The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Wells Fargo Championship
How did everyone enjoy the bye week? Hopefully, the lack of a PGA event was enough to get you to check out our European Tour coverage as it was another great week for us. Obviously, anyone running a site is going to say that they have great content writers so I know that is probably not enough in and of itself to move the needle, but the results we have been having over there have been really solid all season. If you have not tried your hand in making outright bets yet, it’s a great time to start. For the second week in a row, one of Jeff’s Crystal Ball picks, Alexander Bjork, from back in December won the Volvo China Open on Sunday.
Over the last few years, Jeff’s article has proven to be really prescient in terms of finding winners at the beginning of the year long before others are usually backing them. He only writes up around 20 players each year and they come from a wide range of categories so he’s not simply throwing out the 20 best players in the world. When Patrick Reed won at Augusta, Jeff had not only predicted a win this season, but stated that he felt that it would happen at one of the biggest events of the year. Within the column, Jeff looks for hidden value each year, whether that comes from players who have underperformed of late, players who are new to the tour and also a group of players from the European Tour who are either on the verge of winning overseas or who could be a threat in coming over to the US. These are not the names that you would expect to see in a preview column at the beginning of the year so the time and research that has gone into the piece is extensive. Last week marked the fourth win of the season to go along with several second place finishes and the odds that have been associated with all of these plays have been 40-1 or longer. One of our members actually wrote to us that near the end of March, he had $400 set aside in an account to make some outrights and since then, has been able to build his bankroll to $30k in just over a month. I don’t know how many more will hit this year or who will be next, but over the last three years, if you stuck with just those names that were in the Crystal Ball columns, you would be profitable.
It has not just been Jeff who has run well with Euro events. Between Pari and Ryan Baroff, I really do believe that we have two of the best minds in the industry on our staff covering the European Tour. What I love about the European Tour is that we are always going to have an edge over our competitors for the simple reason that our guys actually watch the events each week. The data wonks are always going to have a tough time modelling the European Tour. Until recently, there were very few stats available for use which is the first challenge. There are also a fairly wide range of players that enter these events and they are playing not just in Europe, but all over the world. You also get a number of players who pop up from events that are local or from other regional tours. Plus, since DraftKings has not expanded too heavily into running big GPP events for these events, it has not attracted as much attention from other sites and players. Thus, I still feel that there is a bit of an eyeball advantage in watching the events and getting to know the players and their respective abilities that you can’t just pick up from the limited data available on the European Tour website.
Last Saturday night (Sunday in China), I stayed up late sweating Ryan’s run in the $100k Par 5 contest where he had a large lead for much of the final round. It took a missed 3 foot putt from Adrian Otaegui (lost the bogey free bonus) and a miracle hole out from the middle of the fairway for an eagle by Jorge Campillo for him to lose out on the $15,000 1st place prize. While it was disappointing to have him finish in 3rd place, it was still a commendable effort and this has been something that our subscribers to Euro coverage have enjoyed for much of the season. Now, I do have to put the disclaimer out there that the Euro Tour can be a little more volatile than the PGA with the cut line at the Top-65 and ties rather than the Top-70 and ties and you do get more blowups at all pricing levels, but overall, if you know the game like our guys do, it can be a very profitable place for your DFS pursuits.
This week, the tour heads back to a familiar course in Quail Hollow where when we visited there last, we saw Justin Thomas winning his first major championship which then propelled him on to winning the FedEx Cup that fall. To clarify, the Wells Fargo event was NOT held at Quail Hollow last year. We have adjusted our tools and charts this week so that the numbers that you see from 2017 reflect the PGA Championship rather than the Wells Fargo Championship which was held at Eagle Point and where Brian Harman was the winner. Obviously, given the fact that the 2017 numbers reflect a more difficult setup than normal should be taken into account, but in no case will this be much easier than before. The course is a Par 71 and over 7,550 yards long and has some really nasty Par 4’s to deal with, most of which are between 450-500 yards. Strokes gained off the tee will again be a factor this week. The fairways are narrower than most courses, but as Adam Daly noted in his First Tee column this week, the redesign did actually widen them by three yards last year making them a little easier to hit than before. With that, you will get a mix of players using driver, but many who will also club down to keep themselves out of trouble. We really want to focus on long iron play this week. The two categories I will focus on most are 175-200 yards and over 200 yards. The greens are difficult to hit and well protected. They made a grass change to Bermuda so this should be noted when looking at certain players this week. While the greens will play faster than average, I am not expecting them to play as fast as what we saw at the PGA Championship last summer. As always, Adam does an amazing job with the course preview each week so go take a peak before you go any further to get some knowledge of the more granular details that make Quail Hollow such a tough course.
Key Stats:
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 10%
Par 5 Scoring: 7.5%
Srambling: 7.5%
Driving Distance: 5%
Follow Us
