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

As I suspected, the first two days of the Tour Championship have been all over the place. Day 1 saw plenty of odd names up near the top of the leaderboard, but as we finished the second round today, things started to even out and I suspect that as the weekend rolls on, we will see things get closer to what we projected at the beginning of the week. The most noteworthy surprise for me at this point is in seeing a few names near the bottom of the board that have been awful so far. Rickie Fowler and Kevin Chappell could not have played much worse in the first two rounds, while Marc Leishman also saw his chances of winning slip away after two mediocre rounds of his own.

It’s shocking with Rickie and yet a part of me knew this was possible for him. When I looked over Rickie’s rolling stats, it was very clear from the numbers that his approach game had been lacking during the playoffs and even in the events leading up to it. He played well a week ago so I was prepared for him to make a charge this week, but his approach play has him ranked 29th of 30 so far this week and when combined with his miserable play off the tee and you get a player who is not only out of the running for the FedEx Cup title, but he is not even playable for weekend DFS golf.

One of the things that we look at throughout the season when picking our weekend rosters is to find the best players left after the cut who have underperformed, but who we expect to get back into form over the last couple of rounds to salvage their weekend. Matt Kuchar is the king when it comes to turning around a slow start as we saw again and again he would rise up the standing like lightening when others had given up on making a charge. That is not going to be the case this weekend. As we have seen with WGC events and other no cut events of the past, once players are out of it, it’s rare that there is much of a push to move up to make things respectable. It’s even worse this week for the bottom dwellers – Charley Hoffman, Jhonny Vegas, Rickie Fowler and Kevin Chappell who have put some distance between themselves and Hideki Matsuyama who sits in 26th place and is three shots ahead the pack. I would have a very tough time thinking that these players will find a lot of motivation to get out there tomorrow to try to work their way up to 24th or 23rd place by the end of the weekend. More than likely, what we will see are a couple of casual rounds from this group as they finish off the season quietly. Rickie is currently #6 in the standings, but even a heroic finish is not going to move him up in the standings and with how few points are available outside of the top finishers, there is not too far that he can fall. Yes, for you and I, 100-200k more or less dollars might be plenty to play for, but for Rickie that is practice round money….for a few events, so I am not going to roster some of the usual players I would look at from week to week.

For the weekend events this week, we want to focus in on those who have played well and also those who are still in the mix for a big payday for the FedEx Cup if they can make a move over the last couple of days. Just because Justin Thomas has played really well does not mean that we now stay away thinking he will fall back or slow down. Thomas, Spieth, DJ and Rahm are the four players remaining now that still have a reasonable chance of winning the season long title by the end of the weekend. I favor Spieth and DJ for weekend rosters since both are right in the middle of the board, but with the tight course and tougher scoring conditions, they are only 4 shots back of the leaders at the moment and each are capable of going really low in any given round and I expect one or even both to be right there with Thomas by the time the tournament is over. This is going to be the case with other top players as well.

This has always been a great course for Paul Casey and Justin Rose. Both have plenty to play for going into the weekend and each can move their final payday up or down by seven figures with a strong finish these next couple of days. They’ve both been playing great golf so again, don’t overthink it. The other big name that I have not mentioned is Jon Rahm who is sitting just one shot back from the leaders. He’s in the mix now and has not had the trouble here that I expected so far. His price is down to $8,700 for the weekend, which is odd in that Rose did not drop a dime and they are both tied for 4th. With the value that you are getting and a player with a lot of scoring potential, Rahm is going to be pretty easy fit into most rosters this week.

At the lower end of the salary tier, we are going to need a few players to play with our stars at the top, but we don’t need to look to drop down on the leaderboard at all to find some value. I loved Webb Simpson coming into the tournament and he’s continued to impress and is tied for the lead going into Saturday. His tee to green game looked great and his putting remains one of the most compelling stories of these playoffs as he’s not only found a way to stop the pain, but his putter is actually a weapon now. If this continues, Simpson could be in line for a very big 2018 season. He is near minimum salary and has been playing great so I am not ready to let go quite yet.

Sergio Garcia looked rather defeated after the first round on Thursday and I thought he would be relegated to forgotten status over the weekend. He is still having the same issues with his putter that he’s had all season, but played his way back into the middle of the pack with plenty of potential to move up this weekend. He’s an elite level tee to green specialist at a bargain price and worth taking some shots with this weekend.

I don’t need to tell you about Matt Kuchar. If you’ve followed golf and weekend PGA DFS contests, you know the man’s ability to turn things around quickly, especially when Sunday rolls around. He’s a staple of our weekend teams and this week we get him below $8,000. While other players will wave the white flag by the final round, I fully expect Kuchar to plow ahead to battle his way back to the Top-10.

Here is the full list of recommended plays for the weekend:

CURRENT vs PROJECTED