The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Waste Management Phoenix Open
The Farmers Insurance Open again lived up to the hype last week and produced another outstanding tournament. With Aaron ‘Juice’ Johnson and Erik ‘Statboy’ Dantoft along with me for the weekend, we had a blast walking the course and getting to see some of our favorite golfers play a few rounds. I have to give a big shout out to the PGA for making this event and so many others extremely pro military. Not only was I able to get in for free all four days, I was given four free passes each day for my guests. On top of that, they had a tent set up on the green of the Par 5, 13th hole on the South Course with free food and beverages that we were able to enjoy throughout the weekend. It’s amazing that all over the country at many events, this is something that the PGA does routinely for those who are in the military currently, or those who have served previously. I know that I have a tendency to complain about the way the television coverage is handled at times, but I also have to give them credit when they create an experience like the one I was able to enjoy at Torrey Pines this past weekend.
Overall, for the weekend, it was a case of hitting my cash games perfectly on the head with all players from my team sailing through the cut, while getting smacked around a bit with some of my bigger GPP teams as Rickie’s unfortunate demise ruined what started out as a very promising week. I realize that within the industry, Tim Anderson is well known for being a living, breathing curse, but I have always felt like my own Black Magic is vastly underrated. My mushing power was again on full display this past week as my group headed over to the North Course, late Thursday morning to catch up to the action and to pick up the group of Rickie Fowler, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. Rickie was -4 at the time and headed up the fairway on 17 (they started on the back nine) for his approach shot on a not so difficult Par 5. I featured Rickie last week in my GPP plays as not having traveled overseas the prior week made him a much more compelling play for me as I thought he would be able to match his play from the first few years at the course when he’d been very solid. Unfortunately, for Rickie, as soon as I began to follow him, the wheels came off for him completely and he managed to shoot +4 over the last ten holes to give back all of the birdies that he had racked up over the first eight holes. To add insult to injury, although I did not follow him on Friday as I chose to plant myself in the tent after walking 7 miles on Thursday, he managed to make an absolute mess of the 13th hole on Friday and posted a bogey, which is tough to do on a hole where nearly everyone at least was getting an attempt at a birdie putt.
It was an interesting result for the tournament with Jason Day flashing some form and fighting through extreme discomfort as he’s dealing with some back issues. After seeing him noticeably wincing on Thursday and struggling to get through his round, I was shocked that he ended the weekend on top and was able to fight through a challenging six hole playoff with Alex Noren. After Day pulled out of the ProAm, I just could not get myself to get onboard with Day. We’ve seen him look vulnerable before leading up to events and the results usually are not good. I remember two years ago before the Farmers, he had been sick in the days leading up to the tournament, ended up playing, but missed the cut. Typically, when his health is in question, he’s been one to avoid, but he battled hard over the last three rounds and posted one of his most impressive wins on tour, all things considered. Once again, the key takeaway, which I can never quite seem to implement well enough: When few are talking about Jason Day and low ownership is projected, be a buyer. When the community is all-in on Day and chasing after a good performance or two, make the call to fade him. Day was only $9,400 last week and was only owned at a range of around 12-15% across most contests. It’s still hard to get behind him when back issues are causing him such problems so I don’t feel terrible about staying away, but there was some value there from a talent standpoint as well as a low ownership play so grabbing 10% shares for a small dollar, multi-entry buy-in would have been a prudent approach.
Moving on to this week, the tour makes one of our favorite stops of the year at TPC Scotsdale for the Waste Management Phoenix Open where about 500,000 crazy fans come to gather each year for one on the more raucous events on tour. Known for the famous stadium on the 16th hole, golfers will enter to cheers all weekend, but will also feel the jeers if they fail to put their tee shots on the green. It’s a Par 71 course and plays at over 7,250 yards. Although the 16th hole is one of the most famous in all of golf, the course actually has a number of other holes that are equally compelling from a golf perspective, including the island green, Par 5, 15th hole as well as the driveable, Par 4, 17th hole where Rickie Fowler gave away the tournament two years ago by managing to actually drive it all the way across the green and into the water, opening the door for Hideki to move in for a late comeback victory. It’s a desert course with wide, easy to hit fairways. While there isn’t much in terms of trees around the course, for those players who do miss the fairways, there is a lot of nasty brush and vegetation that can swallow up errant shots and turn otherwise easy holes into big numbers in a hurry. The key here is to stay patient and not get too tempted to try to do too much. The three Par 5 holes offer plenty of scoring opportunities and with a shorter Par 4 and a couple of short Par 3’s, if players can stay out of the water and away from cacti, they have a good blueprint for success this week. This has also been a course where substandard putters have been able to have success in recent years so I will put much more emphasis on approach play than putting this week.
Key Stats:
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Scrambling Prox: 15%
Par 5 Scoring: 10%
Proximity 150-175 yards: 5%
Proximity: 5%
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