The Daily Spin – DraftKings Preview – WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational

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Recap

Who says golf is ever easy? I thought going into the 3M Open that the big names would show up and do some damage. What happened was that TPC Twin Cities knocked out nearly every top player that teed it up for the week. I think a combination of factors were at play which contributed to the result. First off, it was the last filler event of the season before a six week stretch of golf where all the top players in the world are likely to play in at least five of the next six weeks and many will play all six. We have seen DJ pull this act before where a slow start leads him to become disinterested and eventually dropping out of the field to move on to the following week. Two years in a row now, we’ve seen Brooks look lifeless in Minnesota, but this missed cut continued a disappointing trend that has lasted three straight weeks. Tommy Fleetwood made his first start on tour since the re-start and predictably looked rusty. Paul Casey is far better suited at tougher courses in stronger fields. Of the most expensive names, only Tony Finau performed well which we were on top of and used in our core. Sadly, DJ damaged a lot of promising GPP rosters.

In cash games, it was a rough week. I think getting a third player through the cut would have been all that I needed to get across the cash line. Not five, not four…just three golfers. Had you told me at the start of the week that I would dodge the Casey/Fleetwood chalk and that Richy Werenski would be in the lead going to the weekend, I would have thought I was in for an easy win. Unfortunately, most of my team just never got in gear. Lucas Glover was terrible. It tends to happen when he has played well for four or five consecutive tournaments and starts to get chalky. He never had a prayer last week and bowed out without even so much as a fight on Friday. Troy Merritt started off rough, fought his way back to -2 after ten holes on Friday, but an absurd double bogey on the 11th holes wrecked his momentum and he could not get back above the cut line. Sam Ryder looked great on paper last week, but managed to find the water four times in the first round, including two trips on the backbreaking 18th hole where he posted a triple bogey that effectively ended his tournament.

The most frustrating sweat was Russell Henley. Henley started out really well and was -2 going to the last hole, #9 on Thursday. He was missed a lot of putts, but he was still in the Top-20 so it looked like a good start. However, he ended up making a triple bogey on that hole to move to +1 and was fighting his way back all day on Friday. He had ample opportunity to make the cut as his irons were sharp and he consistently was giving himself putts inside of 10 feet for birdie. He just did not want to make any of them and managed to lose one stroke after another which was crushing as he needed only one more birdie to make the cut. Had he been able to slide through and make any sort of move over the weekend, my English, Werenski and Henley squad may have made the money for the week. Unfortunately, there were a lot of higher dollar players that missed the cut which made cash games a real problem for the week. My hat is off to those of you that navigated that minefield successfully.

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