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

It was a really exciting week for the PGA and for FGI last week. The Honda Classic provided another cruel reminder that fantasy golf can be a difficult game with four of the top eight players by salary missing the cut. Once again, the highest owned player in the field, Patrick Reed was a victim of the DraftKings curse and could not ever get any momentum going in his two rounds at PGA National. It marked a continuing trend of higher owned players not only under performing their salary, but then failing to make the cut. As a consequence of some of these noteworthy misses, lineups were decimated across the board with only aroun 2-3% making it through to the weekend completely intact in most GPP events.

FGI also made some news last week with the acquisition of PGADFS, one of the largest fantasy golf focused sites in the industry. We are excited with the acquisition as it gives us a great chance to grow and expand in what is quickly becoming a very competitive market. If you are not familiar with PGADFS, they have their own model and data that gets sent out to subscribers on a weekly basis. David has done a nice job with his model and has had good results over the last year since he started in the business so it is a nice addition to what we have at FGI and something that we will look at to see if there are ways to improve upon our own model which we are extremely proud of since it was developed last year.

With the acquisition, we have fielded a lot of questions from subscribers of FGI as well as PGADFS so I wanted to take a moment to address some of the issues that are on the minds of subscribers. The first thing to note is that nothing will be changing immediately for the two services involved as far as what is available to current subscribers of each. Given the number of subscribers involved for each site, the various price points and expiration dates for subscriptions, we wanted to avoid any chaos by bringing everything together all at once, which we hope is understandable. The goal is to work during this transition over the next year to get things sorted out to a point where it will make sense with the timing to bring all products together under a single price point. While it may be a little frustrating that the services will run in parallel for some time to come, there are going to be some great benefits for current subscribers immediately.

As an FGI subscriber, if you have ever wanted to try out PGADFS before, you will now get the opportunity to do it at a price that will only be available for current subscribers. For those folks who have subscriptions to both FGI and PGADFS, you will also be able to take advantage of a special discounted rate for your FGI subscription moving forward as well. Over the next year, active subscribers to either or both services will also be able to take advantage of an early offering price that will be lower than the final rate that we introduce to the general public. Finally, if you were grandfathered in this year after we raised subscription prices, this deal will not affect that rate when we reconfigure our pricing over the next year. We value loyalty above all else and want you to know how much your continued support means to us. Now, it is time for me to get to work to try to stay ahead of the game as we move forward.

Fortunately for our purposes last weekend, the optimal lineup was an across the board winner in all cash games even with only four golfers making the cut. William ‘Dirt’ McGirt again played a key role finishing in a tie for 8th place and pushing the team into the green once again. This team helped me to personally salvage a few dollars back after a tough weekend with my GPP teams which were dead by the time I woke up from a short nap after lineup lock on Thursday morning.

Whenever I wake up from that nap each week, I am always dreading that first look at my phone messages. I know immediately that things are bad if I see a small red circle with an 8 in the center for my text messages as it means that poor Jeffrey is losing his mind. If things are really bad, I’ll have a few direct messages from Roger bemoaning the terrible start followed by a dozen tweets of early Thursday sweats turned into hot yoga toxin cleanses. Last week proved to be one of those ugly starts for a lot of fantasy owners. My advice to you is simple; do not sweat out Thursdays at such a high level of intensity. You are going to drive yourself made trying to grade your performance during and even after the first round. Wait until 5pm on Friday before you start to kick yourself too hard.

Most of the picks in the middle ranges actually performed well for us last week. Charles Howell III missed his first cut of the season, which was a surprise considering how consistent he had been playing and with how well he usually plays at PGA National, but it is to be expected as even guys who are pure cut makers from week to week are going to miss a few during the year. The lower tier of the salary range is where it was a struggle last week for our GPP teams as so many players who were in good form and/or good history at PGA National just fell apart on one or both days last week. What looked like a range with a lot of great value turned out to be a trap that snapped off the legs of many owners. That is always the challenge for courses that are more difficult and why it makes so much more sense to focus in on GPP events in weeks like the Honda or Northern Trust Open.

This week the tour heads down towards the Miami area to Doral for the WGC-Cadillac Championship. It is a star-studded event as nearly all of the top players in the world are here from around the world for an event that requires players to qualify based upon their rankings for particular tours or FedEx Cup points. It is a no cut event and there are 66 players in the field as of now. DraftKings always runs a special promotional GPP event in the high range for $300 during this event with a 1st place prize of $100,000.

Last season, it was an emotional rollercoaster for me as play entered the final round. Glen Chorney, an FGI subscriber and myself were battling it out for the title throughout the day. Glen and I each had a team with five of the same players which meant that it would come down to a matchup between Jamie Donaldson (me) versus Lee Westwood (Glen). Westwood entered the final round in 8th place and Donaldson entered in 29th. Neither player did much that final round with both shooting a 75 leaving Westwood in 12th place and Donaldson in 44th. Donaldson’s mediocre effort sunk my team to a 4th place finish for $10,000. It was a nice profit for me, but now Jamie Donaldson owes me $90,000. Between the Paul Casey withdrawal at the World Championship and Jamie Donaldson mailing it in during the final round, I am now owed $170,000 between the two of those guys. Not that I would be the type to dwell on things like that…

This is a great event and a really challenging course. With the renovations that were done after the tournament took place in 2013, it made Doral one of the toughest stops of the season on tour. At over 7,500 yards, this Par 72 course features the famous, Blue Monster on the 18th hole which makes for a tremendous to the tournament as players do everything they can to try to stay out of the water and usually end up finding trouble but overcompensating and putting their tee shot into the trees on the right side of the fairway. Given the length of the course, this is a place where tee to green players shine and this was particularly relevant when looking at the top of the leaderboard last year with Dustine Johnson, JB Holmes, Bubba Watson, Adam Scott and Henrik Stenson rounding out the Top 5 finishers for the weekend.

On the strategy side for the week, the biggest thing to remember is not to overthink your high end players too much. Last season at this event, I had JB Holmes, DJ and Bubba on my team that finished in 4th place. It is pretty rare to hit the top three finishers and still end up in 4th, but with a small, extremely talented field like this, you will probably need to have three players on your roster in the Top 5 if you are going to take down the $300 GPP this week or even finish anywhere near the top. Most weeks, getting six players through the cut with a few finishing near the top will win you a nice prize, but that will not be the case this week without a cut. The point here is that if you feel strongly about a couple of golfers near the top in salary, go ahead and use them them this week even if they are highly owned. Your path to victory is going to be found by finding the Lee Westwood of the field to jump up to take 12th after you have locked in the studs at the top to battle it out for a win.

In terms of an approach this week, cash games should be limited in events without a cut. Those who take risks by going with scrubs in their cash lineups will actually be rewarded this week rather than punished as they now can they are able to more than make up the points lost by that player by adding studs at the top to carry their teams. Since GPP and cash game strategy is about the same this week and due to the fact that a non cut event tends to smooth over the mistakes of less knowledgeable owners, the expected return for cash games this week is lower than normal.

The strategy for GPPs this week should be to focus on putting together stars and scrubs lineups focusing in on those players that have a legitimate chance to win the event at the top and looking for scrub players with potential Top 25 upside. As the scrubs will get to play four rounds, their minimum scores are going to be much higher than in normal events where the typical player who misses the cut only scores about 20 points. With four full rounds, even the worst players should be somewhere around 35-40 points for the weekend on this challenging course. I would guess a median score for the week will be around 55-60 points with a few high finishers being just over 100 points. You will want to start most of your teams with two or even three high end players, perhaps one in the middle ranges and two or three below $7,000.

In taking a quick look at the key stats for the week, our friends at Fantasy Golf Metrics ran the numbers for us and came up with these weightings for the week:

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Birdie or Better %: 20%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Par 5 Scoring: 12.5%
Proximity: 10%
Scrambling: 7.5%

It is an exciting time for Fantasy Golf and an exciting time for FGI. Jeff and I are so excited to be able to work with all of the new folks that are joining us and cannot wait to build up our community throughout the rest of the season. I get enormous satisfaction out of doing the research and talking to a lot of the same folks week in and week out. Your loyalty is something that I value very deeply and I will continue to do my best to bring you a great product and be as actively involved with our subscribers as possible. Look for several e-mails in the coming weeks from us. The process of bringing PGADFS together with FGI will take good amount of time and effort to complete, but the first ones to reap the benefits will be the subscribers to each service so please bare with us as we sort through everything and get organized over the next couple of weeks. Good luck this week and as always, please feel free to get in touch with me anytime with any questions or concerns about strategy or lineup selection.

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We have been rolling this season with the optimal lineup so far and from all that I have heard from folks through Twitter and e-mail, a lot of you have been able to cash in since it has become a point of emphasis for me to discuss the last few weeks. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it is a fairly simple concept. If you look at the model as it is weighted by us and published each week, you will see the entire field ranked from top to bottom. The optimal lineup is composed of the highest ranked players that can be fit onto a roster without exceeding the salary cap limits. Last week, we had success with the optimal lineup even with Patrick Reed and Charles Howell III missing the cut. This week, the model produced a few familiar names and a few new names. I want to reiterate that cash game exposure should be a little lighter this week, but if that is what you enjoy, there is no reason to shut off exposure from them completely. Just realize that your edge is a little lower than normal. This week the optimal lineup is composed of:

Henrik Stenson – $10,300
JB Holmes – $9,400
Matt Kuchar – $8,400
Danny Willett – $7,800
Kevin Na – $7,100
George Coetzee – $7,000

At the top, the first two golfers are pretty obvious as far as why they showed up well on the model as both have outstanding tee to green games and are playing well in 2016. Matt Kuchar is a cash game staple and should be able to put up another solid finish for his price. Danny Willet has been on a tear in Europe over the last few months and finished in 12th place here a year ago in his first start at Doral so for the price, we are getting a great deal there. Kevin Na has struggled the last couple of starts and his price reflects that, but the model picks up on the rest of his game to show that we are getting a nice buying opportunity for a player of his skill level. Finally, George Coetzee rounds out the group as the wildcard of the week. He enters the event on the heels of a win on the Sunshine Tour (yawn), but has played well as of late and did finish in 16th place here two years ago in his only start at Doral. If you are worried about how he will handle a longer course, he did finish in 7th place last year at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits which plays at nearly 7,800 yards. I like the way the team looks this week so use it as you will and hopefully we can keep our success going for another week.

BLUE CHIPS

Adam Scott ($11,600)
Bubba Watson ($11,400)
Dustin Johnson ($11,200)
Henrik Stenson ($10,300)

Some people are going to say that it is a sucker play to take a player that won the previous week as if winning should somehow lead to a player mentally just taking the next week off. Do not let yourself fall into this mindset. With journeymen players that win, they simply might not be a great match the next week statistically with the course and that combined with a bump in ownership could be a great reason not to own that player. However, in the case of Adam Scott, the numbers point overwhelmingly towards success this week. His tee to green game is elite as shown by him being ranked 10th in proximity and 4th in approaches from beyond 200 yards. He ranks 1st in Par 5 scoring and 4th in Birdie or Better Percentage. While his putting has been a liability, on Bermuda grass, Scott actually compared well to the rest of the field over the last year and overall he is 50th in Strokes Gained Putting this season. If Scott can even maintain an average putter this season, he will be in contention in events all season long. He also finished 4th here a year ago so there is no reason that he should not be able to keep the momentum going this week.

Bubba Watson won two weeks ago at Riviera so of course the naysayers are feeling superstitious about using him this week even with the extra week off. With three Top 3 finishes here in his last four starts, Bubba has shown he can compete here and outside of his putting which has regressed to some degree this year, the rest of his game is in good shape. Bubba is the type of player where course history is meaningful as his best performances are usually in the same events each year. He is not a fan of Doral, but he would not be Bubba if he were not complaining about one thing or another. While I will not be all in on Bubba this week, I will still have a reasonable amount of exposure to him this week.

Everyone likes Dustin Johnson this week which is usually the time when he sets owners up for the biggest disappointment. He is long off the tee, his tee to green game is always as good as any on tour, he plays the Par 5’s well, makes a lot of birdies and eagles, and is married to Paulina Gretzky. He is checking a lot of boxes to say the least. We know he will never be a great putter, but like Scott, if he can keep putting himself into position to score, he does not need to be elite. In the last two years, DJ has a 4th place finish and a win at Doral and his form is again trending upward entering the tournament. He will be heavily owned, but should be in position to compete on Sunday.

Henrik Stenson likes to take his time in showing up to the US each year so some of you are maybe seeing him for the first time if you are newer to golf. Stenson is the top ball striker on tour which always helps in maneuvering around a tough course like Doral where a little extra accuracy can help to keep a player out of the water. While his tee to green game has always been among the best in the game, his putting improved enormously last season which put him into contention in several big tournaments last year. Unfortunately for Stenson, he tends to struggle on the weekends and does not close out events that he should win. However, given the demands of the course, Stenson works great to pair with another star who could potentially win the event as he is a great Top 10 condidate.

VALUE PLAYS

JB Holmes ($9,400)
Brooks Koepka ($9,200)
Patrick Reed ($9,100)
Matt Kuchar ($8,400)
Byeong-Hun An ($8,100)
Danny Willett ($7,800)

I like JB Holmes this week, but am a little nervous about him as the tournament approaches. He is playing really consistent golf right now with five of his six finishes being in the Top 11 this season as opposed to previous years where he would show up for a week or two and then disappoint us. Holmes fired an astounding 62 in the first round here a year ago, but then shot two over the last three days and finished in 2nd place. While he did very well, all of his success came in a single round. However, his tee to green game is even better than where it was at this point last season which should be key in helping him to show that last year was not a fluke. Holmes will be one of the highest owned players this week so I would recommend using him in moderation and using some pivots, but some exposure to Holmes is reasonable, particularly if he has a chance to finish in the Top 10.

As usual, the Koepka hype train is rolling down the tracks again. He had a decent finish at PGA National last week, but nothing too exciting (T26). Koepka is from Florida so one would think he would have an extra advantage in playing down here, but it is a double edged sword for him as Florida courses always offer plenty of opportunities for a blowup round to occur and Brooks never balks at chance to do some damage when he gets off track. I will use him sparingly this week as I still think his price is high given the level of players around him. He finished 17th here a year ago and I would expect another performance like that this year as well. The upside potential for more is always there with Brooks so he is worth taking in a few places this week.

I am still kicking myself for not going with the obvious bounce back play last week with Sergio Garcia, but I am not going to miss my chance this week to grab some shares of Patrick Reed. He had an off week at PGA National, but so did plenty of other players in the windy conditions during the first two rounds. Reed is still one of the best players in the game and is returning to the spot where he won two years ago in his first start at Doral. His ball striking is much improved from last year, but his putter has been off this year. If he can get back to the Patrick Reed that we saw towards the end of 2015, he should be relevant at the end of the weekend.

Matt Kuchar is about as steady as they come for consistency. Without a lot of distance off the tee he is less likely to win here as the years roll on, but he is almost always a guy that you can count on to be around the Top 25. Since you are not going to be able to only roster stars at the top of the salary range, Kuchar can provide a little bit of cap relief while also offering a good chance at a high finish. His tee to green game is not at the elite players at the top, but still very good and the rest of his game matches up perfectly for the demands of the course. If you are playing cash games this week, just start every team with Kuchar and work from there. I will have him on some of my GPP teams as well.

Our first interesting pick of the week is Byeong-Hun An. The big Korean made some waves last season with a couple of decent finishes down the stretch on the PGA Tour last year, but the real progress has come on the European Tour over the last few months where he has posted five Top 10 finishes since November. He hits it well over 300 yards off the tee and has a good tee to green game. Although he was born in Korea, he actually moved to Florida at the age of 14 to train at a golf academy and he currently makes his residence in Orlando so he is very familiar with Florida golf courses which most people are not going to be thinking about this week. If you need a way to diversify your lineups from others, An is a great way to do that this week.

Danny Willett is making his US debut this week, but has been playing really well on the European Tour over the last six months or so. In his debut at Doral last year, Willett finished in 12th place avoiding the letdown that most players have when arriving in the US for the first time in a season. He is not quite a 300 yard hitter off the tee, but he tends to minimize his mistakes and has improved his putting so far this season. He won the Omega on the Euro Tour just a few weeks ago so he is in good form coming int the event as well. At his price, we get a nice bargain who fits well after starting a team with a couple of star players at the top.

SLEEPERS

Shane Lowry ($7,400)
Ross Fisher ($6,700)
Daniel Berger ($6,600)
Scott Hend ($6,100)

Shane Lowry provided some on air laughs with an expletive laden outburst on live television Sunday afternoon, but the real highlight was how well Lowry hit the ball on Thursday afternoon when he gained an amazing 6.257 strokes from tee to green in a single round. Unfortunately, he gave much of it back over the last few rounds, but the talent is certainly there. The tee to green game and putting will keep him reasonably competitive, although he just does not score well enough on the Par 5 holes to have a great shot to win, although he did surprise us last season in winning at the WGC-Bridgestone event in Ohio. He finished 17th here a year ago and is a nice value in the lower price range this week.

The last time we watched Ross Fisher play, he was tearing it up in China with a 3rd place finish at the WGC-HSBC in November. Fisher is a boom or bust type of player that we need to be willing to take a chance on this week given his affordable price tag. Without having to worry about a cut, we know we will get four rounds out of him and good things can happen when the pressure is off the first couple of days. Fisher has been to Doral a number of times and managed a 23rd place finish last year, which we would be thrilled with if he could duplicate it this year. He hits it over 290 off the tee and tends to hit a lot of greens. With minimal name recognition, Fisher should be a nice play as I think most folks will gravitate towards Jamie Donaldson in this price range.

Before you lose your lunch when you see that I have written up Daniel Berger, I want you to take a breath and hear me out. Last season, when his season looked like it would completely unravel and he missed seven cuts in a row, most of the DFS community threw in the towel on Berger. Then at the Deutsche Bank Championship, an event where only around 25-30 players miss the cut, something sparked in him and he caught fire. In the next event at the BMW where there is no cut, his run continued and he finished tied for 2nd place that week. He finished up the season with a respectable T12 finish at the Tour Championship, a smaller no cut event against a stacked field. In the fall at the WGC-HSBC event, another event without a cut, Berger finished in 11th place. He is a Florida player who hits it plenty far off the tee and is capable of being a very good tee to green player. His putter is floundering, but this is a course where Berger could surprise some folks this week. He missed the cut last week in tough playing conditions and we were not buyers, but I have a feeling we will catch a glimpse of the old Berger this week and for his price, he is finally worth the risk.

In order to go big at the top of our lineups, we have to take chances at the bottom. Scott Hend is near the bottom in salary this week, but he is not without talent. He is a bomber who will occasionally post a big finish like he did at the Omega (8th) a few weeks ago. He looked good at the WGC-HSBC in November when he finished in 19th place and two years ago he managed a 16th place finish at Doral. Without a cut, I am happy to take a shot on a guy like Hend who could outperform his price with a very average performance this week.

Good Luck,

-myz
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