The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – WGC Bridgestone Invitational

It’s late at night and I have been grinding away at these numbers for hours now. In a field as deep as this one, it is really difficult to draw some hard lines on who is going to get in and who is going to be left out. I played with the numbers weighting individual statistics higher in one iteration and in another focusing in more on current form or course history. I spent time reviewing my notes and discussing strategies with Jeff and Roger on how to attack this week and I am finally comfortable at 2:49 AM with kicking this column into high gear and handing you a plan of attack that I feel comfortable with.

Before we get too far on down the line with our strategy for the week, let’s do a quick recap of how things went for us last week. As most of you have heard by now, I personally had a great week, winning the $1060 Clubhouse GPP event and pocketing $12,000. A second lineup that I put together took 9th place in the $300 GPP for an additional $1500 win so I was very pleased overall with how things played out for me. Winning the Clubhouse looked like a near impossibility at the beginning of the day as most of my players were covered by owners on other teams and other teams also had more points and more holes remaining by the middle of the day. Somehow, Steven Bowditch managed to play his worst round all year and cost one player a large number of points with each hole that went awry. Another player ahead of me in the early afternoon owned the two players I had remaining plus Bill Haas. The only way I could overtake him would be if Haas melted down and he was more than accommodating on that front as well. Charles Howell III sealed the deal on his last hole with a bogey and I managed to hold my lead by the slimmest of margins over three really incredible fantasy players.

However, as with anything that I compete in, I tend to think a lot more about the losses and all of the details of how I lost, rather than to just enjoy the victories that come from the hard work that I put into this each week. The Fantasy Golf World Championship qualifier event provided a gut wrenching loss by lunchtime on Friday afternoon. All seemed well as Jimmy Walker went on a tear moving from a potential cut line liability to near the top of the leaderboard. All seemed well as I watched the progress of one of my sleepers, Hudson Swafford, who I was a little worried about as the one that could meltdown and ruin my chances for getting six players through the cut. That was when another player’s struggles caught my eye as Andy Sullivan totally collapsed over the last six holes losing five strokes and putting himself out of the tournament after a brilliant first round. Whenever you are out there agonizing over a player like this, I am right there with you and at that point in the tournament, I was no feeling too excited about my prospect. Fortunately, things did turn around over the next couple of days as tends to happen in fantasy golf. The prior weekend, I led the $300 GPP after Thursday and Friday only to see my team fall apart over the weekend. This time around, I started out much lower and slowly rose to the top. That rollercoaster effect is what makes daily fantasy golf the most exciting of all fantasy sports in my opinion.

Of 16 picks last week, 12 made it through the cut. I already discussed Sullivan at length as the one that was the most damaging miss and fortunately, the other three were in the Sleeper range so hopefully, you did not fill your rosters with just one or two of the same player in that category. Cameron Percy, Chad Collins and Scott Brown each came close to making it above the line, but slipped up enough to miss out on the weekend. Of those three, I heard the most about Scott Brown who is usually good for about a 30th place finish, but he started out poorly in the first round and could not quite sustain a couple of attempts to rally beyond that.

For my successes last week, all three Blue Chip players made it through and Rickie Fowler really shined. I would have liked to have had a better result out of Rose on Day 2 and 4, but he did play reasonably well. Jimmy Walker frustrated me again, looking lackluster in the first round, playing fantastic in the second round, and then losing ground the rest of the way. The ability is there, but he is not turning in the types of finishes that I have come to expect. The rest of the picks fared pretty well, with Jason Bohn, Danny Lee and Ollie Schniederjans all having solid weekends. Pat Perez and Russell Knox had the potential to really crush their price, but merely held in place the lat couple of days. Harris English continued his run of fast starts and poor finishes and was a slight disappointment. On the sleeper side, Vaughn Taylor, Hudson Swafford and Bryce Molder all did their jobs of getting through the cut and then delivering additional points to propel a couple of my teams up the ranks.

This week, we get a little bit of a change of pace as the tour heads into ‘lovely’ Akron for the WGC Bridgestone Invitational, a payday for all players in the field as there is no cut this week, which changes things up for us a bit. First off, the field is much smaller at 75 players so there is going to be a little more clustering around certain players. This is alleviated to some extent, by the fact that the field is so strong that more of the field is truly worthy of ownership consideration that normal. The next area that is important to consider is how the pricing came down for the week as once again, DraftKings has thrown us an unusual twist to work through by not going lower than $7000 for an player’s salary. So, what at first appears to be soft pricing at the top, in fact is actually made challenging by the high floor at the bottom tier of salaries.

At the high end of the price range, Jordan Spieth lurks in the top spot, taunting us to fade him. As Jeff stated on our webcast on Monday, owning Spieth forces you to take five other players with an average salary of $7500. Most of the options below that price level are not all the palatable so it gets difficult to even take a second player at even a middle tier salary on that roster. Now, it is not impossible that five players with an average salary of $7500 could take off and do well on a Spieth roster, but it is incredibly difficult to pick the right five in that range. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense this week to move down a few spots in starting your lineups as there are good options just below the top couple of players that will give you just enough flexibility to add some of the players in the middle range that have a chance to win the tournament.

One great performance is not going to carry your team this week. Without a cut, you are going to need to have three or four players in the Top 10 to win most medium sized GPPs with the other couple of players putting up better than average scoring outputs. Be aggressive with your lineup choices this week. The South Course at Firestone Country Club is a lengthy 7400 yards and plays as a Par 70. There are two Par 5 holes and four Par 3 holes to contend with.

In evaluating the field this week, players that can drive the ball with both length and accuracy off the tee will be off to a good start so Total Driving will be the first stat to look at. With the length of the course, long iron play is also key so looking at approach shots from 175-200 yards and 200-225 yards (the length of the Par 3 holes) will be important. This brings us back to Strokes Gained Tee to Green, still the top statistic week in and week out in helping to evaluate players. Finally, the greens here are smaller than normal so proximity to the hole will keep players from getting into trouble. Other stats to consider will be Greens In Regulation, Scrambling, Par 4 Scoring, and in an event filled with top level players, Strokes Gained Putting. The event has been held here in all years except 2002 so there is once again ample course history for us to examine this week and there are a few names that do stand out. However, in a situation where you are looking at a player with either a strong course history or a player in good form, lean towards the player in good form for your roster.

This is another week where I would preach caution with your bankroll. With the players in the field this week, there is going to be a lot of overlap on ownership of players. Going into most events, it is not going to be unusual to see the same two or three guys owned on one team after another. Since there are fewer true sleepers in the field, finding edges over opponents will be tricky, particularly in GPPs. Without a cut in place, it will also be easier to gauge how players will perform in terms of projecting fantasy points. It should make building your cash game teams more straight forward than normal. Choose players that put up points. That sounds pretty obvious, does it not? Eagles will be tough to come by this week, but there should be plenty of birdie opportunities. Usually, you need to balance this against the risk of getting cut. This week, that is not a worry so players like Jamie Donaldson have even less value than normal unless you honestly believe he can win the event as he ranks near the bottom of the field in birdie average.

And that concludes our preview and strategy portion this week. It’s a very different type of event so do your homework and think a little deeper about the adjustments needed to be successful this week. Also, DraftKings has released salaries for the PGA Championship next week, our final major of the year. The pricing, as has been the case all season, is soft and there are will be plenty of opportunities to build a lineup full of big names. Take your time before diving in too deep as the temptation will be to choose the sort of players that everyone in the field will gravitate towards. I would also advise that you reserve the entries that you want to use next week. Before The Open, a lot of folks were left on the outside looking in as the Millionaire Maker filled up earlier than expected and those folks that intended to build lineups on Wednesday night missed out. You can avoid this by simply reserving your seats now. Finally, and this will not apply to all, for this event, the maximum number of entries is limited to 100.

Good luck to everyone this week and be sure to get in touch if on Twitter if you find yourself in the running for a big prize so that we can cheer you on. I will take lineup questions throughout the day today so feel free to tweet to us, direct message us or send me an e-mail and I will do my best to answer each and every inquiry.

[cointent_lockedcontent view_type=”condensed buyButtonOff”]

BLUE CHIPS

Justin Rose ($10,600) – I liked him last week and although he came up just a bit short, he still managed to tie for 4th place and posted 100 fantasy points. He has six Top 10 finishes this year and has been in the Top 10 in three of his last four events. He has arguably been the hottest player on Tour starting from The Masters back in April up until now.

Stats – Total Driving – 7th, GIR – 18th, SGTG – 17th, Par 4 Scoring – 83rd, SGP – 87th, Proximity – 19th, 175-200 yards – 1st, 200-225 yards 24th, Scrambling – 130th, Sand Saves – 10th

Tournament History – 2014 – 4th, 2013 – 17th, 2012 – 5th, 2011 – 33rd, 2010 – 19th

Rickie Fowler ($10,500) – Rickie has found his form over the last couple of months since he won The Players Championship in May, following it up with a win at The Scottish Open and a 2nd place finish last week. He has missed a few cuts this year, but can score birdies in streaks to pile up points. Without a cut, he is sure to put up some numbers this week. He started the year cold so his total stats do not tell the full story, but if you have watched him at all lately, you know that when Rickie is in form, he is always a threat to contend.

Stats – Total Driving – 10th, GIR – 106th, SGTG – 46th, Par 4 Scoring – 101st, SGP – 88th, Proximity – 114th, 175-200 yards – 189th, 200-225 yards – 43rd, Scrambling – 127th, Sand Saves – 60th

Tournament History – 2014 – 8th, 2013 – 21st, 2012 – 60th, 2011 – 2nd, 2010 – 33rd

Adam Scott ($10,200) – It took Scott a bit of time to readjust back to the anchor putter, but getting Steve Williams back on his bag has seemed to calm his nerves and the results are starting to return to what we would normally expect. He has three Top 10s in ten starts this season including back to back Top 10 finishes at The US Open and The Open. Once again, the stats only tell part of the story. Scott appears to have found his old form which should lead to a good performance this week.

Stats – Total Driving – 3rd, GIR – 2nd, SGTG – 5th, Par 4 Scoring – 22nd, SGP – 186th, Proximity – 142nd, 175-200 yards – 93rd, 200-225 yards – 119th, Scrambling – 176th, Sand Saves – 72nd

Tournament History – 2014 – 8th, 2013 – 14th, 2012 – 45th, 2011 – 1st, 2010 – 9th

Hideki Matsuyama ($9400) – Hideki has seven Top 10 finishes this year and it seems like just a matter of time before he breaks through this season and wins an event. His price is usually a little lower for these marquee types of events, but even at this price, he is compelling, especially for cash games with his consistency. Due to higher levels of ownership, he will not be quite as attractive in GPP formats, but still very playable.

Stats – Total Driving – 5th, GIR – 9th, SGTG – 1st, Par 4 Scoring – 2nd, SGP – 127th, Proximity – 45th, 175-200 yards – 9th, 200-225 yards – 10th, Scrambling – 18th, Sand Saves – 123rd

Tournament History – 2014 – 12th, 2013 – 21st

Zach Johnson ($9000) – Coming off of a win at The Open, Johnson comes into the event playing the best golf of his life. He has nine Top 10s this year and four in his last five starts. He is not a long hitter off the tee and started the year putting poorly, but the rest of the numbers look good for Johnson so hopefully he has had a chance to clear his head after his big win and is now focused on finishing the season strong.

Stats – Total Driving – 57th, GIR – 34th, SGTG – 13th, Par 4 Scoring – 7th, SGP – 136th, Proximity – 107th, 175-200 yards – 68th, 200-225 yards – 136th, Scrambling – 81st, Sand Saves – 35th

Tournament History – 2014 – 23rd, 2013 – 4th, 2012 – 40th, 2011 – 6th, 2010 – 33rd

VALUE PICKS

Jim Furyk ($8900) – With nine Top 10 finishes in 15 starts at Firestone, Furyk has dominated this event over the years. Although the Top 10 finishes have been a little more spread out than normal this year, Furyk comes into the event with two Top 10 finishes in his last four starts. As one of the best proximity players on tour, Furyk should continue his run of successful play at Firestone.

Stats – Total Driving – 81st, GIR – 24th, SGTG – 7th, Par 4 Scoring – 22nd, SGP – 115th, Proximity – 2nd, 175-200 yards – 55th, 200-225 yards – 12th, Scrambling – 19th, Sand Saves – 106th

Tournament History – 2014 – 15th, 2013 – 9th, 2012 – 2nd, 2011 – 23rd, 2010 – 6th

Keegan Bradley ($8800) – It is hard to argue that anyone has a better record at Firestone than Furyk, but Keegan Bradley certainly looks like he is going to give him a run for his money. With three consecutive Top 5 finishes and one 15th, Bradley has used this course each year to help him to a strong finish down the stretch. He has not played his best golf this year, but will be looking to salvage his season starting this week at his favorite course. He has struggled enough that I believe some of the smart money will start to move away from owning him.

Stats – Total Driving – 4th, GIR – 56th, SGTG – 14th, Par 4 Scoring – 83rd, SGP – 105th, Proximity – 137th, 175-200 yards – 140th, 200-225 yards – 70th, Scrambling – 101st, Sand Saves – 155th

Tournament History – 2014 – 4th, 2013 – 2nd, 2012 – 1st, 2011 – 15th

Patrick Reed ($8600) – The results have not been there since early in the season, but there have been some flashes in the last few months. Typically, one bad round has been his undoing. He is not great off the tee, but has a nice tee to green game, and can scramble and putt well. He had a nice result in his debut here last season and will look to build on that this week.

Stats – Total Driving – 172nd, GIR – 118th, SGTG – 38th, Par 4 Scoring – 13th, SGP – 14th, Proximity – 114th, 175-200 yards – 99th, 200-225 yards – 141st, Scrambling – 26th, Sand Saves – 47th

Tournament History – 2014 – 4th

Brooks Koepka ($8400) – Koepka will more than likely be the highest owned player of the week. For cash games, this should not deter you. At his price, it is hard to envision a scenario where he underperforms. He has five Top 10 finishes this year and 10 Top 25s. He can be erratic, but in a tournament without a cut, it is okay if his blowup round takes place in the first couple of days as he will get four full rounds in which means a lot of birdie opportunities and a chance to put up a lot of points.

Stats – Total Driving – 38th, GIR – 14th, SGTG – 36th, Par 4 Scoring – 13th, SGP – 10th, Proximity – 82nd, 175-200 yards – 2nd, 200-225 yards – 129th, Scrambling – 156th, Sand Saves – 58th

Tournament History – No previous history

Marc Leishman ($8000) – I wanted to pick a player in this range that would have a little less buzz than some of the others at the same price range. I think people will be on Casey and Walker so I am going to pivot to the runner up at The Open and a player that has reemerged since his wife regained her health after a nasty scare. The big Aussie is not going to have the prettiest of numbers this year, but much of that can be attributed to the rough start. If he truly has recaptured the form that brought him a 3rd place finish here last year, he should be a great buy and a little underowned by the field.

Stats – Total Driving – 142nd, GIR – 88th, SGTG – 68th, Par 4 Scoring – 35th, SGP – 83rd, Proximity – 166th, 175-200 yards – 68th, 200-225 yards – 136th, Scrambling – 120th, Sand Saves – 140th

Tournament History – 2014 – 3rd, 2012 – 45th

SLEEPERS

Ryan Palmer ($7800) – I keep thinking to myself that he is going to wake up one of these weeks. He has the game for the course and two Top 10 finishes in two starts in his career. He has endured a couple of surprising missed cuts and only four Top 10 finishes this season, but this was the time last year when he played his best golf. He is a big hitter who plays his irons well and can putt. I am hoping he is overlooked this week.

Stats – Total Driving – 64th, GIR – 56th, SGTG – 18th, Par 4 Scoring – 22nd, SGP – 38th, Proximity – 46th, 175-200 yards – 33rd, 200-225 yards – 154th, Scrambling – 39th, Sand Saves – 94th

Tournament History – 2010 – 2nd

Kevin Kisner ($7700) – Though he did miss the cut at The Open, Firestone plays much more like the courses that Kisner has enjoyed great success on this spring. His game is really well rounded and while not dominant in any one area, he is not weak in any area either. He has six Top 10s this season with most of them coming in recent months. His missed cut at The Open was the last that most will remember of him so he should not be owned quite as highly as he was in previous weeks.

Stats – Total Driving – 28th, GIR – 73rd, SGTG – 43rd, Par 4 Scoring – 22nd, SGP – 46th, Proximity – 56th, 175-200 yards – 93rd, 200-225 yards – 78th, Scrambling – 9th, Sand Saves – 39th

Tournament History – No previous history

Danny Lee ($7700) – Coming into Firestone, Danny Lee has three Top 4 finishes in his last four events. Outside of the majors, Lee has been incredible over the last couple of months. Typically, Lee is a tricky play, but with no cut, and the way he is playing, I think he offers great value for his price. Lee has six Top 10 finishes this season and a win at Greenbrier. He’s not a gifted player off the tee, but his iron play and putter are very strong.

Stats – Total Driving – 153rd, GIR – 100th, SGTG – 83rd, Par 4 Scoring – 22nd, SGP – 33rd, Proximity – 23rd, 175-200 yards – 38th, 200-225 yards – 27th, Scrambling – 61st, Sand Saves – 9th

Tournament History – No previous history

Brendon Todd ($7600) – If we take the majors out of his season, Todd has been really successful overall so far. He is not long off the tee, but accurate. He plays his irons well and is a superb putter. He finished in 45th in his only start here last year. Considering that the lowest price this week is only $600 lower, Todd is a good buy for his price and hopefully can improve on his finish from last season.

Stats – Total Driving – 97th, GIR – 82nd, SGTG – 48th, Par 4 Scoring – 35th, SGP – 4th, Proximity – 28th, 175-200 yards – 167th, 200-225 yards – 50th, Scrambling – 17th, Sand Saves – 11th

Tournament History – 2014 – 45th

Ryan Moore ($7600) – An up and down year, Moore has just three Top 10 finishes and struggled with the links style courses at The US Open and The Open. He has not done much since a 12th place finish at The Master in April. However, this should give owners the chance to pick him up without attracting a crowd. He is not long off the tee, but accurate. He is a solid iron player and a good putter. He tends to crumble under pressure, but we’re looking for Top 10 potential and not necessarily a win.

Stats – Total Driving – 66th, GIR – 100th, SGTG – 31st, Par 4 Scoring – 83rd, SGP – 56th, Proximity – 93rd, 175-200 yards – 61st, 200-225 yards – 61st, Scrambling – 43rd, Sand Saves – 38th

Tournament History – 2014 – 8th, 2013 – 33rd, 2011 – 23rd, 2010 – 16th

Robert Streb ($7500) – Robert Streb seems to be all the way back after a mid seasin slump made him unplayable for a couple of months. With seven Top 10 finishes this season and six Top 20 finishes in his last seven starts, Streb is having a breakout season. The biggest question for Streb and other first timers at this event is how they handle playing the course in competition for the first time. He will be widely owned in all formats.

Stats – Total Driving – 41st, GIR – 10th, SGTG – 32nd, Par 4 Scoring – 13th, SGP – 28th, Proximity – 161st, 175-200 yards – 89th, 200-225 yards – 14th, Scrambling – 72nd, Sand Saves – 73rd

Tournament History – No previous history

Good luck this week!!

myzteriouzly

[/cointent_lockedcontent]