The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview Weekend Edition – BMW Championship

The first two days of the BMW Championship are in the books and as always, today felt a little strange without a cut sweat to get us excited. This was fortunate for those of us who own some DJ teams this week as it appears that he believes this is a bye for him and his plan looks to be to conserve energy for the Tour Championship next week in Atlanta. One fortunate consequence of the tight pricing was that it made it impossible to roster him with Rickie or Spieth so any of your teams that are anchored by those gentlemen should be safe from DJ’s mess. As usual with these types of playoff events, it always takes a few days for the leaderboard to shake out. Keegan Bradley got off to a blistering start, but turned back into Keegan Bradley today and fell back to the middle of the pack. Henrik Stenson started slowly yesterday, but then looked great today in moving back up a few places. Things seem to be evening out going into the weekend, but there are a few things to consider now that moving day has arrived.

There was obviously no cut for the event today which is nice in that we are going to get two more rounds out of all of our players, but I am a little wary of this as we’ve seen players kick it in over the final couple of rounds in no cut events when they find themselves out of contention. That could definitely be the case for someone like Dustin Johnson this week. He’s well back going into the weekend, but still qualified for the Tour Championship next week. There are not going to be meaningful points gained for him at the BMW unless he makes a substantial run the next two days. He’s very capable of doing just that, but looks lifeless so far. The numbers in the model and the current versus projected page look good for DJ, but it’s never a great sign for him when he starts this slow. He’s mostly just a risky GPP play for the weekend slate and with prices as tight as they are, if you roster DJ and he does not carry your team, you’re dead since it forces you to go with a lot of other question marks in the lower salary tier. He has a pretty solid hold on a Top-5 slot going to next weekend so he may just put his focus into the next event.

I could see the same thing happening with a guy like Patrick Reed who really struggled in the first two rounds. He’s going to make it to the Tour Championship next week without any issues, but is so far back this week that emotionally, he could be on to the final week already. His chances of winning the FedEx Cup evaporated with his terrible start this week as there is now no chance for him to reach the Top-5 this week so while he is not the type to kick it in over the weekend, it’s a long season that is finally coming to a close and he’s now lost much in terms of having something big to play for so while the numbers say he is in play, I am not sure that he will be able to get himself up for making any sort of run the final two days.

One of the other tricky parts of weekend golf in a no cut setting, particularly on a course like this is that with as much scoring as has taken place, the spread between the top of the board and the 69th place player is much larger than normal. Marc Leishman absolutely dominated the first two rounds and is sitting pretty at -16 while on the other end of the spectrum, Louis Oosthuizen has cashed in his chips for the year and has put some distance between himself and 68th with a score of +9, a 25 shot disparity. If we go back a few weeks, we’ve had the difference between first and 70th be as low as eight or nine shots. The mentality is so much different when moving up seems like a genuine possibility. Be very careful in just grabbing big names that underperformed with the hopes of the usual rebound. It’s going to be much tougher than normal.

My thought for this weekend is to keep my exposure pretty light. The pricing is dicey as it was going into the regular week of events so you won’t have an easy time putting together a lot of loaded teams. My strategy for incorporating some of the lower priced players will be to look where they are among the FedEx Cup leaders and to see who would benefit from a big weekend in either earning or preserving a spot in the Tour Championship. Here’s a link to check it out: FedEx Cup Standings

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