The Daily Spin – Draftkings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – The Players Championship

The world’s best players will gather together in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida this week for what some love to call the ‘unofficial 5th Major’ of the year. And although there are those who absolutely hate that term, it certainly does bridge the gap perfectly between The Master and the US Open. It’s an event that I always really look forward to watching although in the world of daily fantasy, it can be guy wrenching. The event has been played at the same course now for the last 35 years and yet at some point, it has managed to trip up even the best players in the world in one year or another.

This is one of those events each year where I tend to let myself chase a little extra GPP action than normal. The last two years have seen the chalk get roughed up in a big way and there are so few players here each year that are truly capable of being consistent, that I would rather take a look at some of the bigger GPP contests that are available for the week. I am sure that I will still be involved in plenty of cash games this week as it tends to be a great hedge against a rough GPP week, but you really want to focus on quality this week in cash games and in trying not to chase down those value trap type of golfers who look great in stretches, but when they are tested at a tough course, their game goes to pieces.

This should also be a great event for weekend golf. The cut here is usually really brutal and will always take out plenty of big names. However, those who do get through the cut will give you a chance to try out our new weekend model which Statboy (@edantoft) and I have been working on very carefully over the last month. We have spotted a few areas where we have really been able to capitalize on the over or underperformance of players from the first two rounds. The odds and some simple re-weighting of the key stats helps to elevate the right players to focus on each week. We will not always track down the darkhorses out there and with scoring as tight as it is, you will need to be perfect to win in GPP contests. However, our goal is to play the same lineups in both cash and GPP contests knowing that our lineups will be better than our fellow competitors, but may not reach the top in order to win those tightly contested GPPs. Either way, we are going to be profitable, it is just a matter of whether or not we hit he exact right players, or just a pool that performs well enough to finish in the top half of most contests.

The course was designed by the immortal man himself, Pete Dye and opened back in 1980 and soon after, began hosting The Players Championship in 1982. Originally, the course was hated by the players who spoke out immediately about how difficult it was to navigate. However, the following year, changes were made and over time the course was developed into the beautiful specimen that it is today. The course plays out at around 7,200 yards and is a Par 72. There are four Par 5’s and four Par 3’s on the course making it seem like a pretty standard layout.

Three of the Par 5 holes will be reachable in two shots for a large number of the field, yielding some great risk/reward opportunities. There is a mixed range of distances for the Par 4 holes with several being under 400 yards and the redesigned 12th hole will actually play right around 300 yards this year where players will be incentivized to drive the green or be faced with a challenging second shot if they layup. I always enjoy watching players attack drivable Par 4’s as they tend to create some extra drama, especially when there is water nearby. Expect there to be plenty of birdies, a few eagles and a bunch of disgusted players who find the water.

Of course, the featured hole that the course is most known for is the island green on the Par 3, 17th hole. It is only 137 yards in length, but it is on the mind of every player long before they even step on the course. Last year, Russell Knox seemed to be in control and was cruising towards one of the final tee times on Sunday until he stepped up to the 17th and blasted three straight shots into the water on his way to posting an 80 for the round. He managed to shoot below 70 in all three of his other rounds, but was daggered badly enough by that debacle that he finished out of contention.

Unfortunately, for the players, the 17th hole is not the only portion of the course that plays difficultly. Water will be in play on almost every hole. The fairways are long, narrow and lined by marshes, waste bunkers and the always ominous pot bunkers (a bunker with steeper edges). The greens tend to play very fast although last year, it was quite odd in that after the second round, the folks handling the course must have decided that scoring was far too easy in the first two rounds and decided to shave the greens down to nothing to make them play excessively fast and crushing scores on moving day. Of all the players to stand out for the day, old man, Ken Duke fired an incredible 65 on a day when the rest of the field averaged 75.59. It was probably the second best round of the year behind that of Brandt Snedeker at Torrey Pines in the final round, playing through atrocious winds.

This is certainly not a course for the timid. Unlike many of the other courses that we see on a regular basis with the top names in the world, this is not a driver course for the most part. Players will need to club down to make sure that they are in good position off the tee in order to hit greens with their approach shots. Players who are wayward off the tee are going to find trouble. Dustin Johnson, the current World #1, has never finished higher than 28th here and Jordan Spieth has missed the cut the last two years. I was a huge backer of Brooks Koepka during his rookie season and remember all too well the ride he took me on two years ago in his first start here. After falling seven or eight strokes off the cut line due to going into the water on multiple occasions, he stormed back the following day, missing the cut by just a single stroke. There are plenty of opportunities to score here, but the risks usually outweighs the rewards and usually catches up with bombers. They break through from time to time, like Rickie Fowler did back in 2015, when he played one of the finest rounds of the season on Sunday on his way to a title. However, he has also missed the cut in five of his seven starts here as well.

So who does typically play well at TPC Sawgrass? Ball strikers. The players that come to mind when you think of the best ball strikers on tour are among the select few that have course history in their favor. Players like Sergio Garcia, Henrick Stenson, Hideki Matsuyama and Russell Knox seem to be able to work around most of the issues that get in the way of most of the bigger hitters. Rory McIlroy, who lives in Florida, is one of the bombers that has grown comfortable with the course in recent years, but it has been boom or bust for many others. We are looking for players this week who are able to minimize mistakes. In looking over the key stats for the week, Birdie or Better Percentage is as low as I have ever seen it over the last couple of years for any event. That shows us that it is more important to stay out of trouble than it is to go after opportunities to score. This is probably the reason why players like Rickie Fowler are able to either dominate on weeks where the risks do not catch up with them or bow out by Friday afternoon.

As of now, the initial weather check reveals nothing to worry about for the opening couple of rounds. Winds may pick up over the weekend, but as of now, it is expected to be hot, but with light winds the first two days. PM/AM tee times may have a slight advantage with winds climbing to 14 mph by Friday afternoon, but at the most, I would stack only 10% or so of my tee times and maybe 5% AM/PM times. I will only be doing that for my $4 GPP teams where I will have 150 lineups. There is little talk of weather this week so if things do change late, we will at least have a few teams that will have some additional benefit. As I noted on the webcast this week, even if we advocate stacking tee times, that does not mean you do it across the board. Typically, if the weather looks to be a strong factor for one set of tee times, I will stack 30-40% of my lineups for the time appearing to be favorable and 10% for the less favorable times to be a little contrarian in loading up on golfers who go overlooked. Try not to fight the weather too much. If there are players who line up really well for the course, do not discard them simply due to weather. Some people skipped over players like Jon Rahm last week (although he was one of my highest owned players) just due to the Twitterverse going crazy over winds. Have a consistent game plan for dealing with weather and do not panic. Look for opportunities, but try not to overreact. Remember, in any case, you should always be using the players that you targeted from the outset and not just due to their tee time.

The key stats for the week come to us from our friends at Fantasy Golf Metrics:

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 35%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Scrambling: 20%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 10%
Proximity 150-175 yards: 10%
Driving Accuracy: 5%

This is a huge week. We gave out plenty of FGI gear last week to a few folks that are flying our avatar on DraftKings or FanDuel for all to see. It has been a lot of fun to see Team FGI up in the standings each week so keep it going this week. If you need help loading up our avatar, let me know and I will assist you as we are giving away prizes and merchandise for those who represent the team well and the bigger the event, the more excited we are to share some of what we have collected in our vault of gear. I might even still have a few things left over from my trip to Augusta….

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