The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Travelers Championship
Another US Open in the books and as always, it provided plenty of entertainment and plenty of controversy. When the dust settled on Sunday and the late pairings finally made their way to the course, we actually witnessed some of the best golf of the year as the course had just the right amount of bite to it to make it a formidable foe, but not so much that it became a circus the way it did on Saturday afternoon. Early on, Tommy ‘Mr Sunday’ Fleetwood looked like he might pull off one of the great comebacks of all-time when he fired a 63, which easily could have been a 61 had the moment not finally caught up to him over the final three holes. I tend to stay quiet these days on Sundays during the final round of events, but I could not help myself in tweeting out late in his round that if he could post a score of +1 that it may well be good enough to win the tournament. Of course, the folks on Twitter scoffed, but by the end of the round, Brooks stood atop, having played a really gutsy final round where he held his composure on a number of occasions when a poor tee shot or approach seemed destined to knock him off track.
Koepka found ways to save par and even fought for bogeys when it looked like things were about to go off track which is what the US Open is all about. This was all the more impressive in that he was paired with DJ who played exceptionally well for three of four rounds. Even on Sunday, much of what DJ was doing impressed me as his tee to green game was sharp. Once again, it was his putter that let him down late as he missed two short putts that he wishes he had back that could have kept him even with his good friend, Brooks. Patrick Reed was also on his game on Sunday as he charged into the lead with five early birdies. He fell back after losing momentum and missing a short par putt on the 9th hole and never was able to fight back after dropping a couple of additional shots on the back nine, but overall putting on a fine followup performance after winning at Augusta two months ago.
In terms of the picks last week, I was pleased overall with the player pool that I had. We had lots of shares of Brooks, DJ, Rose, Stenson, Reed and Fleetwood who all finished near the top. The one guy we desperately needed to put us over the top was Tony Finau who I faded which hurt us. Nearly every lineup that won or placed near the top included Finau. I felt okay about the fade going into Saturday as he was nowhere near contending, but he took advantage of being in the earlier wave that day and found a 66 while others were getting killed for much of the day. I cannot remember exactly where he stood in the standings when he finished his round, but he started the day eleven strokes behind DJ and by the time the carnage had ended on Saturday, he was tied for the lead along with Daniel Berger who he was in the final pairing with on Sunday. Never before in my life as a golf fan have I ever witnessed something like that where such a huge gap was overcome, largely without touching a club over the last few hours while those who were leading struggling to do anything positive on greens with tough pin placements that dried out and made it play like putting marbles on an ice rink as putts that just missed the cup found ways to roll off the green….or not, as was the case with Phil Mickelson. I was not sure how Finau would handle the setup and if wild tee shots would sink him, but he stayed composed and as always, handled the poa grass greens well. I just need to note that when we have a chance to get Tony on poa, we need to go with it for at least a few shares.
Overall, we really only had a few disappointing picks that hurt us. Jon Rahm once again looked lost at the US Open. It’s strange that he has struggled so much with this style of layout as he has had some success with links style courses, including a win in Ireland, but so far, his temperament has not helped him with the difficult challenges posed by how the USGA sets up the course for this event each year and it has been downright ugly the last two years. Another player that hurt us was Matt Kuchar. I knew going in that Kuch had not been playing quite as well as previous years, but I also knew that he was still less than a year removed from nearly winning The Open Championship last summer and had played really well at American links style setups over the years. With his experience and the fact that he had made 19 cuts in his last 20 starts in major tournaments, it was definitely a surprise to see him miss and miss as badly as he did. Finally, another player that I really liked going into the week, Emiliano Grillo ended up missing the cut. He started in the tougher of the two waves for the week and fell back on Friday. He fought back with two late birdies to get to +9, but ended up missing the cut by just one stroke. It was his first missed cut of the season and perhaps in the end, the length was a bit much, but I think overall the conditions were what did him in. The PM/AM wave played 2.24 strokes worse than the AM/PM wave so I am not going to dwell on the miss from him as I think he will only improve moving forward.
What was really disappointing for me last week is that I had so many of the players that we needed to make a big run, but somehow, did not manage to get them all on one team. Koepka, Reed, Stenson, Fleetwood, Casey…..I owned them all at a nice clip, but not all together. I managed to cash with 37 out of my 100 Millionaire Maker lineups, but still ended up just short of a profit for that particular GPP while fairing slightly better in two other events to be about even for the week. It is a great illustration as to why the MM is a fun event to focus on, but typically not the most profitable to try to chase down. On the cash game front, 15 of the 18 picks that I listed did make the cut and since Brooks was a featured pick, that should have helped out, but I know that two other featured plays in Kuchar and Grillo missed so while the pieces were certainly there, if you happened to use both of those players, it made your road much tougher. In the end, it was a fun week with plenty of ups and downs and the usual hand wringing from most of the players about the course. I am excited for next year as Jeff and I plan to head down to Pebble Beach for the US Open next summer. It will be a nice break from some of the more dreary looking courses that we’ve seen in recent years and one that the players are all pretty familiar with. It is hosted there about every ten years and the USGA always does a nice job making it play much tougher than what we normally see each year when the tour stops there.
Moving on after a major can be a little bit of a hangover for us at times, but this week, I am actually feeling more excited than usual as The Travelers Championship has one of the better fields for a non-major tournament that we are going to see all summer. Perhaps this is due to the proximity of Shinnecock, but we have a group at the top that filled with elite names. Where the RBC Heritage following The Masters has a beautiful course and plenty of mid-tier talent that make it fun, we get a field this week full of stars which helps enormously in terms of how DraftKings prices out players for the week. Even if you think that the very best players might have trouble focusing on a second tier event, DraftKings has a very strict system with pricing so that by having those elite players here helps to keep mid level players from experiencing a bit of price inflation.
In taking a look at the weather this week, we have a rare event where it appears that winds are a non-factor and should be fairly light for both Thursday and Friday. While this is something that you can ignore if you like, I do highly suggest that you still take the time to do some stacking on each wave, building 5-10% of your teams to each side. On weeks like this, many other players will skip this step, but we have seen weather shifts this season where there ended up being multiple stroke differences between the waves when at the outset, there was no clear advantage. When you are diligent with your process and do not overlook these small steps, you start to gain an edge over your more carefree opponents. Remember, you’re building your player pool first and then selecting your stacks based on golfers you already had planned to play so the only thing you are doing is organizing your teams to work with the tee times, not chasing after players simply due to tee times.
TPC River Highlands is very different than the courses we have seen over the last few months as it comes in at 6,841 yards, making it one of the shortest courses of the season. As it is a Par 70 course, there are just two Par 5 holes, but both are very manageable and should each yield plenty of scoring opportunities. Most of the courses we have dealt with in recent months have been on the longer side with many Par 4 holes above 450 yards, but this week we have the reverse and only two are above 450 while on the opposite end, we actually have two Par 4 holes under 400 yards, one of which is even listed just under 300 yards which is always exciting as players will have the chance to drive the green to set up eagle opportunities. It is another Pete Dye layout which means that the fairways will be on the narrow side and much of the time lined with trees. Due to the shorter length of the course, there will not be many holes that call for driver this week so when you are looking at driving accuracy numbers, although the fairways are narrow and certain players tend to normally be wild, realize that with an iron in hand off the tee, those accuracy numbers are much less relevant which is why a player like Bubba Watson can still excel even if it seems a little counter intuitive in looking at the course. This is the first week in some time where the short to mid-range iron play will be the priority of our focus this week. With the shorter Par 4 holes, most approach shots should be coming in the 125-150 and 150-175 yard range. The greens this week are bentgrass and much slower than what we’ve seen in recent weeks. For an even more thorough look at the course, always be sure to check out Adam Daly’s course preview, The First Tee each week as he does an excellent job with specific details that you will not get anywhere else.
Key Stats:
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 25%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 15%
Par 4 Scoring: 10%
Scrambling: 10%
Proximity: 10%
Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 5%
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