The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Valero Texas Open
Si Woo Kim nearly struck again last week as he does about once each season these days and had it not been for a particularly poor putting display over the final round on Sunday, he would have been able to claim his third title on tour in as many years, an astounding feat that only a small circle of players have achieved. Unfortunately for Kim, Satoshi Kodaira snatched away the win in a playoff by sinking a lengthy birdie putt to secure his first win on tour and changing his professional life for at least the next several years. The RBC Heritage proved again to be a rather successful event for me despite the fact that just a few hours after posting my column, Adam Hadwin, one of my favorite plays of the week, elected to withdraw for reasons that I have not yet seen and this obviously forced a good deal of reshuffling for my core as well as my cash game teams for the week. Fortunately, the other players that I wrote about as cash game selections all made the cut and for the most part, delivered a solid performance.
We did also see a few course horses that needed to be put out to pasture this past week. After a brilliant run of posting incredible finishes year after year, the Luke Donald Harbor Town train was derailed on Friday afternoon. He played miserably on Thursday afternoon in the opening round and was +5 and looked lost, but then on Friday, he began to turn it around. By the final hole of the day, all Donald needed to do was to find one more birdie to pull himself back to Even par for the week which would be just enough to get him through to the weekend. He hit an amazing approach shot which left him just inside five feet for a birdie put which would cap off a remarkable comeback and keep his tournament alive. However, the one part of Donald’s game that is not in a state of total disrepair, his putter, let him down and he missed the short birdie opportunity and was done prematurely for the event.
Of course, this does not mean that the idea of using course history should disappear. These sorts of runs do not go on endlessly as we’ve seen demonstrated by any athlete in every sport since the beginning of time. Ben Crenshaw won twice at Augusta, but if he entered the field today, I can safely say that I would be able to keep myself from drafting him. Same thing with Freddie Couples, he won back in 1992, but he couldn’t still make the cut there…..oh wait, there just might be something to the fact that Freddie did in fact make his 30th cut this year at Augusta. But the point is that at some point, no matter how good a player has been at a given course, it is not going to last forever. In the case of Luke Donald, I still held a few shares in lingering hopes that he had one more run in him, but it was almost contrarian by that point as so many others had already moved on. Outside of his putting, the rest of his game is in tatters and he is but a shell of the former #1 player in the world which he achieved back in 2011.
It’s so important to be able to see both the trends in a player’s game as well as where his game should fit with certain courses. We never want to be overly reliant on one single factor when it comes to evaluating players from one week to the next. A players may be in great form, but if he’s making his debut at Augusta, that should give you pause. Likewise, if a player has not made a cut on tour in months, it may not be advisable to load up on him even if he has won an event at the current course for the week. We’ve seen Steven Bowditch win twice down in Texas where Aussies seem to thrive every year, but that does not mean I’ll be taking a deep dive on him this week. We look at course history to help us to better understand how a golfer’s style of play translates to certain courses. Sometimes, it all makes perfect sense. You see a player like Jim Furyk who is a shorter hitter, but accurate and who can hit greens precisely and wouldn’t you know it, he just happens to do well at Harbor Town. Then there are players who show up on courses year after year and do really well, but there is nothing in their game that would indicate that they should be successful there. It’s important to know if there are specific reasons like style of play that are involved as it should allow us to rely more on a golfer’s history rather than the random outlier who has a few great years in a row, but nothing that we can point to as a reason why.
This week, the tour returns to Texas where we will make several stops this season for one of the trickier events of the year, the Valero Texas Open down in San Antonio, Texas. This marks the fourth year that I have covered this event and it’s never one that plays out according to plan. There are always weather issues that come into play when dealing with golf in Texas this time of year. If they waited until summer, the heat would be too much to handle, but in the spring, that tends to be the time when there are a lot of high winds, rain or storms which obviously has a massive impact on scoring as well as how we want to construct our rosters this week. Back in 2015, I was among the crowd that used to go about building my DFS golf lineups as if the event were taking place under a retractable roof. I put the best players out that I liked and did not organize my teams in any meaningful manner figuring that the weather probably would not harm any wave so dramatically as to impact the outcome of a tournament. That was until this event took place in March of 2015. The weather was so terrible during the morning wave on Thursday that there was nearly a four shot difference in scoring. Very few Thursday AM players went on to make the cut and most of my teams were at least partially sliced up due to this inattention to detail. From that point forward, I have always made it a habit to check the weather each day leading up to the tournament and particularly for those events where I know weather has previously been a factor.
In taking a look at the weather this week, it is no surprise that the winds are going to be a big problem for anyone teeing off on Thursday morning. The winds will be around 15-17 mph, but with gusts as high as 37 mph lasting all the way up to noon before slowly dropping off throughout the rest of the day. Friday morning will still see gusts reach the mid 20 mph range, but not nearly as challenging as Thursday morning. There is a very clear advantage to building PM/AM teams this week and I would say 30% of your teams should be constructed this way with 5% being the other way just in case something changes. If you are only building one lineup this week like some on our staff enjoy doing, I would highly recommend trying to take advantage of the weather as much as possible. There is no guarantee that this will pay off, but it if one wave has an edge by a stroke, it’s worth trying to take advantage of this week. Furthermore, if you do enjoy the single day contest events, this is a week to jump in. You want to look for events where the weather will play a big factor and this is one I would circle on my calendar every year. For Thursday, I want you to focus on those players with the latest possible tee times as the winds will improve all afternoon and into the evening. On Friday, those players who tee off first in the afternoon wave should have a small advantage over those who do not get to go until the end of the day, but it’s not huge so if you cannot find six players teeing off right at noon, I would not be too worried about it. Here is an hour by hour forecast (select superforecast if not already) for Thursday and Friday: https://www.windfinder.com/weatherforecast/san_antonio_intl_airport
For the course, the players this week are faced with the very challenging TPC San Antonio which is over 7,400 yards and is a Par 72. While many longer courses have more open fairways, that’s not the case this week as these will be on the narrow side which will bring total driving into play. Unlike Houston, where the fairways are also narrow, but the rough is nearly non-existent, here there is a lot of natural vegetation, thorny trees and scrub and brush somewhat similar to what you see around desert courses, but thicker. I’m sure by now, nearly all of you have heard about Kevin Na on the Par 4, 9th hole in 2011, but if you by chance have missed it over the years, I’ll put the link right here as this actually gives you a good idea of the type of forest that is prevalent along the course. We want players who can get the right combination of length and accuracy off the tee this week and many will have to do that by clubbing down from driver again so we really want to focus on the long iron players this week as well as approach play. Start looking at the 175-200 and 200+ ranges for approach play and then also work back down as many players will be in that 100-150 range for their third shot on the lengthy Par 5 holes this week. Scores tend to stay in the single digit range so that should mute some of the worries about putting even though it does show up every week in the key stats. Players will not have to make birdies this week to win, but they will need to stay focused on avoiding the big numbers if they want to contend. In looking at our previous two winners here in Charley Hoffman and Kevin Chappell, you can see that much of what we are looking for is what these two do well, despite not being particularly adept with the flat stick. For a more detailed breakdown of the course, be sure to read Adam Daly’s awesome preview right here.
Key Stats
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 25%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 15%
Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 10%
Scrambling: 10%
Proximity: 10%
Proximity 150-175 Yards: 5%
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