The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Shell Houston Open

It feels an awful lot like the last week of preseason football is upon us as the tour heads to Houston this weekend for the final tuneup before the biggest tournament of the season next week in Augusta. The biggest difference between this and the NFL, however, is that there is over $1 million up for grabs this week, FedEx Cup points, a three year exemption and a ticket to the Masters the following week, giving the vast majority of the field ample motivation to bring their ‘A’ game. To attract the top level players, the folks running the event in Houston have gone out of their way to make the course play in a somewhat similar fashion to Augusta allowing it to be used to fine tune certain aspects of their game that may be important the following week.

The DJ question was answered early on in the week with Dustin Johnson withdrawing from the event after winning his third tournament in a row last Sunday at the WGC Match Play in Austin, pushing it off another week where we will be forced to make what feels like an all or nothing decision regarding our exposure numbers. His game has improved from superb to elite over the last two seasons and it is difficult to steer clear of him even at 5-1 odds and the possibility of close to 40% ownership next week. Now, we fell into this trap in Mexico just a few weeks ago, but with two more wins under his belt and an air of invincibility surrounding him, it feels like a very special season is about to unfold with the potential to see something we have not witnessed since the most dominant days of Tiger Woods’s illustrious career. I’m going to move on from this for now and give my head another few days to ponder the decision until it is at hand.

For now, our attention shifts back to the less majestic landscapes of Houston where the most exciting part of the event could very well be in seeing if Grayson Murray can mount any sort of momentum in the early rounds in his quest to nail  meet Playboy model and Instagram sensation, Lindsey Pelas. In case you missed it last week, young Grayson, a budding social media star in his own right when he is not out missing cuts on the golf course, tweeted to Ms. Pelas asking if she would serve as his caddy for the Par 3 Contest at The Masters if he won in Houston, which as you all know by now, is the only way that he can qualify for it. Grayson definitely has the tools to win at some point this year after playing outstanding golf on the Web.com Tour last year, but it has yet to translate to the PGA Tour where he has missed the cut in six of eight starts in 2017. That Murray is a 350-1 long shot to win this week means that his chances of meeting the lovely Lindsey and playing at Augusta are only 0.286% better than mine. That made me laugh until I thought on it a little more….sigh

Enough of these daydreams, it is time to talk a little golf this week. Events right before majors are always a little bit tricky. It has nothing to do with the courses or atmosphere, but the fact that the top level players will have their eyes on Augusta leading to two big concerns. The first issue is whether or not we are going to get a full effort from the big names. Most of the times, it is not a problem and these guys go out there like professionals and play their best game….but not always. We have seen Henrik Stenson give up early at a WGC event, collecting a paycheck and claiming a ‘stomach ailment’ kept him from continuing midway through the opening round. We have seen Daniel Berger fire one shot and then exit out the back gate, $50k check in hand. Neither of these were before majors, but when Dustin Johnson played nine holes at the St Jude in 2015 and then withdrew due to an ‘illness’ it left a nice imprint on my cash game lineups for the week. Needless to say, I was not as disappointed as I may have otherwise been when he blew two putts on the last hole to either win or force a playoff at the US Open.

The other issue compounding our worries this week is that there are thunderstorms expected for Sunday. Now, this may or may not fully materialize, but the mere anticipation of this potential weather system is important. The guys playing at Augusta next week are looking to have their schedules disrupted as little as possible from the moment the tournament ends in Houston throughout all of the activities that take place all week at Augusta. Right now, there are whispering among the players of a possible Monday finish. Even if this does not happen, it is going to change the way the players approach the tournament. I would expect the top players to come out playing aggressively in the early rounds. If they fall back and there are delays that may sabotage their travel plans, it would not shock me to see someone pull the ripcord to make an early exit. This is a double edged sword for us in that aggressive can be bad, but it can also be really good if a star gets off to a hot start and finds himself near the top of the leaderboard after the 3rd Round. While nobody will want to put their Augusta plans on hold, few will have a problem doing so if they have a chance to take down a tournament and all of the money and accolades that come with it.

For my preview of the course this week, I am going to borrow some notes from long time subscriber, Austin Greenway who will be out at the course on Wednesday for the practice rounds. Austin was kind enough to reach out to offer some assistance this week and will be tweeting from the course on Wednesday beginning in the morning and going up until the rains come in late in the morning or early afternoon. Normally, I am a little cautious about this sort of thing, but in Austin’s case, he has played on the course several times so he has a little bit of extra knowledge that should help us out as he watches the players prepare. We set up a twitter page (@FGIPractice) where Austin has already started to share a little bit of information about the course. For those of you old folks that are not on Twitter (this part is for you, Dad), here is a synopsis of what he has shared so far:

The course has a good mix of long/short holes but water is in play off the tee on most of the holes so accuracy is key. However, the rough will be basically non-existent so missing the fairway won’t be as penal. Greens aren’t very undulating so putting will be a bit easier than most weeks, IMO. Par-5’s are definite birdie holes and most players will have a chance at reaching them in 2, so longer hitters will have chances at eagles. The course definitely favors a right-to-left ball flight as most holes curve or dogleg to the left. Sides of greens are shaved down so anything long or left/right will run off. Also TONS of greenside bunkers.

The Golf Club of Houston is over 7,400 yards and plays as a Par 72. The greens are Bermuda grass but are seeded with bentgrass (to make it play more similar to Augusta) so that it plays much closer to bent than Bermuda which is important when looking at putting splits for the week. There is water in play on many holes so that if the winds are up, players will be penalized for getting too aggressive. As Austin mentioned, there are a good mix of shorter and longer holes with four of the Par 4 holes coming in at under 400 yards, four that are over 450 yards and two right in between which should mean that short iron play is going to be very important, especially considering that from what I have read from one tour player this week that the course is playing longer than normal and that only one of the Par 5 holes is definitely reachable and that 95% of the field will have trouble getting to the other three in two shots. Although approach play is not specifically mentioned in the key stats this week, keep that thought in mind as this information comes directly from a player who has been out and about on the course the last couple of days.

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

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Par 5 Scoring: 20%
Strokes Gained Putting: 15%
Proximity: 15%
Scrambling: 5%

From a strategy perspective this week, there are a lot of good players that are priced very affordably. You should be able to make some high quality rosters without having to dive too far into the deep end. The odds versus pricing page is absolutely popping with value plays again this week and as we have seen in the past, this can be one of the best ways to diversify your teams if you are worried about being too chalky. Grab a couple of the names that are expected to be lower owned and have a big disparity and load them onto your GPP rosters. You will be surprised at how this can help you to add value to your player pool. I feel comfortable playing my normal bankroll exposure this week. Many players will say they are going to pull back, but my guess is that by Wednesday night, the contests on DK will be full as always with plenty of secondary contests filling up. These people filled up events for the Puerto Rico Open so having some big names at the top is definitely not going to slow anyone down. Be sure to keep checking back in to the site throughout the weekend. As we put the SHO to bed over the next day or two, we will immediately begin to upload content for The Masters. Geoff Fienberg and myself plan to do our big podcast sometime on either Friday or Saturday so that you will have an extra day or two to get our takes for next week and any last minute long shots that suddenly strike our fancy. We are getting to the heart of the golf season and could not be more excited. As always, please feel free to e-mail us anytime with any strategy questions or lineup decisions and Jeff or myself will always reply directly. Jeff is almost through with tax season here so he will be returning from his zombified state over the next few weeks. Good luck this week and be sure to keep us updated on any exciting sweats you have going or any big scores that you bring in!

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