The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Travelers Championship
We are off to a really great start to the season with our first two majors in the books. Sergio Garcia and Brooks Koepka are now winners of major tournaments and it continues the streak of first time major winners going back to Jason Day at the PGA Championship in 2015. There were a number of interesting stories that unfolded throughout the tournament, but none more startling than the scores going as low as the did which was all the more surprising considering the number of highly ranked players that missed the cut. DJ, Rory, Jason Day, Jon Rahm, Justin Rose and Adam Scott led the list of great players who were unable to crack the code at Erin Hills while younger players like Koepka, Thomas, Reed, Matsuyama and Fleetwood shined.
Jeff and I enjoyed the experience of Erin Hills. Our good friends at Fantasy Golf Metrics hooked us up on Friday with tickets for the Lexus Club on the fairway of the 18th hole which was an incredible experience. The weather was hot on both Friday and Saturday and walking the course was exhausting as the entire way is up and down hills over a very long course. With the wide fairways and fescue, going from the beginning to the end of the course with a group covered about 10 miles of walking. We definitely earned our steaks each night. The club experience was a lot of fun and with free food and cocktails available all day along with televisions covering the walls, we had a nice split between walking and relaxing.
After Jason Day finished a rough second round and missed the cut, he stopped by our tent and did an interview and also took time to talk to fans and take pictures and sign autographs. Clearly there is a good deal of sponsorship money that comes to players from companies like Lexus, but Day really was a class act and took at least an hour of time to talk to folks. Wesley Bryan followed that up by coming in and talking about a rough first US Open experience, but did it with a smile and was equally courteous. I thanked him on behalf of the DFS community as well as those who bet outrights for his great performance in winning at The Heritage while letting him know that his win at 66-1 odds had paid a lot of folks very well. He laughed and seemed amused by the number.
The course itself definitely fooled a lot of folks who thought it would be more of a challenge for the players last week. The lack of winds throughout the event definitely played a big roll in all of the scoring that took place. Much like Whistling Straits in 2015 where there was also very little wind to contend with, a links style course without its defense is a place where players can put up some incredible scores. The elevated tee boxes also added a lot to the length that players were able to get off the tees. While all of the Par 5’s were over 600 yards and played that way for most of the weekend, the holes played shorter for the most part as there were plenty of opportunities to get to the green in two and with the couple of shorter Par 4’s available, there were many more scoring opportunities than ever before at a US Open venue. The fescue played tough as advertised, but with it getting slashed before the tournament due to the accumulation of precipitation, the fairways were even wider than expected and overall, the tall grass rarely came into play.
When it was over, we had witnessed a record breaking performance. Justin Thomas fired the best round in US Open history. Brooks Koepka equaled the lowest recorded score to tie Rory McIlroy and overall, it produced the lowest scoring US Open overall in history. We probably will not see the event head back to Erin Hills in the future. While it was an incredible event, I think most of us really enjoy the typical setup for the event with narrow fairway, long rough, fast greens and trouble at every turn. I am sure the USGA will hear about this from golf fans, but overall, I really enjoyed the event. It is fun to see different and interesting courses from time to time and to watch how players handle the new challenges. Obviously, despite the fact that there was plenty of scoring, the course still managed to take out plenty of big players and by the end of it, none of the players priced above $10k outside of Rickie Fowler were anywhere near contention. Hopefully, the midwest will get another shot at hosting this prestigious event again in the future.
Fortunately, we are into the heart of the golf season which means that although this is a DFS hangover week, we are only a few weeks away from The Open Championship which is always an exciting experience and gives us a great chance to watch what happens to the PGA players when they have to go contend with what is always challenging weather over in the United Kingdom each year. We have four tournaments prior to The Open: Travelers Championship, Quicken Loans, Greenbrier and the John Deere Classic. We should see some decent fields, but mostly these tend to be a little sparse in terms of the top players attending. Fortunately, this week, we have a much deeper field than what I would normally anticipate with several top players taking part in this tournament where they would normally skip it to rest up.
Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Jordan Spieth all have to be feeling frustrated over the results at the US Open last weekend. Day and McIlroy were blown off the course and were never in the mix at any point with each missing the cut by a considerable margin. Rory, to his credit, made a small, late run on Friday, but was still four shots off the cut line, while Day was without a pulse throughout the tournament. Rory’s performance is at least somewhat understandable. He was returning from rib/back injury and had played in just one event since The Masters. He was also using a new putter as he just has not been able to consistently find his putting stroke over the last two seasons for any extended period of time. Day, on the other hand, is beginning to concern me with his iron play. Obviously, he was dealing with personal issues at the start of the season, but he seems in good spirits as his mother’s prognosis has improved. However, he just has not found his touch from the fairway and it is mind boggling to see him post such awful numbers on his approach shots. It will be interesting to see if he can work through it this week. Jordan Spieth seemed like the type of player who would flourish on a second shot type of course like Erin Hills, but his putter just has not been as brilliant as it was over the last two years. He could not find any momentum in the first two rounds and then was stuck in the early wave the last two days which proved to be the tougher draw for scoring. His performance on Sunday was encouraging in that while many players were wiped out by the winds that morning, he played his best round at shot -3, helping him to move up the leaderboard and giving him something positive to build on as he focuses on the next tournament.
These three are the big favorites this week coming into TPC River Highlands, a course that plays at only 6,840 yards and is a Par 70. The course has a much more traditional setup than last week and was designed by Pete Dye so we have a few correlation courses to compare it to (The Heritage/The Players/Zurich/PGA West) and some knowledge of players that handle his type of setup well. The fairways are narrower, but most players will club down to take driver out of their hands which means that on average, more fairways are hit than normal. There are eight Par 4 holes on the course between 400-450 yards meaning that we have some meaningful metrics to look at in terms of scoring and approach shots this week with many key shots coming from the 150-175 yards range. The greens are bentgrass and much slower than what we have seen over the last few weeks. Putting is still important, but considering the fact that Bubba has won here twice and Russell Knox won the event last year, this is a course where being in position often enough is as important as being a good putter. Players who want to win this week will have to finds ways to score as this event always sees a lot of birdies posted throughout the week, although the scores are kept out of the crazy range due to water being in play on many parts of the course.
The key stats for the week:
Strokes Gained Tee to Green – 25%
Strokes Gained Putting – 20%
Birdie or Better Percentage – 20%
Par 4 Scoring – 15%
Proximity – 10%
Driving Distance – 10% (not quite sure how this popped, but I trust the FGM crew and their regression analysis)
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