The Daily Spin – DraftKings Preview – Waste Management Phoenix Open

Welcome to one of my favorite weekends of the PGA season. There is probably no better Sunday than the one coming up this week. We get all day action in Scottsdale watching the end of the WMPO and it leads us right into the Super Bowl between Brady and Mahomes. The energy of the WMPO may not be quite as high as we are used to seeing each year, but just having a few fans out there should be enough to get the players a little more excited and motivated this week.

Before we get to the action this week, take a moment to check out a few announcements for the week. We have a lot going on this weekend including the return of the UFC to action which I think we will continue to see for the next couple of months before the next weekend off. We also have the Super Bowl so if you do need some help in preparing for the big game from a fantasy perspective, hop on over to Football Insider Edge where we will have all the coverage you need from a betting and fantasy perspective to get you ready for the big game.

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RECAP

The Farmers did not work out for me last week as I did not have any Patrick Reed for GPP contests and made a costly error in my cash game build that will provide us with a great lesson learned to go over this week.

In cash games, the key each week is to avoid making mistakes in lineup construction. Sometimes, no matter how perfectly you have analyzed a player, there are going to be missed cuts. Throughout the year, you will use golfers that are in great form, have great course history, hit all the key metrics for stats at a course and they will still miss the cut. In PGA DFS, the margin for error is really small, but there is not a lot that can be said for those moments. One bad round is all that it takes sometimes to ruin a week for a player and in golf, that can happen very quickly over just a hole or two as it is game where momentum in one direction or the other can snowball.

However, there are also times when we just make mistakes. Some of the more common mistakes that owners make with cash games happen when you get to be too reliant on one or two pieces of information about a golfer while ignoring those big red flag warnings that should steer you to safety. That happened to me last week, but it likely will not be the last time as golf is one of the more mentally challenging games where you need to have both a long and short memory in order to be successful over the long term.

I will get right to it with my key mistake for the Farmers Insurance Open. I should not have used Jason Day on my cash game team. He’s had a great career, many wins and accolades and had a great history at Torrey Pines. He even had a couple of Top-10 finishes in the fall, though his overall performance was pretty uneven last year, with a handful of great finishes followed by a series of missed cuts.

Last week, there were plenty of red flags coming into the tournament for Day. The first thing that I read about was that he was trying out new clubs. Not only was he trying out new clubs, but in his bag, he was going to have clubs from many different companies, not just one or two. A club switch in and of itself is not always something to be distressed over, but usually you like to see it done in a fairly orderly manner from one company to another and hopefully, they’ve had plenty of time to practice and play with those new clubs before a tournament like the FIO.

I was encouraged by the fact that Day was returning to action after having a couple of months of rest. If you have followed Jason Day’s career at all these last few years, you’ve no doubt witnessed the breakdown of his body, especially his back. Any time off to rest up and to let the inflammation ease is a big benefit for Day. From a health perspective, I felt pretty good about how his back would feel last week.

The area that should have stopped me dead in my tracks was in reading about his swing change. Over the last couple of months, he’s been working at changing his swing in order to avoid the sort of motion that has caused his back to hurt over the last few years and left him in a lot of pain. Clubs changes are one thing, swing changes are a whole new animal and can take a lot more time to work out. It becomes something that you are incredibly conscious of as a player when making a concerted effort to swing the club differently and that is the last thing you want to be doing on every shot. It will take Day a lot of rounds of play in a competitive environment before it becomes natural and he is not fighting against his instincts to do it the way that he did for so many years when he was so good on tour every year.

Day started out well enough on the South Course and was -1 after about 7 or 8 holes, but then quickly fell apart over the back nine holes and never rallied at all on Friday when he was on the easier South Course and missed the cut. Maybe the new clubs or swing was to blame for the result or maybe it was just rust. Whatever the case, there were enough indications that it could be a struggle that I should have been able to get away from playing him in cash games where the key to continued success is using players that are going to make it to the weekend.

I should point out that my likely pivot play would have been to drop down to Cam Smith at 8500. I even talked about it with Pari and outlined the reasons why I should not play Day and should pivot to Smith. After Thursday, I was pretty annoyed with myself, but by Friday, Smith went through a miserable collapse to miss the cut after a great start so that did at least provide a small consolation that I was going to be in trouble either way.

The rest of my team was hit and miss. When someone in our Slack chat asked me which two golfers were my ‘must plays’ for cash lineups, I replied that Ryan Palmer and Adam Scott would for sure be in my lineup. Both guys played great, though Scott was in really good position to make a run at a win and was -11 through the 13th hole on Saturday and in the lead before falling back and eventually finishing 10th. Palmer did not do a lot over the weekend, but he also did not lose ground. He clawed his way to a -9 finish and a tie for 2nd place.

Hideki was disappointing for me last week. I thought that perhaps he would play better after a solid weekend rally at the Sony Open two weeks prior, but he never really got on track last week and did not do much over the weekend. He did nothing at all on the South Course and was not great in any statistical category. He did make the cut, but at 9200 was a big disappointment, though he was heavily owned.

Louis Oosthuizen had a very Louis type of tournament which went almost exactly as I would have anticipated. He just barely made the cut with a late birdie on Friday. He did not make many birdies over the weekend, but also largely avoided trouble and worked his way up to a 29th place finish, which was fine for an $8k golfer.

Charles Howell III blew up early and often on the South Course on Thursday. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the course is playing tougher than ever with the US Open coming in June or perhaps his struggles from tee to green just caught up with him on a more challenging course, but he was dead after Thursday. He did fight on Friday and shot -5 on the North Course, but was in such a deep hole that he really never had a shot of getting to the cut line. I probably leaned too heavily on course history with CHIII who plays well at Torrey just about every year. I went back and forth between him and Carlos Ortiz who was the same price and in better form coming in, but let the better course history win me over.

Going into Sunday, my 4/6 team still had a good chance to cash for the week. If Palmer or Scott could have made a real chase to catch Reed, those extra few points could have gotten me over the top and into the money. Even late in the day, Palmer could not connect for a birdie on 18 and then Scott missed a 6 foot birdie putt that would have given him three in a row and moved him up to 7th place so the points were there all the way to the end, but my guys just could not close for me. It was a disappointing week, but I another lesson learned to keep in mind moving forward.

Course

• TPC Scottsdale
• Par 71
• 7,300
• Bermuda

TPC Scottsdale is the home for the WMPO each year so it is a very familiar stop on tour and one that the golfers that play here every year look forward to for the excitement of the crowd. However, this year, there is a completely different vibe as the crowd will be limited to just 5,000 patrons per day. It actually sounds like the perfect year to be there for someone like myself that would enjoy being at the event and seeing the course, but would not so much the extreme crowds that can get obnoxious late in the afternoons.

I do enjoy the setup here as it is one of the more fun risk vs reward courses on tour on the back nine holes. I love watching holes where players can make an eagle or a double bogey and we get a few of those holes this week. The 13th hole is an average length Par 5 that should yield plenty of birdies. The 14th is a lengthy Par 4 and from there, the last four holes are a lot of fun. The 15th hole is gettable in two shots, but with the island green, coming up short can be a disaster. The 16th hole is filled with excitement, even if it is an easier Par 3. The atmosphere is usually pretty wild, but will be comparably tame this year. I am sure that there will still be some cheers, but it will be a relative whisper compared to what we are used to, especially over the weekend. The 17th hole is one of my favorite driveable Par 4s of the year. There is water to the left of the hole as well as long so it can be an eagle opportunity or a bogey depending if players are aggressive. We’ve seen players win and lose the tournament on Sunday afternoon by being aggressive on this hole. Finally, the 18th hole has pew bunkers and water down the left side which invariably will cause some heartache over the weekend. Though it is not the longest hole to finish on by tour standards, there is enough trouble along the way so that players will need to be cautious to avoid the hazards. With water to the left off the tee, a lot of players get too cautious and then end up going to the right where the bunkers create problems if hit in the wrong spot. All in all, it’s a really memorable course in the way that it builds up to the finish.

For a more technical perspective on the course this week, be sure to check out Pari’s preview as he always does an outstanding job of breaking down the course from a scoring perspective, layout, fairways and greens. Even with courses I am very familiar with, I always enjoy reading through his column to refresh my mind on all the little details that are important for the week.

Course Comps

• Stadium Course
• TPC Southwinds
• TPC Sawgrass
• TPC Summerlin
• Sedgefield
• CC of Jackson
• GC of Houston
• TPC San Antonio
• TPC Boston

Field

We have a really good field this week led by Jon Rahm, Xander, Rory McIlroy, JT and Webb Simpson up top. Five of the Top-10 players in the world are here and 13 of the Top-26 overall. There tends to be a lot of the same names each year for this tournament which is really helpful in that most players build up a pretty good record of play here over the years. What makes this tournament fun from a DFS perspective is that while it is not quite as top heavy as a major, there is a lot of depth in the middle ranges this week which allows for a variety of builds. I enjoy events where the $7-9k range has a lot of options. It’s always challenging when we hit those tournaments in the middle of the year where there are only a handful of value plays that stand out and then your hand is forced on players that you would normally ignore. The pricing is pretty level for the week. There are not enough stars here to push great players into the lower ranges, but enough to keep the garbage out of the $7k and $8k range as well.

Weather

• Scottsdale Forecast – https://www.windfinder.com/weatherforecast/scottsdale_airport

The weather this week looks fantastic. Thursday and Friday morning, the temperatures will be in the mid 50s, climbing to the mid 60s in the afternoon for both rounds. The winds look to be mild both days with the winds hovering between 5-8 mph all day, both days. I do not see a weather edge for either wave so if you are a single entry or cash lineup player, there is no need to stack. If you are going to build 150 lineups, you could build 5% to both AM or PM starters on Thursday just in case something changes or to stay in the habit every week, but it’s not essential this week and should make things a little less stressful.

Local Connections

• Jon Rahm
• Pat Perez
• Chez Reavie
• Rory Sabbatini
• Nate Lashley
• Kevin Streelman
• Martin Laird
• Joel Dahman
• James Hahn
• Matt Jones

Key Stats

Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Strokes Gained Putting: 25%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Par 4 Scoring: 10%
Par 5 Scoring: 10%
Proximity 200 yards plus: 5%

 

Cash Game Strategy

Xander Schauffele	11000
Justin Thomas	10800
Rory McIlroy	10600
Webb Simpson	10100
Daniel Berger	9600
Sungjae Im	9400
Will Zalatoris	9000
Rickie Fowler	8600
Bubba Watson	8500
Billy Horschel	8400
Gary Woodland	8300
Brian Harman	8000
Max Homa	7900
Corey Conners	7900
Carlos Ortiz	7800
Chris Kirk	7500
Brendan Steele	7400
Adam Hadwin	7300
Byeong Hun An	7300
John Huh	7200
Martin Laird	7000
James Hahn	6800

 

Upper Tier

Webb Simpson – Webb’s irons have not been as great as usual so far this season, but he’s accurate off the tee, hits greens and his short game is outstanding. He won here a year ago and has four other Top-10 finishes over the last decade. He has not missed a cut this season and finished worst than 17th only one time. In 70 starts on comparable courses, Webb has gained over 1.5 strokes per round over competitors and his preferred putting surface throughout his career is Bermuda grass.

Daniel Berger – Berger is another top ball striker that is priced just right for cash games this week. He’s finished 11th or better in four of six starts at Scottsdale and the course seems to fit his game well. He’s well skilled with his approach play, and his putting has greatly improved over the last two years. He has not missed a cut this season and missed only two all of last season. He’s had 17 Top-25 finishes in his last 23 starts along with nine Top-10 finishes. He looked great in Hawaii both weeks to start the year so he should be ready to go for this next stretch of play.

Will Zalatoris – Another Top-10 finish for Zalatoris means another start this week at the WMPO. Over the last 16 rounds among this field, Zalatoris ranks 1st in SGTG, 6th in SGOTT and 1st in SGAPP. He has four Top-10 finishes already this season after a dominant year on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2020. This is a great number for Will as it feels a lot like the Brooks Koepka moment of 2015 when he broke through for a win. This has been a ball strikers course over the last five years, but great putting has not always been required to win it which should give Zalatoris plenty of confidence this week.

 

Middle Tier

Bubba Watson – This sets up perfectly after Bubba struggled on the South Course at Torrey Pines in tough conditions last week. Prior to that in the fall, he was playing really well, with two Top-10 finishes and really dominant play off the tee and with his approach game. He’s been incredible at TPC Scottsdale over the years with six Top-15 finishes over his last nine starts and only one missed cut. That one bad round last week is giving us a number that we would not have been able to get otherwise so we need to take advantage of it on a ‘Bubba Course’.

Billy Horschel – Billy missed the cut last week at Torrey Pines, but it was really just due to a bad round on the South Course. He looked great on the North Course and that has been the only cut he has missed this season in eight starts which includes a couple of Top-10 finishes. Billy has been good at Scottsdale throughout his career making the cut in seven of eight starts with four Top-25 finishes, including a 9th place finish last year. In 60 starts on comp courses, Billy has gained just under 1 stroke per round. He’s also a Bermuda grass specialist gaining over .2 strokes per round on Bermuda over other surfaces. His iron play has been a little worrisome, but he should be good for a made cut with Top-25 potential.

 

Lower Tier

Correy Conners – Outside of his putting, Conners has been really good this season and even his putting has not been as bad as usual. He’s on Bermuda greens this week which is promising as he’s still bad, but not as awful on them as other surfaces. His ball striking continues to impress as he ranks 10th among this field in SGTG over the last 16 rounds. He’s made eight straight cuts with six Top-25 finishes, three of which landed him in the Top-10.

Chris Kirk – It feels like we can trust the turnaround for Chris Kirk after making the cut in his last six starts highlighted by a 2nd place finish at the Sony Open followed up by a 16th place finish at the AMEX. Over the last 24 rounds among this field, Kirk ranks 17th in SGTG and 19th in SGTOT. He’s been okay at Scottsdale and has made the cut in 7 of 9 starts, but this is a much different version of Kirk than what we’ve seen in recent years as a renewed focus and sobriety have him playing some of the best golf we’ve seen from him in years. I think 2021 is going to be a big year for Kirk and we are still able to play him at a relatively low salary. In 60 starts among comp courses throughout his career, he’s gained over .7 strokes per round.

Adam Hadwin – The tee to green game has been rocky for Hadwin this season, but his short game has been impressive as he ranks 9th among this field over the last 24 rounds in SGShort. He’s off to a nice start in 2021 with a 32nd place finish at the AMEX and 18th at Torrey last week. He enters the WMPO having made the cut here in five straight seasons with a couple of Top-20s. Though he has not had a lot of big finishes the last season and a half, he’s made the cut in 21/26 starts, a fairly dependable rate and he’s affordably priced for us again this week.

Byeong Hun An – Benny has been all over the place this season. As usual, his tee to green is pretty sharp as his irons and wedge play are the strength of his game. Unfortunately, his putter is just as awful as ever and he’s hemorrhaging strokes on the green. The only positive this week is that he is on Bermuda grass where he is slightly less terrible than other surfaces. Two weeks ago, we saw flashes of what An can do at this type of course as he finished in 8th place at the AMEX. In 24 starts in his career on comp courses, he’s gained 1.198 strokes from tee to green and has finished in the Top-25 in all four starts at this event. Keep your eyes off of shot tracker when he’s putting this week and you’ll likely get through the experience without your blood pressure going through the roof.

John Huh – It was not too pretty last week, but Huh made another cut and is now 6/6 on the season. I can forgive a tough performance given the conditions and course and think that he should be in position to make his seventh cut in a row this week on a track where he’s made the cut for five straight years. He’s played balanced golf from tee to green, but has been particular good with his approach play this season.

 

GPP

CORE – 25-40%

Justin Thomas	10800
Rory McIlroy	10600
Webb Simpson	10100
Daniel Berger	9600
Will Zalatoris	9000
Rickie Fowler	8600
Bubba Watson	8500
Billy Horschel	8400
Corey Conners	7900
Carlos Ortiz	7800
Byeong Hun An	7300

 

Justin Thomas – It will be interesting to see how JT comes out this week after dealing with some personal adversity coming out of the TOC. He does not strike me as the type who will dwell on it too much, but he did miss the cut two weeks ago over in Abu Dhabi so it is worth watching. He’s finished 3rd here the last two years and his iron play right now is just incredible and should give him an edge this week. His short game has been outstanding so far this season and is better than at any point that I can remember in his career so this is course that he should again be able to carve up.

Rory McIlroy – Rory is a little under the radar this week as he never plays this event, so we are getting a couple of extra points to work with over the veterans that make it every year. We will take that and run with it as he ranks incredibly well on comp courses, putts well on Bermuda greens and should be able to take advantage of the scoring opportunities over the last few holes. He’s played well in the first two weeks of 2021 and I expect him to have the sort of year he was in line for in 2020 before the COVID crisis shutdown the PGA for three months.

Rickie Fowler – I am going to take a shot on Rickie down here. I passed on Hideki at 9800 as the price was just a little too high to compensate for some of his form of late, but at 8600, I am going to roll the dice with Rickie who has a win here just two years ago and who has been much improved from tee to green in his first two starts of 2021. He’s on Bermuda greens as well this week where he’s better than other surfaces. I am betting on a turnaround season for Rickie in 2021 and at this price, I can afford to take some chances.

 

SECONDARY – 15-25%

Xander Schauffele	11000
Gary Woodland	8300
Max Homa	7900
Sam Burns	7700
Chris Kirk	7500
Brendan Steele	7400
Adam Hadwin	7300
John Huh	7200
Sebastian Munoz	7100
Martin Laird	7000
JT Poston	6900
James Hahn	6800

 

TERTIARY – 0-15%

Brian Harman	8000
Henrik Norlander	7500
Zach Johnson	7400
Emiliano Grillo	7300
Rory Sabbatini	7300
Michael Thompson	7200
Sepp Straka	7100
Adam Long	7100
Patton Kizzire	7000
Keith Mitchell	6400
Robby Shelton	6300