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

Weeks like this are always an adventure. New Course, big names and playing in an area where there are never big events leads me to believe that we have a fun weekend of golf ahead for us. It is not the first time that we have had to do a little extra research in order to breakdown a new course, but typically, most of the courses where the majors rotate through have at least hosted some sort of event over the years giving us a few clues as to what to expect. However, once Donald Trump riled up….well, everyone last year, the PGA opted to make a rather bold statement in relocating this event to Mexico which I imagine will be the host for at least the next few years so we will get our first look at it this week.

Last week, I had a feeling it was going to be a Rickie Fowler week. If you listened to the Betting Guide podcast with myself and Geoff Fienberg, you know that Rickie was actually a part of my Pick 6 where I hit a winner for the second week in a row. For some reason, it just felt like a Rickie week and yet, I did not follow it up as strongly as I should have with my DraftKings picks where I only owned around 10-15% which left me feeling pretty remorseful over the weekend as he stormed to a commanding lead on Saturday afternoon and pulled away late on Sunday when everyone who was chasing him crumbled and were unable to capitalize on a couple of openings that he left for them. Our core hung in pretty well with all players making the cut along with much of our top secondary players. Unfortunately, the Sunday afternoon winds really kicked a few golfers in the teeth and several promising starts were wiped away by one bad round on Sunday. Overall, my GPP teams were solid for the week, outside of my large buy-in team that finished just out of the money when Daniel Berger got torn apart by the Bear Trap in his two rounds (+7 over the six total holes). The cash lines held up well with 12/14 recommended cash plays making the cut. However, the two that missed were Berger and Russell Knox, so I know that those were both popular plays last week. As long as you did not play them both on the same roster, you should have been able to cash everywhere else. All in all, not a bad week. If you did not go too heavy on Berger and Knox, you had a huge week, but as long as you did not go all in on both, you probably were able to hang in okay.

This week is going to be a challenge for us. The course, the Club de Golf Chapultepec is in Mexico City at an altitude of nearly 7,400 feet. If you are a football fan, you may have noticed over the years that kickers in Denver tend to be able to hit some extraordinarily long kicks, regardless of who is kicking for the Broncos each season. The mile high city is just over 5,200 feet which means that this week, we are headed about 2,200 feet higher. What this means for the players is that they are all now going to be able to hit the ball for distance off the tee. Even with a course that plays out as a Par 71 and over 7,300 yards, the impact of being able to hit shots 10-15% further than normal will be a huge factor in how to approach the tournament strategically. There are six Par 4 holes that play at 406 yards or less. Two of the three Par 5 holes are over 600 yards, and both will be tricky to reach in two shots. There are only a couple of challenging Par 4 holes, one that is just under 500 yards and one the is slightly over that. There are also two challenging Par 3 holes that exceed 225 yards.

From what I can tell and in looking at the course layout, hitting the fairway is going to be very beneficial this week as early every hole is lined with trees and many of the fairways are narrow to begin with. What should help some of the bigger hitters is that they will not necessarily have to rely on their driver off the tee to be in position for their second shot. Players like Henrik Stenson, who utilize their 3-Wood off the tee in nearly all circumstances are going to be in good shape this week along with those players who are strong in their approach game as the greens are a little smaller bringing proximity and scrambling into the key stat category for the week. The grass is similar to what we have seen on the west coast swing of the tour with Poa Annua greens and Kikuya on the fairways, which should be very familiar to South African players, and is also the same as what we saw at the Genesis Open just a couple of weeks back.

Whenever the PGA heads to a new course like this, there is no easy way to judge exactly what will happen, but based upon what I am seeing, I think this is definitely going to be a scorers course. With the short Par 4 holes, players who can hit their short irons well are going to be in position again and again to make birdies. In looking at the course, given the layout, I really want to focus in on ball strikers this week. We want golfers that can hit fairways and greens or players who have a strong short game around the greens. I like the way this lines up for a lot of the European players this week. Most are not getting the respect they deserve in terms of pricing and there are still enough new DFS players in the golf world that many will overlook them as well. This is not the typical bomber track that tends to dominate a lot of PGA events and WGC events that are held in the US. This will not be a course that needs to be overpowered and should line up with some of the scorers courses around the globe which would lead me to expect that the scoring will be similar to that of the WGC-HSBC event in China each year. What we have this week is a course that should play like a shorter, easier version of Riviera.

So now that we have a better idea of what the course is like, we need to go over some strategy as this is our first no-cut event of the year since the very small Tournament of Champions event back at the start of January. Remember, without a cut, this is a whole new game. It is one of the trickier parts of DFS golf during the year where we are forced to make some very sudden shifts in terms of the way we go about constructing lineups. When you look at the pricing, your first goal is to select players that can win. You must get yourself out of the mindset of just picking players who could do well. If you do not have the winner in your lineup or a few in the Top-10, cash games are going to be tough to win, and GPP events. However, now that I have given all of you the all clear to go full stars and scrubs, let’s not get too carried away. If you end up with an anchor who tanks after Day 1 and falls to the bottom of the leaderboard, it is an absolute killer. Fortunately, DraftKings has thrown us a few easy picks in the lower salary tier to help make it really easy to build strong rosters with three to four top ranked player.

For GPP events, you want to tighten down on your core players. If you are normally playing 35-40 golfers a week, cut that back to 25. With fewer players to choose from, there will be a lot more overlap with the lineups you are going up against. Be sure to find a few tertiary players that help to make your teams stands out. Some of the first things to consider; which players have been the most disappointing over the last few weeks? Just off of the top of my head, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Russell Knox, Daniel Berger and Brandon Grace all come to mind. You can make an interesting case for and against each of these players, but you know that there is heavy recency bias against each, particularly Koepka so with that, there is also opportunity. Take a look at past WGC events and also look at what has happened in recent years when the tour has gone to new courses. Which players tend to adjust well? Which players have a game that translates to well to a variety of courses so that it will not be difficult to adapt?

The key stats for the week are interesting this week. Since there is no course history, the boys at Fantasy Golf Metrics really had their work cut out for them. However, as always, they delivered the goods this week. While the basic stats are relevant, the key areas that popped out besides the top three that are always there were Driving Distance, Proximity and Scrambling. It was interesting to see driving distance pop with all that we have heard about the course and how it will play shorter than the actual distance.

Birdie or Better Percentage: 30%
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Driving Distance: 10%
Proximity: 5%
Scrambling: 5%

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