocean. In looking at comparable courses, I’d say that Sea Island and Waialae are two great spots to check out. They are both seaside courses and given their placement in the schedule, they both tend to attract a similar field of players so you will tend to see a lot of the same names teeing up in each location.

The course itself is a Par 71 that is just under 7000 yards and has some of the narrowest fairways that players see all season. Fortunately, since it is such a short course, dropping down from driver and hitting a 3-Wood or iron off the tee tends to keep players out of trouble as the fairways are hit at a high percentage. If you miss the fairway, you could be in big trouble. There is jungle, ocean and mangroves that make inaccuracy very penal off the tee, but generally, beyond that the course is fairly straightforward and players will be hitting into large, paspalum greens that play slower than average and with the rains earlier this week, should pose no problem.

KEY STATS

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Driving Accuracy: 10%
Proximity: 10%
Scrambling: 5%

 

Sign up for an FGI account today to see the rest of this post.