The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Puerto Rico Open

What a frustrating finish last weekend. I really felt like I nailed a lot of key picks for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. We had a lot of shares of Marc Leishman, Kevin Kisner, Adam Hadwin, Tyrell Hatton and Lucas Glover. We should have been in a great position to do some big things on Sunday in the events we were involved in and many of you did as evidenced by the dozens of e-mails and tweets that we received in the aftermath of the tournament. Usually, when we hit the peripheral players that hard, we are positioned well with many GPP possibilities, but unfortunately, we had some odd setbacks that proved costly.

Henrik Stenson proved AGAIN to be a big disappointment for a number of promising rosters. As I watched him meltdown Friday afternoon while watching the end of the round from a rowdy pub in the heart of downtown on St Patrick’s Day, I could not help but to make a few important observations on his play that really stood out. Over the last year, we have now seen Stenson pull this kind of stunt on at least three different times. I realize that even elite players are going to make bad shots on occasion and miss easy putts, but what is tough to deal with in the case of Stenson is actually seeing him give up mid round.

You can see the moment that he quits when things turn against him and it is embarrassing to watch. He did it at the US Open last summer in the middle of the 2nd Round when things started to get away from him. It started with a couple of bad holes and the wheels absolutely came off the wagon as rather than engaging and battling through adversity on a tough course, Stenson waved the white flag and let the round, and the tournament go in withdrawing. He did it again in Mexico a few weeks ago as well with his ‘stomach ailment’. After starting the day with two birdies, he struggled over the next few holes, found himself at +3, decided he was out of contention and found an excuse to pack it in for the week. Finally, this past week, after putting his second shot into the water on the 11th hole, he made the foolish decision to play the submerged ball out of the water rather than taking a drop and eventually was ‘lucky’ enough to settle for a triple bogey. He took no time after mishitting the ball out of the water and swatted at it the next few shots, eventually putting from the green in his bare feet, having let his emotions get the best of him.

From a fantasy perspective, we have to pay attention to these types of things as these are the sort of moments that will color our perceptions for the rest of the season. We do not want to get to a point where we start putting players on a hit list where we no longer want to play them again. This second meltdown in a three week stretch is going to remain on the minds of owners for a long time. As emotional as tilting in fantasy golf can be, we have to look at players from week to week from a place of objectivity. We might make a few changes in where we deploy Stenson moving forward. At this point, it is safe to say that paying up for him in cash games is probably not a great idea. His salary commands a premium that forces us to make sacrifices in other lineup positions. If we pay up in cash, we have to have a positive performance, even if that means the player somewhat underperforms his salary in terms of where he finishes.

However, if we choose to ditch Henrik completely in GPP events just out of principle, we are going to miss out on a lot of Top-10 finishes over the next couple of years and I will not let recency bias rule my thought process. Considering that he does not win a lot of events in the US, we are probably not going to be in too much danger in keeping our ownership at a similar clip to the field or slightly above that for the big events coming up in the months ahead. I really hate the sort of attitude I see out of him when he runs into problems as it is easy to find ways to quit when your career is not on the line every week and making the cut becomes an afterthought. I would much prefer to cheer on a player like Tommy Fleetwood who came back from the dead after firing a 78 in the opening round and managed to work his way back to a 10th place finish by the end of the tournament. However, we need to zig when the field zags and I think we will again find opportunities to get Stenson back onto our rosters when others have given up on him.

If only Stenson had been the only star to disappoint us, we may still have had a couple of great teams in the large $4 GPP last week. Unfortunately, Jason Day and Hideki Matsuyama both turned in a couple of head scratching performances as Day looked like an early contender, but then faltered on Saturday and Hideki never really had any momentum to speak of through all four rounds. Although there are no fantasy golf contests that revolve around the Match Play event this week, I will be watching Jason Day very closely to see if he can find any sort of form before heading to Augusta in two weeks. Just by the numbers, you can see where Day is having his problems this season as his iron play and putting have been downright awful so far this year. These are usually strengths of Day’s game.

While it would be bothersome to see one of those areas be a little off, seeing them both as a deficiency is a concern. Poor iron play can be mitigated if Day is hitting those 10 foot putts that have been so automatic for him in recent years. Poor putting is not a killer so long as you are hitting greens and staying away from big mistakes the rest of the way. If he can flash a return to form this week, we will have a big decision on him for The Masters next month. Right now, I cannot see him being more than about 10-12% owned, a number that might just make him an automatic 20% play for us, but I do not want to waste the roster space if it does not look like he has worked through it at all. Although the finish was not spectacular last week, the putter did show some real improvement over previous weeks and I am hoping that is a sign of things to come this week.

Moving on to this week, most of my attention will be on watching the Match Play event, but we are fortunate enough to have a small event down in Puerto Rico to divert a little of our attention and also allow us to play a few DraftKings contests. Oddly enough, the Puerto Rico Open was one of my best events last season as only one or two picks missed the cut and I nearly won the $300 GPP event if only Ian Poulter could have worked through his typical Sunday jitters and found a way to make a birdie or two down the stretch.

It is a strange mix of golfers for the tournament as the best players are obviously in Austin this week, but even a lot of the middle tier players are simply choosing to take the week off to rest up rather than making the trip. This has the feeling of a late season Web.com event where those players that have done well on that tour all year are in its version of the playoffs and those veterans from the PGA Tour that missed the FedEx Cup playoffs join them to see who can claim tour cards for the next season. There are a lot of rookies and middling veterans in the field, but still plenty on the line for a player in terms of FedEx Cup points and a two year exemption on the PGA Tour for the winner.

Coco Beach Golf and Country Club plays well for bigger hitters like 2016 champion, Tony Finau as it is a Par 72 course that is over 7,500 yards long. It is played along the coast in Rio Grande and weather tends to be a big factor in the outcome each year. It is raining in Puerto Rico today and it looks like showers are expected all weekend. However, the winds, which are usually a big concern here, do not look to be very significant at any point over the weekend from what I am seeing right now. Between Thursday and Sunday, they are not projected to be any higher than 10 mph at the worst which would not end up hurting scores all that much. The precipitation should help the bombers from getting too far off the fairway when they are a little wild and the greens at the course generally play fairly slow when compared to other events on tour which should help many in this field who do tend to struggle on the faster greens that we see on the tour most weeks. I am not currently seeing any particular advantage to selecting one tee time over another, but that could change so be sure to read our email update before the event to see if anything has changed.

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

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Scrambling: 20%
Strokes Gained Off The Tee: 5%
Par 5 Scoring: 5%

My recommendation this week it to take your bankroll exposure down this week by at least half. In a field like this, things are going to be more unpredictable than normal and there are going to be plenty of players that will have an opportunity to win. Use this event to really check out a lot of the new players on tour this season to really see what their game is like when the top players on tour are not getting all of the television time.

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