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

I am started to get used to the idea of the condensed schedule for the PGA season and so far, I really like it. It really seems like the tighter schedule keeps the bigger events much closer together and there are less filler events to deal with. I am sure by the middle of summer between major tournaments, I might change my mind, but then again, with the tour coming to Minnesota in July, even if it is a bit of a garbage time tournament, it’s going to be ‘our’ garbage time tournament. In any case, it is exciting to look at the field week after week and to see the strength of these fields. Typically, we would not get our first WGC event until March, but with the Players Championship already on the horizon, the tours heads down south to Mexico and gets a short reprieve from the winds and rain that have plagued the last couple of tournaments.

In recapping last week, things went well for me at Riviera. In GPP contests, I made little noise as I got the ‘low energy’ version of DJ who did manage a Top-10 finish, but started so slowly that he was never truly in contention. Bryson played fine in returning stateside last week, but could not make a sustained charge over the last few rounds and finished 15th. The other three players that were priced above $10k all finished inside the Top-10 and with Rory and JT in contention to win, most of my best GPP teams were on the outside looking in. Since I did stacks for each wave, I did have a couple shares of both of those guys, but could not hit the magic bullet roster I needed to break through any of the bigger contests for the week.

Fortunately, since I live a cash game life, I was able to clean up for the 5th week in a row in my double up contests. It was good to see so many of you that read my column and picked up on my not too subtle suggestions over how to build your exact cash game roster. Sometimes, I leave much of the thinking up to the read to decipher the direction they need to go, but most weeks, it should be painfully obvious as to how I want you to approach the contests for the week. Last week, I listed 18 golfers as plays for cash games and 16 of them made the cut. Now, if you were really paying attention, you noticed that I wrote up six players specifically. Those six just so happened to all fit neatly together in a roster and it was the team that I used for my cash game last week. Initially, I had some worries about it even with getting 6/6 through the cut, but with the way that all of those players were able to score the last two rounds, that team moved up the leaderboard and was even cashing for me in GPP contests by the end of the weekend as well as cash games so it worked out really well.

The big events that I like to focus on for cash game early in the year have gone extremely well for me so far this season. I always try to emphasize the events where cash games are more profitable than normal. Last week was the perfect case to look at for focusing on cash games. We had a very deep field at the top which puts downward pricing pressure on a lot of above average players. This allowed us to build a really strong core with a group of six players who had a much higher likelihood than normal of making the cut. Contrast that to a situation where the field is relatively weak and there is pricing pressure from the bottom pushing below average players upward. We may still have a small edge on the field for those events (the Puerto Rico Open would be one), but so many players are wildcards that even though they may rate well within a model, it just gets extremely difficult to build a cash team as there is really no difference in those weeks between a cash or GPP team.

I knew that the team I built last week for cash had almost no chance to win in GPP events. Sure, there were a couple of players that could have found their way into the Top-10 on a good week and maybe even a golfer like Cantlay or Fleetwood would have a shot to win, but in a loaded event like that, you were likely going to need at least one, if not two of the highest priced stars on your roster to take down a GPP. This is the major difference between cash game and GPP teams. We give up much of the potential upside by trying to limit volatility among our entire team. I still throw my cash game teams into small GPP events each week on the off chance that everyone plays well above expectations, but typically, even on a great week where all six make the cut, it will cash, but rarely contend.

This leads us to the WGC Mexico Championship this week, a no cut event played at Club de Golf Chapultepec near Mexico City. It marks one of the rare times that players truly get a chance to play at altitude so at over 7,800 feet above sea level, this 7,300 yards course actually plays at something closer to 6,700 yards given the extra distance that players will pick up off the tee this week, although this certainly has not made the course as easy as some on tour of this length. We will be looking to focus in on players that have experience and strong results on kikuyu grass (fairways) and poa putting surfaces. Since we have seen poa several times over the last month and kikuya grass a couple of times, it is not too difficult to highlight the players that should stand out. You will see some obvious standouts who have played well the last two years down here, but for those making their first start, the course does favor those with southern California roots, Australia or South Africa as kikuyu tends to only be seen in specific regions of the world for courses. Given the true length of how the course will play this week, I think extra emphasis on wedge play and short game is important to consider. Players are going to be able to club down all week and still get plenty of length off the tee. It’s easy to see why a player like Phil has crushed this course in the first two years as he can generally avoid his problems spraying it off the tee with his driver and then work his magic from close range. I am expecting the greens to play very similar to what we saw last week at Riviera. If watching players struggle with short putts was excruciating for you last week, then you may want to avert your eyes from watching here too closely as the bumpy surface will play fast. Check out Adam Daly’s column for a more in depth look at the course this week as that is always the first place that I go to kick off my research each week.

Key Stats

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 15%
Proximity: 15%
Scrambling: 10%
Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 5%
Par 5 Scoring: 5%

*Note, there was a slight delay at this point in the column as I could hear the garbage truck wheeling round in our circle for longer than normal. When I looked out the window, sure enough, he was stuck. Up here, if you see someone stuck nearby, you grab your shovel and get outside. It’s never a fun time, but all of us up here are well aware of the fact that at some point, that will probably be us as well. After 90 minutes of digging, emptying out bags of salt and dirt and an aborted attempt from a neighbor to try to tow the truck forward, a truck arrived with a plow attached and after a little more digging and sand placement, was able to tow the garbage truck forward enough for it to gain traction and maneuver its way back down the block. Winter is always nasty up here, but fortunately, the people up here take care of one another in ways you do not always see in other places and I guess that is part of the reason why I’ll probably always live here…..for the other three seasons at least.

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