The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – RSM Classic
Just as quickly as the swing season arrived, it is about to come to a close after seven fun filled weeks of action. We have been introduced to a lot of new players and the return of others who have battled their way back over the last year. It’s been an interesting season in that the weather has been a much bigger factor in almost every event this fall than I can remember over the last few years. It seems that every stop we’ve had has had issues with winds and precipitation causing scores to be worse than what we are normally accustomed to seeing this time of year.
Last week produced another new, first time winner on tour with Patton Kizzire capturing the title at the OHL. He got off to a sizzling start on Thursday and then fought back over the weekend to finish the job in holding off Rickie Fowler and others on Sunday. It was a great win for Kizzire as he has been someone that we’ve watched grow over the last two years since he arrived on tour in the fall in 2015. He had an extraordinary season on the Web.com Tour that year and fantasy owners were gripped with excitement, especially after he started off with two Top-5 finishes. He went on to have a solid season in 2016, but then really struggled in 2017, making the cut in only 50% of his starts and only equally his previous year’s total of five Top-25 finishes. While being wild off the tee in 2016 didn’t help, he putted really well all season. This was not the case at all in 2017 as he lost more than half a stroke from where he had been in 2016. So far this season, things seem largely back on track after he missed the cut at the Safeway Open to start the season. Since then, he’s had three starts and finished in the Top-10 in all of them while also recording a win last week. Although Shot Tracker was unavailable last week, his putter was outstanding and in the 10 rounds this season where Shot Tracker was available, he’s managed to gain nearly a stroke per round with his putter which is good for a ranking of 14th on tour so far. I am excited to see if he can build on this success going forward. He lives on Sea Island and although he’s failed to make the cut the last two years, he has plenty of positive momentum in his favor this week.
Overall, it proved to be a pretty good week. We owned a lot of shares of Rickie, CHIII and Streelman which worked out well especially with Kizzire as he was a 15% tertiary play so there were some good things happening for us at the top of the leaderboard. Where things went a bit haywire were when a few keys golfers hurt us after the first round when the weather started to get a little bit tricky to deal with. Stewart Cink missed the cut by one shot which is always frustrating. He didn’t play especially bad, he just had one bad hole on Friday and couldn’t find one last birdie to over come the slow start. Nick Taylor again started off well on Thursday, but was also hurt by the weather on Friday and fell back to miss the cut. Luke List, like the other two, was in good shape after the first round, but then imploded with a triple bogey on Friday to fall back below the cut line. Finally, Chesson Hadley pulled a Paul Casey and withdrew after making the cut, the ultimate tilt moment for anyone who plays DFS golf. Those four golfers caused much pain for my lineups, but for the most part, the rest of the player pool did reasonably well with only a couple of others missing the cut.
Moving on to this week, there are a few things to consider when it comes to strategy for this event. Being that the tournament is held in Sea Island, this is one of those events each year where there is a ton of local flavor as many golfers make their home in the area, are members at courses in the area or went to school in the state of Georgia. As I like to mention from time to time, it is important to know where the players in the field are from each week and to see which guys have some local connections to the event. Where can you find this information? Two places work best. You can go to the PGA Tour Player Profile pages and look from player to player through its enormous database to check one by one to see where everyone is from, or you can simply visit our Player Database page in our PGA Tools drop down menu and check out the Excel spreadsheet that we built and maintain which will easily allow you to sort by name, college or residence.
Obviously, there is a certain comfort level for players who get to sleep in their own bed throughout the week while playing in a tournament. Not having to travel, deal with lodging and expenses and finding a place to get your net meal is certainly going to help with keeping many players relaxed this week. My worry, however, is that some may be a little more relaxed than we would like to see, especially this time of year. For many of the players with area ties here like Matt Kuchar, Zach Johnson and Kevin Kisner, they have already won in their career. While pride is certainly a motivating factor, if you look at the schedules for some of the players here this week, it’s been a little on the light side this fall. For Kevin Kinser, this will be his first competitive action since the President’s Cup eight weeks ago. He won here two years ago and as a Georgia boy, probably feels obliged to play here this week. Be a little careful in paying up for too many of these players as they certainly have the ability to play well, but may just be checking an obligatory box to satisfy friends, family and course officials if they are a member at Sea Island.
The type of player that I am looking for this week as I mentioned to Jeff on the podcast is a younger player or else someone who has been around for a few years, but is still in search of their first win on tour. The swing season is a huge opportunity for these types of players as the fields are still a little on the soft side without many of the elite players taking part and typically, the courses are also a little more on the friendly side for younger golfers with the biggest concern typically being if the winds pick up which tends to keep scores down. Last season, Mackenzie Hughes broke through to win during his rookie season on tour and prior to that, Kevin Kisner and Robert Streb each recorded their first wins on tour. While there are plenty of veteran players that make sense to use for the tournament this week, do not forget about those golfers who are going to be extra hungry in this final week of the fall season.
In taking a quick peak at the weather this week, it does not look like it is going to be a major factor. Now, as we’ve seen in recent weeks, this can change in an instant and be totally different by the time the players tee it up on Thursday morning, especially given that this is another coastal course, but right now, it looks like nothing more than some gusty winds Friday morning and into the early afternoon. Check back again before you make your final lineup selections, but as of now, I will be building my teams evenly around the tee times with some stacks on each side if one or the other proves to be more advantageous.
In looking at the course, or courses in this case, the RSM Classic plays out as a three and one style event with three rounds being played at the Seaside course and one of the first two rounds being played at the Plantation course. The Seaside course is a Par 70 that plays at around 7,000 yards with many short Par 4 holes and a couple of decent scoring opportunities on the Par 5’s. It is a links style course with wide fairways and undulating, Bermuda grass greens. The Plantation course is a very short, Par 72 and plays at around 7,050 yards. There are more scoring opportunities here, but also smaller greens. Overall, it’s been a very easy course to score on in the two years it has been in use for this event.
The key stats for the week from our friends at FGM are as follows:
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Strokes Gained Putting: 15%
Par 4 Scoring: 15%
Scrambling: 10%
Driving Accuracy: 5%
Prox 150-175: 5%
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