The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Farmers Insurance Open

The golf season can now officially begin after patiently waiting its turn behind King NFL over the last five months. Yes, the Super Bowl is still on the horizon, but with the Waste Management Open also taking place next week, the DFS world will have its attention completely on golf every Sunday for the next seven months or so. As Jeff and I have always believed since starting in this industry a few years back, golf is the perfect compliment for fantasy lovers that enjoy having their Sundays filled with an exciting sporting event rather than trips to the mall or hanging out at the piano recitals of their wife’s cousin’s kids. I can still picture the horrified look on my wife’s face the first time she came down to the basement on a random Sunday in August while I was watching The Wyndham Championship. She asked if it was a major tournament. Nope. She asked if she had said something to upset me that would lead me to be watching a random golf tournament on a Sunday. Nope. Finally, to avoid watching her crumble emotionally, I explained that I had several fantasy teams in play. She exhaled with relief, then rolled her eyes and laughed. Just remember, my mother will be here at 3pm. Okay, babe.

For those joining us for their first season of DFS golf, welcome to the first tournament of the year that has both a fantastic venue as well as a field stocked full of stars and talented players. The PGA has done a masterful job over the years of coordinating its schedule to turn the volume up at just the right time (yes, on occasion I will give the PGA some credit). They get an extra push this week with the return of Tiger Woods to his first full field event in almost 18 months. For new players, be wary about Tiger. If your impression of him is one of dominance of the tour from a decade ago, well, things have changed in recent years. Our partners at ESPN ran a brilliant article on the travails of Tiger following the death of his father, which discusses the fall of a legend who has spent much of the last decade in search of himself. Along the way, his obsession with Special Operations style training tore his body to shreds and as a consequence, the last three seasons have been a dark chapter in his career as he has tried to revive not just his golf career, but to find direction in his life. You can check out the article here if you are interested in a fascinating examination of the struggles and obsessions of Tiger Woods in recent years.

Beyond sorting through the wreckage of Tiger’s world, the question that most of you are feeling curious about at this point has to be whether or not he is ready to play this week? In 2014 and 2015, the answer was simple. You could watch Tiger play each week and see that his body was not holding up to the stresses of playing each week on tour. Tiger has dealt with serious knee and back issues in his career. His ‘intense’ approach to fitness and his aggressive golf swing broke his body down and forced him to sit out all of 2016 except for an appearance in the Bahamas at the HERO World Challenge. For two years, I advised readers to steer clear of Tiger in all formats. He missed cuts in ugly fashion and withdrew from events (like The Farmers in 2015) with regularity. It felt like watching the scene in Superman II where Clark has given up his super powers and gets beat up at bar for the first time.

However, we saw some things in December that gave me a little bit of hope for Tiger’s return in 2017. At the HERO, Tiger looked healthy and was hitting some very Tiger-esque shots over the four rounds of the tournament. He was one of the top players in the 18 man event in terms of birdies and after the second round, he actually looked to potentially be a contender. He did show some rust over the final two rounds and slipped to 15th place by the end of the weekend as the rust from not playing competitive golf caught up to him. What I saw overall did make me feel okay about what to expect this season. My impression of Tiger Woods is of a man who nearly lost everything in his life and career, but now realizes how close he came to losing something that for a time, he took for granted. When I see the aggressive schedule he has set for himself over the next month, he has the appearance of a player not simply looking to compete, but to regain the dominant form that made him so formidable for over a decade on tour before things began to crumble. Tiger plans to play this week, then jump 12 time zones next week where he will play in Dubai before returning to Riviera for the Genesis Open, followed by the Honda Classic in Florida, giving him just one week off over the next five weeks. After this weekend, we should have a much better idea of what to expect from Tiger moving forward this season. Although I am not the biggest Tiger fan, his return to form could only be viewed positively from the standpoint of the health of the game and also the growth of DFS golf for new fans. Here is hoping that Clark Kent gets his powers back starting this week. Incidentally, if anyone with some technological savvy can superimpose Tiger’s face onto Clark Kent and any other top pro onto the bar patron’s face and share it, that would be fantastic!

As usual, wherever Tiger goes, the coverage of him tends to dominate as it has done here for the first thousand words. Fortunately, there are a lot of other areas that we need to cover this week so that is the last I will mention of Tiger until I get to my picks below. The Farmers, much like last week at the CareerBuilder, has multiple courses in play, the North and South courses of Torrey Pines. I am never a big fan of the multiple course setups, but Torrey Pines is such a beautiful venue that I can almost let it slide….almost. The problem that I have with this setup is that inevitably, there are courses that are more challenging than others in the rotation. This is obviously the case at Torrey where the North Course plays much easier than the South Course. Now, many of you might think that it does not matter since all players have to play each course for one round prior to the cut. Unfortunately, other factors like weather are very much in play this week. While it looks like it is going to be gorgeous all weekend for the tournament, the winds are expected to be heavier on Friday. This is something that is really crucial to look into if you are serious about playing DFS golf each week. I cannot implore you enough to get a good weather check before lineup lock at 11am CST/9am Pacific. The one true benefit with the two course setup is that everyone plays in one big wave split up over the two courses in the opening rounds so the event itself takes place over 5-6 hours in the opening rounds instead of the usual 10 or more.

With the winds picking up on Friday, you should be thinking of making some small strategic adjustments to roster composition this week. If you are like me and you are building 100 $3 lineups for the big Drive The Green contest ($100,000 1st place prize!!!), you should take a little extra time when using the lineup generator this week. Now, do not get too crazy with the weather this week. While those starting on the South Course on Thursday may have a small advantage over those starting on the North Course, I would not go out of my way to exclude players teeing off on the North Course on Thursday. Rather, pick your player pool based upon your research and when it comes time to build your lineups, try this approach: Build your first 30 lineups with all players that are starting on the South Course. Build your next 60 lineups with a mix of all players. Finally, build your last 10 lineups with players who start on the North Course.

A few of you might be a little confused with the last part, but there is a method to my madness. Back in 2015, FGI claimed two seats to the live final event in Boston. The second seat was won at The Open, an event which is notorious for dealing with difficult weather. Jeff, in a brilliant move, put together a qualifier team that had all players who would tee off early the first days when the weather was clear. Now, that Friday afternoon, weather conditions were projected to be awful with the potential for high winds and rain. A Thursday PM/Friday AM setup seemed obvious. However, Thursday morning ended up being the best weather in the first two rounds as delays after those early tee times pushed the event into delays all weekend to the point where it was not finished until Monday. Jeff won his qualifier with ease. My point here is that weather can shift unexpectedly. If for whatever reason, we end up seeing conditions that are trickier on Thursday, rather than Friday, I want you to have a little contrarian hedge built in. That is where those final ten lineups will come into play. You will be among a very small and elite group that thought things through enough to build this strategy into your lineups and will gain a tiny edge over competitors. In DFS golf, any small edge that we can exploit is valuable to our long term success.

Speaking of the two courses, let’s take a quick look at the details of how each is laid out. The North course plays at just over 7,250 yards (after the redesign in 2016) and is a Par 72 with four Par 5’s, each fairly reachable for the bombers. The Par 4 holes are also a little on the shorter side with three of them coming in at under 400 yards. The South Course, on the other hand, plays at just under 7,700 yards, is also a Par 72 course and has four Par 5 holes, two of which come in at over 600 yards, making them nearly unreachable outside of handful of big hitters who may be fortunate enough if conditions are right. In 2008, the US Open was hosted on the South Course at Torrey Pines so the setup is similar to what we see each year on those types of courses with narrower fairways and thicker rough. In scouring Twitter for information on the conditions of the course, it sounds like it will be a challenge as the rough is thicker than expected with the recent rains. Fairways are always a challenge to hit here, eve for he more accurate names so being able to hit for some distance out of the rough is important. You will notice that both the wild bomber types off the tee as will as some of the shorter hitters have enjoyed success at this event, but you cannot deny the success bombers have had here. While tournament history is not always a perfect indicator for projecting success, The Farmers is an event where when you start to look at the most successful players from year to year the bombers stand out. I am going to leave out the obvious name, Jason Day, as his game translate where almost anywhere, but when you start to see a positive correlation in performance from players like Jimmy Walker, Tony Finau, JB Holmes, Jhonny Vegas and Gary Woodland – all players who are huge hitters off the tee who each struggle with accuracy, you should take notice as this will not happen routinely throughout the season.

Furthermore, I want to examine course history here a little bit from last season. If you remember, last season’s best round of the year was played by Brandt Snedeker on Sunday afternoon during some of the toughest winds you are ever going to see on tour. Sneds managed a 69 on a day when many pros were struggling to break 80. He finished his round before delays forced the rest of the field to finish on Monday. Fortunately, for Sneds, the winds were just a rough on Monday and all players left to finish lost strokes, making him the winner. Now, besides the fact that the last few days of the event were a mess, there were a few important things to note about how certain players performed. Jason Day entered the event with an illness that nearly forced him to withdraw. Anytime you hear that Day is feeling less than 100%, your inclination should be to fade him. He is a bit fragile when it comes to his health and sure enough, he blew the cut. Hideki Matsuyama started out red hot last year before an uncharacteristic 76 in the 2nd round cost him the cut. DJ, managed an 18th place finish, but was actually in contention to win the event entering the final round at -6 before carding an 80 in terrible conditions to drop back from the pack. Also, when you look at the missed cut for DJ in 2015, realize that was his first event back after a more than 6 month layoff after taking time away to seek ‘professional help’ for personal issues. After he missed the cut in that event, he went on to have a really solid season. While I would still pay attention to what happened at Torrey Pines last year, realize that you have to look at the tournament in context and also that every missed cut is not the same. Realize also that three players have traveled across 12 time zones this week after participating in the Euro event in Abu Dhabi last weekend: DJ, Rickie Fowler and Byeong-Hun An. Last year, Rickie won in Abu Dhabi and then tried to play the following week here and missed the cut.

The key stats for the week as gathered for us by our friends at Fantasy Golf Metrics are as follows:

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

Immediately, you should be thinking about bombers with excellent long iron play.

Finally, I want to say again that I will be in attendance this weekend. I will for sure be at the tournament on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If I have some teams in the mix, I will probably make it back out on Sunday, but after doing a little birthday celebration Saturday night, I will have to see how my body is holding up the next morning. Be sure to hit me up on Twitter or email if you will be in attendance this week. I will be walking around in some FGI attire with my dad and couple of friends so come find us and grab a drink our two with us while we walk the course. It should be a lot of fun.

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This is definitely a week where you should feel more comfortable playing in cash games. DraftKings decided to help everyone out by getting prices out earlier, which has created a scenario where the salaries tend to mirror what we usually see around the majors when they are attempting to entice more novice players to jump into playing PGA. The great news for us is that cash games should be VERY winnable this week, barring a crazy weather scenario like last year. There are a lot of deep value plays this week that jump off the board. Usually, there is some risk in using the most expensive players in cash lineups. That is far from the case this week as it is really easy to fit any of the top players into a cash lineup without having to take much of a risk on your bottom couple of players. Do not overthink things this week. Build solid rosters and let other players make dumb mistakes. Do not use Tiger in your cash lineups. There is no reason to take this risk. Even if it works out, it’s a terrible risk versus reward proposition. With prices being released before the Vegas odds came out, there are huge disparities between salaries and odds this week. We absolutely crushed cash games last week with 15/18 players listed making the cut with Adam Hadwin and Hudson Swafford both helping to lead the way for our squads. Let’s keep that momentum going this week.

CASH GAME PLAYS

Jason Day – $11,400
Hideki Matsuyama – $11,200
Dustin Johnson – $11,100

Brooks Koepka – $9,900
Brandt Snedeker – $9,500

Daniel Berger – $8,800
Gary Woodland – $8,600
Marc Leishman – $8,500
JB Holmes – $8,200
Brendan Steele – $8,000

Billy Horschel – $7,800
Tony Finau – $7,700
Hudson Swafford – $7,500
Jhonny Vegas – $7,500
Charles Howell III – $7,300
Luke List – $7,200

Roberto Castro – $6,800
Martin Laird – $6,500
Adam Hadwin -$6,200
Robert Garrigus – $6,200

The player pool below represents my GPP picks for the week. Miraculously, I manged to have 2x week at the CareerBuilder, despite owning Ryan Palmer at 60% Had he made the cut, it would have been an amazing week, but overall we hit a lot of other really great plays so we will take a nice profit whenever we can manage it. This week, I did not get too fancy at the top. After listening to various outlets, I am feeling more comfortable with my pick of Jason Day at the top. A lot of people are going to go heavy on DJ as their lead player and I do not have an issue with that, but I like that Day will come in feeling rested as opposed to hopping 12 time zones after playing in a tough event in Abu Dhabi last weekend. This will be the week where we really see if changing time zones makes a big difference as this is a particularly aggressive move for DJ. It did not work out for Rickie at all last year and with plenty of other owners on DJ, I am comfortable with our 20% weighting. I really like the overall composition of our lineups this week. I did not get fancy at the top. I took advantage of the early pricing to lock in some great deals with our core group which gave us a lot of room to explore the rest of the way so that we could sprinkle in a few names that may get overlooked for a few shares at the bottom. There are a lot of ways that you can approach this week in terms of strategy. For me, most of my lineups are composed of one star player at the top and then a real balance the rest of the way. There are probably going to be plenty of rosters that use a stack of two of the top three priced players this week. I have a couple of those lineups, but limited my exposure there as I think the golfers priced in the mid 8k-10k range could go neglected this week so it was important for me to have shares of those guys this week. We are certainly bomber heavy this week with a couple of exceptions. I talked myself into a little Scott Stallings and even KJ Choi just in a pure nod to historical performances, but for the most part, this was really straightforward. You can always reverse out the Day shares for DJ or Hideki and have a viable strategy, but I always love to own Day on weeks where folks are not really talking about him and it appears to me that this is one of those weeks.

Outside of Day, the rest of the core played itself out initially through some enormous price breaks on CHIII and Martin Laird. Both guys enter the week in excellent form, both have solid histories here and both are criminally underpriced. I wish I could fade them due to ownership concerns, but at these prices, unless they miss the cut, they are going to deliver value and probably a lot of value. CHIII is 14/14 in his career making the cut at The Farmers (although he did miss the cut at the US Open here in 2008). Laird has made the cut here in his last four starts with two consecutive Top-10 finishes the last two seasons.

I jumped on Brooks this week as we really haven’t seen him yet this year so I do not think owners will be thinking about him yet. He made the cut here in his lone start, finishing 41st two years ago, but he certainly has the game to win this tournament and played really well at the US Open the last two years. He finished the FedEx Cup on a cold run for the second year in a row, but looked very good in the fall and got a win at the Dunlap Phoenix Tournament on the Japanese Tour in November. He’s a bomber with a excellent tee to green game that plays the mid to long irons really well and is one of the better putters overall on tour. He needs to keep the blowup holes under control, but as always, he is a good fantasy play as he does not need the position points as much as others due to his scoring ability.

Statistically, I should probably shy away from Brandt Snedeker, but for whatever reason, throughout his career, this has been an event where he has shined with two wins and five additional Top-10 finishes over the last decade. Snedeker’s game revolves around his short game and his ability to scramble and putt. On a course where players will struggle to hit fairways and greens, this has always helped Sneds from making a bad situation worse. In an event where the winning score may hover somewhere around -10, saving par means a lot more than the previous few weeks where players had to score at an aggressive clip to keep pace. He comes in fresh off of missing the cut at Waialae two weeks ago so we may get a little break in terms of ownership for a player who has been dominant at Torrey throughout his career.

Things are starting to line up for Gary Woodland and I think that there is a good chance that he gets a win this season. He is a bomber off the tee with a good approach game that eats up the Par 4 and 5 holes on these types of courses. He looked like a player to watch after the 2014 season, but stumbled in 2015 before regaining his footing down the stretch last year. He looked great at Waialae two weeks ago where he posted a 6th place finish and has made the cut here in four of his last five starts with a couple of Top-20 finishes. I do expect Woodland to be popular this week, but at 30%, we will have a little more of him still than the rest of the field.

Interestingly enough, I have not heard that many people talking about Tony Finau this week although perhaps I missed it. The early part of the tour season is usually the best time to play Finau, particularly at events with Poa Annua greens. Finau enjoys a huge disparity between how he putts on Bermuda grass versus Bentgrass/Poa so although you will not see it noted on the PGA Tour page, rest assured, his numbers on Poa are dramatically better. Finau is another bomber who can score well on Par 5 holes and has looked great in two starts at Torrey, finishing in the Top-25 in each start. He is a DK scoring specialist who always has high upside even when finishing outside of the Top-10.

In walking through some of the highlights for our secondary group this week, I have already discussed DJ, who I like this week, but do have some concerns with after travelling around the world and having to get himself readjusted. Brendan Steele has been playing really consistent golf of late with consecutive 6th place finishes. He’s a bomber who plays well on Par 5’s and has made the cut in four of five starts. Hudson Swafford won last week at the CareerBuilder, has made 19 straight cuts and is both long and accurate off the tee while also possessing a solid putting game. He has really cut down on the blowup holes over the last year which makes him a super consistent option for fantasy use. He finished in 13h here last year. Luke List seems to have found his game and has looked great over the start of 2017 and going back to the fall season as well. His tee to green game has been good over the years, but it is his putting where he has really stepped up this season. He has not had success here in a couple of starts, but he seems reborn this year so I will continue to own him, especially at this price. Our last player in the top end of this range is Daniel Berger. He is still getting used to his new clubs, but after a breakout 2016 season, it will not be long before we are talking about Berger getting back to the winner’s circle. He is strong off the tee, excellent with his long irons and is a decent putter. He finished in the Top-25 here two years ago and should improve on that this week.

The second tier of this range contains three bombers at the top and three guys who are not in the bomber category. Marc Leishman was really consistent in his game last year from tee to green and with his putter. The only thing he did not do last year was contend for wins which was a little disappointing. However, if we can start with the baseline that he is always a Top-25 threat, then the upside is never far off. Leishman has finished 2nd here twice in eight starts and has three Top-25 finishes to start his season. Jhonny Vegas really took a big step last year in getting a win and playing well throughout the year. He really sharpened up his tee to green game from 2015 to 2016 and went from being below average in hitting greens to 10th last year. He has three Top-20 finishes here in six starts and certainly has the distance to be a threat this week. Byeong-Hun An should be a little on the low end of ownership this week which is part of the reason I am going to own him this week. He is also travelling over from Abu Dhabi this week so he could be a little tired, but this is his first start at Torrey Pines which most certainly leave him in the mid single digits of ownership. He is a bomber with a lot of upside potential in his career. His results have been mixed in the US, but he has been excellent in Europe and Asia.

Billy Horschel is a ball striking specialist with decent distance, accuracy and ability to hit greens. He looked good here last year finishing in 8th place and has made the cut here in three of his last four starts. If he get his putter going, he can replicate his finish from a year ago. Michael Kim makes the list this week as a local guy from the area who played well here a year ago in finishing 31st and has quietly put together a very nice start to the season with three straight Top-30 finishes. There are several players in the 6k range that will have huge ownership numbers so Kim gives us a good chance to diversify our holdings. Adam Hadwin looked amazing last week, firing a 59 in the 3rd round of the CareerBuilder and finishing in 2nd place behind Hudson Swafford. As the salaries were released on Friday for this week, DK missed out on Hadwin’s career day and thus, we get him for near minimum salary this week. He might not have the length to handle this layout, but all he needs to do is make the cut to deliver value and he has done that in each of his last two starts here.

The rest of the list are our tertiary players who we will mix and match around our core group. We start out with Louis Oosthuizen, who is always underowned, but who plays his best golf on tougher courses in loaded fields. I can never trust him for cash games, but he is GPP gold when he pops as everyone is usually upset for having skipped over him…again. JB Holmes gets his first action of the year and has only played once since the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He’s a bomber with a streaky putter that can be amazing or awful depending on the week. He has two straight Top-10 finishes and comes in at an attractive price this week. Keegan Bradley disappointed me here last season by bogeying the final hole on Friday to blow the cut, but he does have three Top-25 finishes here and seems to have found his game over the last few months. Robert Garrigus is another beneficiary of salaries arriving early this week. He was in contention last weekend before choking on an eagle opportunity that ended in a par and derailed his momentum. He is an amazing long iron player and if he can just be mediocre with his putter, he can get into the Top-25.

The remaining players are just sprinkles this week. Tiger looked good in December overall and has been excellent at Torrey when healthy. If he makes the cut, this is a really nice play. Robert Streb is starting to regain the form he had in 2015 when he was one of our favorite value plays. He has also finished in the Top-20 here in his last two starts. KJ Choi and Scott Stallings each get the nod due to previous courses history although Choi has been really bad of late so he is a bit of a stretch compared to Stallings who looked great last week. Roberto Castro has been super consistent making cuts since the middle of last season and has the Par 4 and 5 scoring ability to surprise people this week. Bud Cauley was in play for us last week and came through in a big way after a tough start to the season. He will keep things on track this week at an event where he has two Top-25 finishes in three starts.

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