The Daily Spin – Tour Championship
RECAP
I think I have seen enough of Caves Valley Golf Club for the conceivable future. When the schedule hits each year, you never like to have the penultimate playoff event take place at the easiest course of the season. Obviously, since it was the first time that the PGA Tour stopped here, nobody could say exactly how it would work out, but the rumblings ahead of time certainly believed that it would not provide much of a test for the best players in the world. It was a strange departure for this event from a year ago when we witnessed one of the more dramatic finishes in the history of the FedEx Cup Playoffs on one of the toughest courses that was played on in 2020. The winning score last season for the event was -4, while the winning score this season ended up at -27. I think the tour should be aiming for somewhere in the middle if we are looking to keep the players and fans happy in the years ahead.
However, for how easy the course played, we did get one of the most memorable finishes in some time as Patrick Cantlay played some of the most clutch golf of his career and Bryson DeChambeau missed a couple of putts that should have given him the win as the two battled one playoff hole after another until Bryson was unable to match Cantlay on the 6th playoff hole as darkness began to fall around the course.
My week came down to one key decision for my cash lineup and that was whether or not to pay up for Jon Rahm. He’s been in contention in every event he’s played going back to his withdrawal at the Memorial and looks to be the most locked in player in the world right now as many of the other elite players have battled stretches of inconsistency throughout the summer leading into the playoffs. Though the price was high, in a no cut event, you get a little leeway at the bottom with the last couple of golfers in your lineup so it becomes much more reasonable to pick among the $6k and low $7k range to finish up your roster. After the first round, it looked like a great call, but by Sunday, the small amount that I put into play for cash games had withered away.
Rahm started off on a high note again last week, surging to an early lead to end the first round. Though Bryson got hot on Friday, Rahm was only a stroke back until bogeying the 18th hole. Even through the front nine holes on Saturday, Rahm was right in the mix until bogeying three of the last six holes which just crushed him. On a course where the field is scoring at will, you just cannot fall back five or six strokes and hope to make up ground in the final round. I think Rahm knew that after the third round, his chances of winning were gone so he took his foot off the gas pedal on Sunday and coasted to an uneventful 9th place finish.
My biggest error was in judging just how easy the course would play. I figured bombers would have an edge, I just did not think it would be easier than the John Deere Classic. I took my chances on Rahm over the bomb and gouge play of Bryson and it was costly. There was enough buzz on the course and on Bryson that I could have reluctantly given in and played him at such a great price, but I was locked into Rahm all week. The problem with paying up like that is that you cannot always afford some of your other favorite players up top….like say….Patrick Cantlay, who I hit for a nice payday on an outright bet, but in paying so much for Rahm, I could not fit Cantlay onto my team, while those who dropped to Bryson were able to stack him with Cantlay in many cases which buried me by Sunday.
The other part of my plan that did not pan out was in using certain players around the bubble for the Tour Championship. While Sergio Garcia and Erik Van Rooyen made huge moves to break inside the Top-30, players like Charley Hoffman and Keegan Bradley folded up after decent opening rounds and lost ground for the weekend. I still do not hate either of those plays last week. Keegan uncharacteristically was really poor off the tee which was very unusual for him. After being really strong from tee to green all season, Charley was one of the worst in the field last week and especially bad in approach play where he ranked 59th among the field losing 3.3 strokes. For the season, he ranked 15th overall on tour so it was bizarre that this was the part of his game that melted down.
I fell into the Paul Casey value trap one more time to end the season. At 8200, he seemed so cheap, but there was a reason for that, namely his short game which continued to be a huge problem over the final two rounds. It’s never a great idea to use a player struggling so badly with his putter in a birdiefest type of event. At some point, the wheels are going to fall off and they are not going to be able to keep up.
Sebastian Munoz did what I needed from him last week. I needed to pay down to free up some cap space up top to get to Jon Rahm and with no cut, Munoz was a great play at 6700. It looked like he was going to outperform his salary in a big way for me early in the tournament as he got off to a great start, but then faded over the last two rounds to finish 29th. The last spot in my lineup went to Corey Conners who finished 22nd. He had an odd opening round where he lost 2.5 strokes on approach, a really poor round by his normal standards. He ranked 9th on tour in SGAPP for the season, but finished 41st in the field in that category last week and it was enough to keep him from making a run at a Top-10 finish.
NFL SEASON
As most of you are well aware, the NFL season is right around the corner which means that Jeff and I are preparing to kickoff our third season with our site, Football Insider Edge! To say that the first two seasons were a big success would be a massive understatement as we’ve had a number of live finalists and many big GPP winners. If you enjoy our PGA content, then I can promise that you will love what we do with the NFL.
As subscribers to FGI, you are ALL ENTITLED TO A SUBSTANTIAL DISCOUNT on Football Insider Edge. I sent out and e-mail last week to all subscribers with discount codes based upon their subscription levels, but if you have not seen that, check your spam settings or touch base with me directly through email (zach@fantasygolfinsider.com) or hit me up through a direct message on Twitter or in our Slack chat and I will pass on the required information to help get you set up.
You’ll have access to our lineup builder, wide receiver/cornerback matchup chart as well as Zach’s cash game focused column and Jeff’s GPP plays each week. We also provide Showdown columns for the Thursday, Sunday and Monday night games each week. As with PGA, we have a dedicated Slack chat channel devoted to NFL that is also included as a part of your subscription.
For those of you who opt to also add on our betting package, you’ll get access to the recently released, Jeff’s Proposition Bets for 2021. In 2019, he went 12-2 on his regular prop bets. He followed that up last season in 2020 by going 10-2 on his prop bets, improving his overall total to an incredibly impressive 22-4 over the last two seasons. Zach was also impressive on his betting plays, compiling a 40-27-2 record for the season. Kickoff is under two weeks away so if you want to get in on these prop bets then your window is closing very quickly so act now!
Sign up for an FGI account today to see the rest of this post.
Follow Us
