The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – RBC Canadian Open
The Open Championship provided me with a lot of drama and certainly a lot of heartbreak as it wound down on Sunday. Jordan Spieth, like the ninja that he is, came back from the dead after an atrocious shot on the 13th hole put him in a dire position. After consulting with nearly every tournament official on the course, walking it back again and again and having his caddie standing among the crowd, he was allowed for some odd reason, to place his ball on a very smooth portion of the practice range where he then found a way to save bogey after taking a penalty stroke. It was reminiscent of Sergio Garcia at Augusta, also on the 13th hole, who saved par after hitting his tee shot into a mess next to a tree. It’s amazing how the momentum in golf can swing so fast. One minute, I am thinking that Matt Kuchar could be up by potentially three strokes with five to play if he hits his birdie putt and Spieth doubles to then watching Spieth seize the momentum from only being down one shot and then within 10 minutes tying it up with a laser on 14 to then hitting two bombs on 15 and 16 to finish the deal.
It was both elated and heartbroken at the same time. I was mesmerized by the display of golf that Spieth put together on the last five holes in shooting -5 to clinch the tournament without even having to sweat the 18th. I don’t know that we will ever see as strong of a close in a major tournament as we did on Sunday. Rickie Fowler at The Players Championship in 2015 comes to mind if I am allowed to call that the 5th major, but if Pat Mayo gets word of me using that title for Sawgrass, the long knives will come out in force. For all of his mannerisms and somewhat (okay a little more than somewhat at times) annoying tendencies while slowing down play, Spieth is quickly approaching greatness despite what the naysayers will have you believe. Outside of Phil Mickelson, there may not be a more cerebral player in the game. Interestingly enough, his game actually compares quite well to Phil’s game. Hit the ball off the tee and hope that it stays playable. If it’s not, find a miraculous second shot to get out of trouble, chip it to a few feet and save par. If he’s in good position, then it just starts to get unfair as his iron play has been exceptional. His putter was certainly an issue in the early going, but every time he stepped up to the ball late, even when he was 50 feet out, I felt like he was going to drop it, regardless. He is just that good when he is zeroed in and feeding off of the adrenaline. I love watching him play, even when I have money on the guy he is trying to hold off. He may not end up being Tiger, but my thought is that he has a good shot at getting ten major wins in his career and as many tournament wins as Phil which would put him in pretty nice company.
I was heartbroken for Matt Kuchar. There is no better guy on tour than Kuch. Everyone likes Kuch and I know that even if Jeff and I did not have a sizable investment on him winning the tournament outright, I would have still been cheering for him to get it done down the stretch. It was a big moment for Kuchar as it may have been one of his last best chances at taking down a major. At 39, he was at just the right age when most players win the Claret Jug, but it will not get easier in the years ahead as the young crop of players continues to improve and puts more pressure on the old guard of the tour. I thought Kuchar played well on Sunday, but just never quite had the extra big shot or long putt to really put pressure on Spieth while Jordan was struggling. An extra birdie or two in the early going may have been enough to really rattle Spieth, but Kuchar could not capitalize early and one Spieth woke up, even two late birdies from Kuch were not nearly enough to keep up. Even in defeat, Kuchar was so gracious. Seeing his reaction as his boys ran out to hug their dad on 18 was incredible and the look in Kuchar’s eyes told me everything I would ever need to know about the man. It was a great moment in a season full of great moments. Jeff and I missed out on a five figure score, but once again, golf was a big winner on Sunday.
Now we move on to the RBC Canadian Open to take a quick breath, collect ourselves a bit, and get refocused before the WGC Bridgestone next week, the PGA Championship in two weeks and then the start of the FedEx Cup Playoffs in a month. It is going to be the most exciting stretch of golf all year and it is jam packed into a two month time frame. If you did not get a chance to read my column a couple of weeks ago about mapping out your season for exposure in DFS and also betting outrights, go check it out now. If you do not want to look back, I will summarize my main points here quickly:
1) At the start of the season, map out how much you plan to put into play from week to week
2) Select your favorite events with stronger fields to be overweight in your exposure
3) Weed out the events with softer fields, particularly around the majors and target them for lower exposure
4) Emphasize GPP play for weaker fields w more volatility and cash games for events with strong fields and softer pricing
So let’s take a look at what we are working with this week at Glen Abbey. We have a tournament that falls the week after The Open Championship which could be a concern. Given that RBC sponsors many of these players, they will want to put their best foot forth. Over the last few years, there really has not been a big letdown factor going into this event which is comforting. However, Matt Kuchar’s narrow defeat in a two man race may have his spirits a little lower than normal even for such a pro like him. I am not overly worried about the travel. The east coast time zone is only about 4-5 hours off from the UK so this is not an instance where players are travelling 10-12 time zones from the Middle East back to Torrey Pines. My thought on travel this week as well as players who were at Royal Birkdale is that it will not be a huge factor in determining the outcome. Jason Day was close to winning The Open two years ago and came across the pond and won here the next week. If the course were a little more challenging and did not yield as many scoring opportunities, I might have additional concerns, but I do not see this course pushing players to their limit so I don’t think it will be as physically or mentally taxing as other events.
The field is definitely weaker than normal for the tournament. With Brandt Snedeker’s withdrawal, there are not a lot of names at the top to work with so what names there are, probably will be chalky, even a five figure priced Charley Hoffman. The pricing is actually fairly tight this week overall. There are not too many screaming buys at the bottom of the list, but that also means that ownership will be more clustered around some of those strong buys. In a field like this, it makes a lot of sense to cut back your play. It is a scorer’s course which will allow a lot more players to be competitive than normal and it also is going to be tough to keep up for players who make any mistakes. It’s a good event to play a bunch of smaller GPP events and a couple of cash lineups and then just enjoy the tournament while preparing for the next few weeks ahead.
The course itself sets up as a fairly easy Par 72 and plays at around 7,250 yards. The four Par 5’s are all on the shorter side and the course sees more eagles than just about any other course on the normal portion of the PGA schedule. The fairways are about average in width, but even if players miss the fairway, the rough is cut short so it will not be particularly penal. Water will come into play on many holes which means that staying out of trouble will mostly mean avoiding the water. The greens are a little on the smaller side, but bentgrass and average in speed. The winning score looks to be somewhere in the negative 17 to 18 range so I am expecting plenty of fireworks. In looking at the key stats this week, you may want to bump up the weighting on Birdie or Better Percentage and Par 5 scoring. Sadly, this will be the last time the event is played here closing a long chapter at this old course which will be torn up soon to make way for high dollar development. As the event is held at different courses over the years, make sure that you are only looking at course history for the years where the event was played at Glen Abbey (2016, 2015, 2013, 2009, 2008).
The key stats for the week from our friends at Fantasy Golf Metrics are as follows:
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Scrambling: 15%
Prox 125-150: 10%
Driving Accuracy: 5%
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