The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Weekend Edition – Northern Trust Open

It looked like the picks were going to be in solid shape going into the weekend with only two players from the whole group missing the cut. That’s when Hideki Matsuyama, Marc Leishman and Branden Grace all inexplicably bogeyed the 18th and final hole of the week to miss the cut and send many of our shares to the wood chipper. Hideki struggled mightily once again with his putter, missing several easy putts with a four footer on the last hole for par being the final nail in his coffin. Just when we thought Hideki was about to heat up and make a big run to end the season, those old putting demons showed up to dump us back into reality. The good news is that we were not heavily overweight on Hideki in the final tally, but the bad news is that 40% still hurts. It’s frustrating in that the other two big names we spent up for in Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth are both tied for the lead going into the weekend.

As for the rest of the field, the leaderboard certainly became a lot more recognizable than it was after Day 1 when there were plenty of surprises. This course is definitely playing up to its reputation in terms of the comparisons made to Bethpage Black and Augusta. While the fairways here are wider than some of what we’ve seen this season, if you do end up in the rough, it has not been the easiest of situations to work out of. The greens are looking slick so far and even putts that just miss by a fraction are rolling several extra feet making even cleanup putts an adventure. The bunkers, which are a trademark for the course have proved to be just as challenging as expected with a couple of players really making a mess of a few holes. I still think that the winning score will probably get up close to the -9 or -10 range, but it has taken absolutely perfect conditions thus far to even get the leaders to -6.

We’re not looking at anything too crazy in terms of weather over the next two days. Conditions look to be pristine with winds not expected to get above 10 mph and the forecast indicates no expected precipitation. As usual, we want to emphasize scorers over par makers with position points being a non factor. Typically, I like to rely on a chart that I create each week that compares current position to expected position and while I will post the chart here for all to use in their research, I think you might want to emphasize it less this week. The scoring this week is very tight. The leaders are at -6 while those right on the cut line are at +2, representing only an 8 shot spread from first to worst for the 70 players that are left in the field. The last two groups of golfers at +1 and +2 and with so many tied, just an improvement of one stroke would jolt them up 10-15 spots on the leaderboard so while some of these players look more attractive than normal, I think it is slightly deceptive this week.

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