The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview RBC Heritage

Welcome back to The Daily Spin. We hope that you all enjoyed The Masters last week. We thought that it would take a perfect lineup to win the DraftKings Millionaire Maker and sure enough, it was a perfect lineup based upon the players chosen. Literally, there was not a lineup that you could have selected that could have knocked off BrettMarino. While we know little of this player, the information that we read from DraftKings showed that this was in fact, his one and only entry into the tournament. He won his way in through a $5 qualifier, and his largest previous win on DraftKings totaled $36. This historic win truly does show that anyone can in fact win a big contest like this, even with just a single bullet to fire.

It was exciting to hear from members all week about how their teams were performing and the tales of close calls and near misses that many of us went through, particularly in the opening rounds of the tournament. The Millionaire Maker proved to be an overwhelming success for DraftKings and for fantasy golf enthusiasts. We have been waiting for this moment over the last couple of years so seeing fantasy golf finally get the exposure that it deserves was a big deal. While the end of The Masters and the Millionaire Maker was a bit of a letdown, there is much to look forward to ahead. The contests going forward are going to be larger, with more players and bigger payouts. As a special bonus, DraftKings wasted no time in announcing its next Millionaire Maker for the US Open in June. We are thrilled with that result as it means that we will more than likely have three more of these events this summer in conjunction with the other major events taking place.

As a recap, we want to look at some of the things that we learned from The Masters that will help us in future events. We actually did quite well overall with our selections for last week. We made 16 core recommendations and 14 made the cut. Two disappointments were JB Holmes and Victor Dubuisson. We knew that JB had a lower floor, but a higher ceiling potential which we felt made him worth the risk for GPP formats. We warned that he was a high risk/high reward type of pick and so we avoided him in our cash game lineups which worked out well, but he did sink a few nice GPP lineups which hurt us. Holmes ended up missing the cut by just a single stroke and played well the second day after a poor opening round. We think the combination of an emotional letdown and the fact that Holmes had not played at The Masters since 2008 weighed on his performance for the week. We’ll be excited to see JB back in tournaments again soon as he is having a great season so far and we anticipate several more solid finishes in the months ahead.

Our best successes for the week came in the Sleeper category. We limited ourselves to just four core selections and all performed admirably. The only disappointment was that none of these players were able to carry their play through all four rounds of the tournament. Ryan Palmer started off great the first day and was -4 through eight holes and looked like he would be a threat all weekend. Unfortunately, he tailed off the next few days and finished T33. Charlie Hoffman, always a boom or bust play, broke through with a great performance over the weekend, faltering down the stretch near the end of the third round and struggling the final day enroute to a T9 finish. He was owned by surprisingly few in the field (~8%). The interesting lesson here is that this really helped to illustrate that the field of owners was true cross section of fans and experts in regards to fantasy golf. At his price point, we expected high levels of ownership. We think this will open up opportunities again in future large contests as player like Hoffman, that are not as high profile, will continue to be missed by many of the novices in the field.

The other two Sleepers that we recommended were Russell Henley and Kevin Na. Na used a great second round to vault himself to a T12 finish and Henley opened strong on Thursday and managed to finish in 21st for the tournament. Our only regret is not having even more exposure to these core sleeper picks. We sprinkled in many players into our lineups in small doses that had only middling amounts of success. In future events, we will be more focused on those core players and limit those that we sprinkle in.

Our conviction that the leaderboard would be top heavy with star players came to fruition even more so than we anticipated. Where 2013 brought a mix of rookies, older savvy veterans and a few top level players into the Top 10, 2014 brought out the best in golf’s top players and there were not a lot of surprises. None of our Blue Chip players missed the cut, which was not a surprise. We had a fair amount of exposure to the winner, Jordan Spieth, but seeing that the field chose him overwhelmingly as the favorite made our exposure an underweight. Spieth is a worthy champion and continues to dominate the strokes gained statistics. His all around game should allow him to win many championships in the years ahead. As we discussed back in January in our column, , we can now say without a doubt that the youth revolution is here. We cannot wait to see the rivalry develop between Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy in the years ahead. While some have worried that an aging Tiger Woods fading from the game will take its toll on fans, we think Spieth’s win will spur a resurgence of interest in the game. As the general public learns more about some of the young rising stars that are making their presence felt, we think that golf will become popular in a way that it has not seen since the days of Palmer and Nicklaus.

We liked what we saw out of our favorite pick in Jason Day to start the tournament. At one point on Day 1, he rolled in five straight birdies and reached -6 before finishing the round at -5. We thought this would set him up for big things over the weekend. Unfortunately, Spieth went from -8 to -14 in the second round. Day took the course later in the day and we think he just pressed too hard in trying to overcome the deficit and stumbled the rest of the weekend. Day played for the win and this aggressive style backfired as it just compounded the issue when he lost a couple of strokes early in the second round. We cannot blame Day for pressing, but his fall in the standings did hurt a few very strong teams that were well positioned going into the weekend.

Another player that we liked that proved to be a bit disappointing was Jimmy Walker. We think Walker would have done well for us, but had an unlucky break when he injured his left wrist while teeing off on the 7th hole on Thursday. He played the rest of the weekend, but was clearly in pain as we watched his entire final round Sunday and he could be seen shaking his wrist out repeatedly as he toughed out the last day. Considering his injury, we were pleased that he was able to play through the pain and managed to make the cut and not withdraw. He was a cash game player on all teams and was able to contribute to our success. We will look at his T38 finish next year and while many fantasy owners will see this performance as a setback, we will know that much of it resulted from an injury that took place right out of the gates.

Finally, we want to acknowledge our Value Picks that really stood out for the week. We called for a breakout performance from Hideki Matsuyama and he came through in a big way. We overweighted our holdings for Hideki and reaped the rewards on Sunday. We knew that if he could just get through the first round without putting himself in danger of missing the cut that he would shine throughout the rest of the weekend. His 5th place finish helped owners in a big way as he outplayed his price. Ian Poulter was another player that we identified as having Top 10 potential and he had his best finish at The Masters with a T6 finish. His game has been as good this year as at any point of his career. While Poulter has yet to win an event on tour, he is playing consistent golf and should be in the mix to win other events this year. Paul Casey was another player that we overweighted in our lineups last week and he managed a T6 finish. Casey had been on the upswing over the last two months and he parlayed his success into a nice finish. Casey will be a player to watch the rest of the year as he seems to have regained much of the form that he had in years past.

With that, we depart from The Masters. It is typically everyone’s favorite tournament of the year, but there is a lot of golf yet to be played this year and with so many exciting, young players making a name for themselves, we cannot wait to see what will unfold this summer. We are working on a lot of new ideas here at Fantasy Golf Insider so our comprehensive coverage will only continue to improve and evolve in the months ahead. As always, we want to encourage all of your to reach out to us with any questions or concerns that you may have or any ideas that you would like to see implemented on the site in the months ahead.

Now we move our attention to Hilton Head for the RBC Heritage this week. Surprisingly, Jordan Spieth will be playing in this event. He was rewarded with an exemption two years ago before he had achieved any real success on tour and Spieth has elected to honor his commitment to RBC by playing in this tournament, which we applaud him for. The course sets up a little differently than a lot of the courses that we have seen recently in that it is a little shorter than average coming in at around 7100 yards and a Par 71. Many of the bombers will take the week off and skip out on Hilton Head as the incredibly narrow fairways place more of a premium on accuracy than normal so the ball strikers will have the advantage this week as well as those players that can find the smaller greens. Putting will also play a roll in determining the winner as past champions have had strong performances on the greens.

The key stats that we will look at this week are going to be Par 4 scoring, where an overwhelming number of Top 10 finishers in recent years have been leaders in Par 4 scoring. We will also look at GIR and strokes gained tee to green as players will need to focus on being in the right position throughout the weekend if they want to have a chance to win. Finally, scrambling is going to be of extra importance this week as we anticipate that players on average will find themselves out of position and in trouble more often than normal. We want to identify those players that can get up and down well in order to minimize the damage on their scorecards. Another interesting stat to check out is Greens In Regulation from Other Than Fairway. A lot of players are going to be off the fairway this week, so we want to find those players that excel in hitting well from these areas and getting themselves back into position on each hole.

BLUE CHIPS

Jordan Spieth – There usually is never any one category that Spieth dominates in when we focus on specific categories, although he is tops in Par 4 scoring this week. However, when we look at what we deem to be the most important stats, strokes gained tee to green and strokes gained putting, it is easy to see why he has been so successful. He is 5th tee to green, 4th in putting and 2nd overall in total strokes gained. For us, his form and success here (12th and 9th) is enough to get him onto about 60% of our rosters this week. With DraftKings pricing him at a bargain of $12,500, we will be comfortable rostering him without having to worry about filling out the rest of our roster. He ranks 81st in GIR, 1st in Par 4 scoring, 50th in ball striking and 23rd in scrambling. He is also a birdie machine and is 2nd this year in birdie average. This is an undermentioned metric in most daily fantasy golf columns, but its importance cannot be understated. Given how birdies and eagles are weighted when compared to pars and bogeys, it is essential to get players into your lineup that can score points in bunches. While this tournament represents an interesting challenge for Spieth in terms of his level of focus, he strikes us as the type of competitor that never fails to give his best effort and will be motivated to show the folks from RBC how much he appreciates their initial backing two seasons ago. Some will avoid him based on his recent success, we are going to stick with him, particularly with the chance to own him at this price. He works well in both cash game and GPP formats.

Patrick Reed – Another young star on the rise this season is Patrick Reed. Although he did not quite hit the level of success at Augusta that many predicted, with a T22, his game overall is moving in the right direction. He has yet to miss a cut and has a win at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. Much like The Masters, coming into this week, he has not had much success in two starts at the Heritage, coming in 71st in 2013 and 48th in 2014, however, the trend is improving and we think that his third look here will provide a better result. He ranks 16th in strokes gained tee to green, 23rd in strokes gained putting and 8th in total strokes gained. He ranks 9th in Par 4 scoring and 2nd in scrambling. We think that his strong short game and scrambling ability will help to offset accuracy issues off the tee and anticipate Reed playing very well this week. At $11,000, his price is such that he fits without issue onto most rosters and can even be stacked with Spieth if one wanted to create a very strong one-two punch. We own him on 40% of our rosters this week for large GPP buy-ins. With his high floor and cut making ability, he also works well as in cash games this week.

Matt Kuchar – The defending champion at the Heritage, Matt Kuchar, has not been his usual consistent self over the last two months. Kuch is about .7 strokes lower per round this year and has not hit the ball nearly as well as normal. We know that this will turn around eventually, and think this may be the course where he starts to improve as it is a shorter course that tends to favor more accurate players, which historically, has been Kuchar’s game. We are going to put him onto 20% of our teams this week for GPP purposes and watch him closely to see if he can make some progress. At his price of $10,700, he can be worked into cash games and he will more than likely make the cut so his floor is reasonably high, although we think there are probably others out there for less that would help keep the rest of your roster more balanced.

VALUE PLAYS

Webb Simpson – The pricing was skewed towards a slightly higher amounts than normal so for the most part, we looked below the $9000 range, but made a notable exception for Simpson this week. Simpson has had success at Hilton Head with a 2nd place finish in 2013 and two 14th place finishes in 2011 and 2010. Simpson is coming off of a T28 finish at Augusta and has three Top 10 finishes this season. While he has struggled with his putting, he scores well in nearly all other metrics that we looked at this week. He ranks 7th in strokes gained tee to green and 10th in total strokes gained. he ranks 12th in birdie average so he is a great point scorer week to week and he is 9th in ball striking. he scrambles well where he ranks 12th so he is great at getting out of trouble and 31st overall in Par 4 scoring. At $9200, we own him on 80% of our GPP teams this week and he is a strong cash game play as well. This is the type of event that Simpson could sneak up and win.

Daniel Berger – The rookie looks to continue his success this season and should be able to make a strong debut at Hilton Head. He is the 12th ranked ball striker and 33rd in GIR. He is 26th in strokes gained tee to green and 26th overall in total strokes gained. He is big hitter, but does well on Par 4’s where he ranks 31st. He also scrambles reasonably well and ranks 44th. What we really like about Berger and what makes him a value for his price week in and week out is that Berger flat out scores points when he makes the cut, exactly what we want for our GPP rosters. In 6 of the last 8 events, Berger has been at 79 points or above. Throughout that time frame, his average salary has remained in the mid $7000 range. Coming into the weekend, Berger ranks 18th in birdie average so we expect his point scoring trend to continue this week. We own him on 40% of our GPP rosters. He does have value in cash games although with 10 of 15 cuts made, his floor is lower than a few other safer plays.

Charles Howell III – One of our favorite value plays throughout the season has been Charles Howell III. He has advanced from a sleeper play to that of a value play with upside potential. He has three Top 10 finishes this season and is 13 of 15 in making the cut. He is 30th in GIR, but 7th this year in GIR from other than the fairway. He has a mediocre tournament history, but his season has been pretty good so we think he will give you value for his price at $7500. We own him in 40% of our GPP lineups this week.

Russell Knox – Russell Knox will look to build on a 9th place finish in his debut at Hilton Head last year when he returns to the Heritage this year. He struggled with the bad weather in San Antonio a few weeks back and could not recover, but has been having a solid season and should be in a good position to do well this week. He ranks 22nd in GIR and 36th in ball striking. He really excels on Par 4 holes where he ranks 6th this season. He is slightly above average in both strokes gained tee to green and strokes gained putting putting him in 39th overall in total strokes gained. At a course where accuracy, solid iron play and being able to makes putts all play key roles in having success, we think Knox is priced well for success at $7300 this week. We own him in 40% of our GPP lineups and think he plays well in cash games as well.

Martin Laird – Typically course history is a big indicator of how a player will perform each year for a tournament. It can be very difficult to see a player like Martin Laird, who has struggled in all four appearances at Hilton Head, and to then put him on to your rosters. However, the numbers this year point to a vastly improved player that has upped his game in many ways. In this case, we are going to take current form and stats that point strongly towards success this week as the indicators to focus on the most. Laird is 9 of 10 making the cut this year, 14th in Par 4 scoring, 7th in scrambling, 10th in ball striking, 11th in GIR, 17th in GIR from other than the fairway and 20th in strokes gained tee to green. He is also scoring 71.9 points per week, which is huge for his $7100 price tag. We own him on 40% of our GPP rosters with just a little hesitation due to a lack of strong results here.

Brendon Todd – Our final value play of the week is Brendon Todd. Todd disappointed fantasy owners last weekend with a rough performance at his first appearance at The Masters badly missing the cut. We think he gets back on track this week as he has had a really good year so far making 9 of 11 cuts with six Top 30 finishes and two Top 10s. Though he has just two starts at Hilton Head, he did finish a respectable 38th lat year, but his game seems much improved this year. He is accurate off the tee and putts well which will help him out this week. He also ranks 9th in scrambling and he’s 19th overall in total strokes gained. We own Todd in 40% of GPP lineups and think that at $7000 he has value in cash games as well.

SLEEPERS

Tony Finau – We dug a little further down than normal for our sleeper picks this week. As we wanted to get Spieth and Reed onto our rosters, we needed to find a way to offset their salaries a bit and we started with Finau. While Finau is only ranked 62nd in GIR, he is 10th in GIR from other than the fairway so we think fantasy players will overlook him this week. He ranks 38th in strokes gained tee to green although his putting has hurt him in total strokes gained. He also ranks 21st in birdie average so when he makes the cut, he tends to score a lot of points. He has been above 75 points seven times this year so his GPP value is great for his price of $5400. He has had some success in courses that correlate well with this one so we like him for GPP play although we think he is a bit of a risk for cash games. We own him on 40% of GPP teams this week.

Stewart Cink – One of the top players each year in GIR is Stewart Cink and this year is not different as he ranks 1st. He is also 3rd in GIR from other than the fairway so he does not need to hit the fairway to be successful in getting to the green. He has made the cut here in six of the last 7 years and also finished in the Top 15 twice. None of his other stats really help him to stand out, but at $4800, Cink is well priced as a cut maker this week and anything else we get is just a bonus. We own him on 40% of GPP teams this week and could even potentially see using him on a cash game roster.

Zac Blair – Finally, our last sleeper this week is another rookie in Zac Blair. He is accurate off the tee and ranks 9th overall in strokes gained putting. We think the shorter course will help Blair out in his first appearance at Hilton Head. At $4700 we just need him to make the cut to recoup our investment. He is just 9 of 16 on the season so we own him on only about 20% of GPP teams and have no exposure to him in cash games.

There are a handful of other players that we sprinkled into lineups this week to mix things up a bit:

Pat Perez
John Huh
Louis Oosthuizen
Marcel Siem

We did not like any of them enough to overweight our exposure, but felt like each has some upside potential to perform well this week.

That wraps up our column for the week. While The Masters have concluded, we have a lot of the season left and plenty of opportunities for some big wins this year.

Best of Luck!!

-Myzteriouzly