The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – RBC Heritage

Another Masters has come and gone and it seems like I enjoy it more every year. After years of close calls and more than a few chokes down the stretch, Sergio pulled his game together over the last six holes plus the playoff hole, to edge out Justin Rose in what surely will be remembered for decades as one of the most exciting finishes at Augusta. It looked as if Sergio had gagged it away on 18 after missing a short five foot putt for the win, but Rose hit his next tee shot into the trees to open the playoff hole and Sergio’s tee to green game was far too solid to give Rose a hint of a chance once the mistake was made.

It was a bittersweet day as a fantasy fan. We did have some shares of Sergio in cash and in our GPP lineups last week, but we were overweight on Rose and had him as a part of the Pick Six from the Betting Guide with Geoff Fienberg so his late meltdown proved to be very costly for us. Obviously, the biggest blow of the week came just a few hours after I had posted the final preview last week when Dustin Johnson inexplicably fell down some stairs in his rental home and was unable to play on Thursday. If it were anyone else but DJ, I probably would not even think about it any further, but a story like this certainly raises some eyebrows. Had DJ been healthy, I think he would have lapped the field last week. His closest threats before the event, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy flashed for a few holes here and there, but by the end turned out to be non-factors. The windy conditions on Thursday and Friday certainly would have provided a challenge for DJ, but I am still convinced that his game is well above the rest of the field. My only hope now is that the injury is not so severe as to affect his play throughout the summer or beyond as a big, lean player like DJ is bound to have some back issues at some point regardless of the injury sustained a week ago.

Fortunately, with golf, there is little time for hangovers and the tour moves on this week to one of the more picturesque stops of the season in Hilton Head, South Carolina where the RBC Heritage is played at Harbour Town Golf Links. This is an event and course that is vastly different from what we have seen in recent weeks in terms of being on a shorter course that comes in at around 7,100 yards and plays as a Par 71 with four Par 3’s and three Par 5’s. The greens are the smallest that we will see all season and are on Bermuda grass, which will be a bit of an adjustment for players who just finished last week on the lightning fast bentgrass greens of Augusta. The fairways are narrow and tree lined, putting a premium on accuracy off the tee over length, with shot placement being of extreme importance with the course being designed by Pete Dye who’s courses always challenge the eye and forces golfers to think a shot or two ahead in order to be in the best position on each hole.

For those players that cannot keep the ball on the fairway, there are plenty of trees, bunkers and water all over the course to help ruin more than a few rounds this week. There are not a lot of bombers here this week, but it is interesting to note that there are some, like Charley Hoffman, who have been fairly consistent here year after year. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that for the bigger hitters, they are not going to be using driver off the tee for much of the course so that while many of the bigger hitters do tend to be more wild with their driver, it tends to be mitigated when dropping down. Given the parameters described above, it should not come as a surprise that the scores do not usually get too low from year to year for the winner. However, from what I can tell from looking at weather reports this week, the one factor that is usually an issue every season with high winds, does not appear to be an issue this week. If that is the case this week, we could see players shooting better scores overall for the event. It should not surprise us that the key stats (provided by Fantasy Golf Metrics) came out as follows:

Birdie or Better Percentage: 25%
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Scrambling: 15%
Driving Accuracy: 10%
Prox 125-150 yards: 5%

The strategy for the week should be for us to get back to basics. During the weeks where we have a major event, despite the fact that we may try to stay disciplined, most of us choose to indulge, particularly for The Masters and play above our normal bankroll exposure, throwing in a handful (or more) of extra GPP entries, or if we are smart, extra cash game entries, in an effort to grab a larger piece of the pie that is available when all of the new money flows into the game from folks that tend to focus primarily on other sports. Be sure to reevaluate your position after last week and work to make sure that if you went big last week, that you work back to the guidelines you set in place at the start of the season so that if you had a big week, you lock down your profits and gradually put it into play in an opportunistic manner. If you took losses, do not try to chase them this week by spending up with your bankroll. Inevitably, this type of behavior will constantly have you risking more and more which more often than not will not be successful in our goal of accumulating small gains each week and incrementally building our bankroll.

This is a good field this week and there are a lot good plays to work with for both cash and GPP events. There are a few thoughts to keep in mind when approaching this event that go beyond the simple statistics that usually help us in making our selections. As I re-read my columns from previous seasons here, I noticed that it is not just fantasy enthusiasts that suffer a hangover in the aftermath of Augusta. Last season, three of the players that finished in the Top-10 at The Masters went on to miss the cut at the Heritage the following week (Snedeker, Casey and Fitzpatrick). I do not anticipate this being something that will happen every season and certainly Matt Kuchar winning the event in 2014 after Augusta shows that success is certainly possible, it is worth noting. If you want to utilize an approach with some of your rosters this week where you either fade or minimize the use of these players, it is a really nice way to be a little contrarian as most of the popular picks for the week are going to center around golfers that just played last weekend who may be emotionally and physically spent.

Now, there is an exception to what we just discussed above. Last season, Branden Grace missed the cut at Augusta, had time to rest up and looked great the next week in winning here at Harbour Town a year ago. Russell Knox missed the cut as well and came back the next week to finish second. I am not saying that this is necessarily a trend to focus on as a strategy since many golfers played the full weekend at Augusta last year and did just fine the following week (Kuchar, Haas, Hoffman, DeChambeau). Considering that mostly all of the top priced players outside of Tyrell Hatton and Kevin Na played the full weekend at Augusta, it is going to be tough to project which guys will have an emotional letdown this week.

Matt Kuchar finished the best of the group that are here this week and as he is sponsored by RBC, he will want to play his best for them this week. The one player that I may be a little worried about this week in coming down from an adrenaline high would be Charley Hoffman. He’s got a very nice track record Harbour Town and I am still going to use him for GPP events this week, but he was very much in contention last weekend before a late water ball on Saturday derailed him followed by a total unraveling on Sunday that saw him drop out of the Top 20. In looking at the field, Charley is really the only one who let a big opportunity go by the wayside. William McGirt fell back on Sunday as well, but did not have near the opportunity that Hoffman had late into the third round. This is what makes projecting a letdown from Augusta so difficult. There is not a lot of narrative to go off of from most players outside of Hoffman so I am not going to read into it too deeply and will simply try to pick the players for our rosters that look like the best fit for the course this week.

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