The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – WGC HSBC Championship

The last week of the Asian leg of the PGA Tour is here and many of the biggest names in the world join the field for this annual WGC event that takes place every year in China. It’s always tricky to get a good feel about where some of these players are going to be as most have not played much in terms of competitive golf since the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The Ryder Cup was a mess, but I do not think that is something that the players will dwell on moving ahead for those on the losing side. The players that have been in action during the new season have already enjoyed some success with Brooks Koepka standing out in getting a win last weekend. Many of the European players jumped right back into the European Tour in trying to build up some additional points for the Race for Dubai.

On the American side, I will be very interested in seeing how Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed step up this week. DJ is never an easy player to read during the year. Last season, in weeks where I did not expect him to show a lot of fire, he usually played his best golf. He showed up in China last year and had a huge lead going into the final round before winds and poor play knocked him back to second place. His two wins came at the St Jude and the Canadian Open. In the first event, I thought he’d be more focused on the week ahead and with the second, I did not anticipate him being all that fired up after a poor showing at The Open Championship.

Patrick Reed is back after a tumultuous Ryder Cup where he felt the need to speak out about his pairing with Tiger Woods after the event and complained about not getting to play with former partner, Jordan Spieth. After the last Ryder Cup and his win at Augusta, all he needed to do for the remainder of his career was to play the role of Captain America, wave the flag and let everyone cheer for him. Unfortunately, it seems like Reed is just always going to be that guy who irks everyone around him. He does not know when to shut his mouth and he does not seem to understand or care how others perceive him. He played exceptionally well at Augusta last season and made a great run at winning the US Open, but finished in a disappointing manner over the last three months and was not terribly competitive down the stretch in the playoffs or at the Ryder Cup. I am very interested in seeing if he can find even a little bit of momentum this week after getting some rest over the last few weeks.

One of the notable aspects of this event is that it does not take a lot for players to come off of a few weeks rest and to be very competitive. DJ, Rory, Rose…each of them make this event a regular stop each fall and there is never any real letdown in their play. If the winds are not a problem, and it does not look like they will be this week, this is a course that invites plenty of scoring opportunities. Sheshan International Golf Course is just under 7,300 yards and plays as a Par 72. It has a traditional setup with four Par 5 holes, and three of those are on the easier side playing in the mid 500 yard range with only one reaching 600 yards. The course contains paspalum grass and the greens are bentgrass. The fairways do run on the narrow side, so it becomes more of a ball strikers course and this is why you see names like Rose and DJ who handle it so well, but the rough is not that punitive so that those bombers who are a little on the wild side like Brooks and Rory can still contend as well. Adam Daly gave us a great rundown in his weekly First Tee column which is always where I start my research each week.

This was a very tough event for me when it came down to trying to build a player pool. It is another no cut event with 78 players in the field. Whenever these events hit the schedule with so many good players up top, it becomes almost impossible to limit yourself. There are big names that end up being left off the list and there is not always a good reason for doing so. Unlike the NFL where you can triangulate things in a way that points to specific players, there is not a great way to do that this week with the top four players in this field.

My thought on strategy was to fit three of the top four players in the field into my player pool for GPP play and to hope for the best. You are not going to be able to be heavily overweight the field on more than one of these players unless you get really crazy with your salary cap numbers, but that is not something that I would recommend. Find the one player that you really buy into more than the others and grab extra, meaningful shares. You could make an argument to spread some shares out among all four of the best players this week and then build your core around the best value players in the field in the $7-9k range. It’s not the worst strategy available when there is no obvious golfer at the top that stands out that much more than the rest. The tough part is that each of them will probably come in at around 20% ownership at least so if one of them does win, then you are stuck at being weighted the same as the rest of the field. That is far from guaranteed this week, but those top players do tend to perform fairly consistently at this course and all have a high percentage of Top-10 finishes so it seems likely that at least two or three will be in contention.

What makes this tournament stand out from the other two events of the Asian swing is that the bottom of the salary tiers is much more talented this week than what we have seen the last two weeks. Where there was very little talent below $7k at the CIMB or the CJ Cup, here we get an injection of some of the best players from the European Tour that most of us have followed throughout the last year. The players that are below $7k are not all golfers that can simply be overlooked as many of them arrive in good form and some have even had recent wins. What this does for us from a roster building perspective is that it allows us to truly put together some real stars and scrubs lineups where you could legitimately start a team with Rose and DJ and not be totally embarrassed by the other four players you used on the roster. Most weeks, you literally cannot make a team with this approach during the season even if you wanted to so it’s something worth pursuing if you are building a bunch of GPP teams for the big $5 event this week.

You can play cash games this week. While it is a no cut event, I like this week for cash games better than last week where I did end up squeezing out a profitable tournament over the last hour or so. The reason that I like this week better than last is that it felt like everything last week was based upon the success of failure of a 50%+ owned Justin Thomas. I never like playing cash during weeks where it feels like your hand is forced on a player like that. If JT had defended his title or come close to doing so, it would have made owning him a necessity to win in cash games. We knew his ownership would be high so fading him was a tough proposition in that regard. It was a surprise in that he did not play well at all last week and was not terribly competitive. For those rare few that jumped on Brooks for cash, it was smooth sailing for the week, but that was a call that I made for GPP events where being contrarian had a much better chance for a significant payoff.

I do not believe we will see anyone with extreme ownership this week. All of the studs are playable, but none should be so heavily owned so that it sinks you if the winner is not on your team and comes from that elite group above $10k. The biggest key to cash games for these events without a cut is to avoid having a player who finishes near the bottom. In these no cut events, where a payday is guaranteed just for showing up, it gets very tough for players to get motivated once they fall back after the first round or two. I believe the minimum that anyone will take home this week is in the range of $50k if past events are any indication. Once players realize that they are not going to be anywhere near the top, it is not unusual for them to kick it in early and go into cruise control over the weekend. For this reason, you will want to be very careful about getting too aggressive in cash games. Even if you hit the winner, if you end up with one or two players on your roster that finish near the bottom, it could take you out of the green for the week.

Key Stats

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
Strokes Gained Putting: 25%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Par 5 Scoring: 15%
Driving Accuracy: 10%
Proximity: 5%

 

CASH GAME PLAYS

Dustin Johnson	11500
Justin Rose	11200
Rory McIlroy	10700
Tony Finau	9900
Paul Casey	9200
Tyrrell Hatton	9100
Rafa Cabrera-Bello	8900
Patrick Cantlay	8800
Matthew Fitzpatrick	8700
Ian Poulter	8600
Adam Scott	8400
Thorbjorn Olesen	7900
Lucas Bjerregaard	7800
Hao-Tong Li	7700
Kyle Stanley	7600
Emiliano Grillo	7500
Keegan Bradley	7500
Eddie Pepperell	7300
Chez Reavie	7100
C.T Pan	7000
Andy Sullivan	6800
Matt Wallace	6700

 

The range here is a little wider than normal. Given that it is permissible to use the high priced players for cash games this week, I needed to extend at the top by a few names, which also required me to give a few extra names on the low end to compliment them. I think that the prudent approach for cash games this week is to choose one of the elite players in the field that I have listed above $10k, select two players in the $8-10k range and then settle in on three favorite value plays for the week. You really want to try to be bulletproof at the low end for your picks so tread lightly here. Really lock on to players that have been in excellent form of late and if they have some history at all, that will help. Here are three value plays on the low end that I think you can comfortably build around this week. It might make sense to find the three low end players that you like first and then to build up from there. If you are solid at the bottom and keep those players hovering around the Top-30, you won’t face near as much pressure from your best players to have to win or finish in contention in order to cash this week.

Kyle Stanley – He struggled last week, but generally, he’s been a player that we can count on over the last two years. He’s one of the most accurate players on tour and his mid to long approach play suits this course very well. This should allow him to stay out of trouble as it did a year ago when he recorded a 5th place finish. His recent putting woes are a concern, but his floor is solid this week. He finished in the Top-25 in half of his starts last year and we’re getting a favorable price break this week.

Eddie Pepperell – I wonder how many DFS owners know that Eddie Pepperell is currently in 7th place in the Race for Dubai this season? Every single name in front of him is priced at least $600 higher (Olesen) and most are well above that. He’s won twice on the Euro Tour this season with two second place finishes. He ranks 6th in SGSAPP and 19th in SGTG. He’s also very competent with his short game ranking 19th in SGATG and 35th in SGP. He’s never played here before, but I think the lack of course history is what is helping to keep his price down and is why I think he’s a very solid cash game play for the week.

CT Pan – Without Shotlink, it is tough to gauge exactly where CT Pan would have ranked among the field in rolling stats for the week, but what we do have tells us a story of a player who is clicking in all phases of his game right now. In a stacked field like this, he ranks 13th in SGTG over the last 24 rounds and there are no areas of weakness as the lowest ranking stat category for him is putting where he is still ranked 20th. He finished 30th and 23rd over his first two starts in Asia and missed just one cut from April onward last season. We need consistent value plays this week and while he may not quite have the same upside as some of the other cheaper Euro players, I think he is also considerably less risky.

 

GPP PLAYER POOL

CORE

Justin Rose

Dustin Johnson

Lucas Bjerregaard

Rafa Cabrera-Bello

Matthew Fitzpatrick

C.T. Pan

Ian Poulter

Matt Wallace

Eddie Pepperell

Rory McIlroy

Tony Finau

 

I am sticking the player who treated me the best throughout last season in Justin Rose. There just is not a more complete player on tour right now when looking at every aspect of play. He’s long, he hits fairways and his approach play is elite. On top of that, his putting was vastly improved last season which  led to eleven Top-10 finishes in 18 starts on the PGA Tour, several others around the world and three wins for the year. I also like that I never have to guess where his head is at each week. He’s always locked in, you never really see him rattled and he rarely has those late rounds where everything just falls apart. He won here a year ago and has two other Top-10 finishes so Rose will be my highest owned player of the week.

Justin Rose ranked 2nd in SGT last season so we might as well include the #1 player in strokes gained with Dustin Johnson. DJ was killing the field a year ago until a catastrophic final round ruined his weekend and dropped him to second place, but this has always been a course where he’s fared well at with a win in 2013 and two other Top-10 finishes. He played solid golf during the FedEx Cup Playoffs and I doubt he is dwelling on the Ryder Cup debacle so he should be able to come into the week ready to go after a few weeks of rest.

I’ll roll the dice this week with Lucas Bjerregaard for around 30% of my GPP lineups. No player comes over from the Euro Tour in better recent form as he’s finished in the Top-10 in five of his last six starts which includes a win and a runner up performance. He’s been able to do it on the strength of his iron play where he ranks  12th in SGTG which mostly comes from his rank of 6th in SGAPP. He ranks 7th in birdie percentage so that should equate to plenty of DK points this week if he can continue his steady play for us this week.

There are not too many players that I lean on more regularly than RCB. On a course that is no overly long, but does have narrower fairways, he’s a perfect fit with his accuracy and steady iron play and solid putter. The only times you really see RCB struggle are during majors and on the longer, more challenging setups that we see during the playoffs so I love to use him in stronger fields where the course is not particularly tough. He’s finished in the Top-20 in both starts here and was 5th a year ago. He enters the week coming off of a 3rd place finish so he looks like he’s in good shape to play well again this week.

I know that Ryan Baroff is much more of a believer in Matthew Fitzpatrick than I am, but for whatever reason, this has been a course where he has been remarkably consistent over the last three years, finishing no lower than 16th. He tends to be an accurate player off the tee, though rather short in comparison to most. He steady with his iron play and has been a good putter over the years. He’s found a little form of late with a recent win at the Omega Masters which makes me feel a little better about using him instead of trusting course history alone.

It will not show up in the rolling stats, but Ian Poulter is playing well right now. He had a solid season before faltering in the playoffs, but looked like an absolute killer at the Ryder Cup and then started this season looking sharp in posting a 10th place finish last week in Korea. He had nine Top-25 finishes last year in 20 starts and posted a an emotional win early in the year in Houston. He has a balanced game which plays well for this course. He doesn’t have the length of others, but like many Euro players, he keeps it in the fairway, stays out of trouble and manages his game well from shorter to middle ranges. He has not played here the last two years, but in seven starts over the last ten years, he has five Top-15 finishes. I think he picks up another Top-10 this week.

Most folks who only pay attention to golf during big events may have only seen Matt Wallace at the majors this year. He missed the cut at the US Open and The Open Championship, but then finished 19th at the PGA Championship. If you watch Euro Tour golf, you would know that Wallace is a three time winner over there this year wih wins in Denmark, India and a very prestigious win at the BMW International Open. There was not anything that really stood out to me in terms of his stats for the season. I did notice that the worst of his struggles this year have been on links style courses so I am confident that this should be a place that he can excel. It’s rare to be able to roster a player at this price who has three wins on the season so while there is some risk here, the potential upside is too good to pass up on at this low of a price.

I don’t need to tell you much about Rory McIlroy that you do not already know. When his game is on, he’s as good as anyone in the world. That is what makes it frustrating to watch when he struggles badly for one round in events where he is in contention. However, all that aside, he did play well in the playoffs finishing 12th or better in all three starts and also helped the Euro team to a Ryder Cup win. He’s dominated this event over the years although he has yet to post a win. He finished 11th once and no lower than 6th in his four other starts. He should be in the Top-5 again this week and as an aside, it is probably worth the savings to use him as your elite player for cash games this week.

Finally, I thought I could get away from Tony Finau this week at this price, and in this field, but when you look at what he has done over the last year, it’s just too much to ignore. He finished in the Top-25 in 19 starts last season and eleven times in the Top-10. What those numbers do not tell is just how good he was in terms of DK points on the season as he ranked 3rd in Par 5 Scoring and 9th in Birdie or Better Percentage. A typical 15th place finish in the field might actually end up being something closer to a 5th place finish as far as DK points when you look at all of the birdies and eagles he puts up every week. He finished 11th here last season and I think he is on his way to another big year after a strong finish to last season where he finished inside the Top-10 in three of four playoff starts.

 

SECONDARY

Patrick Cantlay

Andy Sullivan

Kyle Stanley

Chez Reavie

Thorbjorn Olesen

Tyrrell Hatton

Julian Suri

Andrea Pavan

Adam Scott

Hao-Tong Li

Brian Harman

Emiliano Grillo

Keegan Bradley

SPRINKLE

Paul Casey

John Catlin

Wu Ashun

Justin Harding

Chris Wood

Gaganjeet Bhullar

Pat Perez

Erik Van Rooyen

Alexander Bjork