The First Tee – Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship

The second of two PGA events that DraftKings is running this week, the Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship is a second-tier event – the big names are either at the WGC Match Play or taking the week off – but second-tier events need love too when there’s money to be made. Note that this is a full-cut regular event, but a field of 132.

This is the first time the PGA proper has played here, but it was used on the Web.com Tour in both 2016 and 2017. Expect this to be one of the highest-scoring weeks on DraftKings, because even as the fields are weaker than most PGA events, the two winning scores at Corales were -20 (Nate Lashley by one stroke) and -24 by Dominic Bozzelli (by four strokes). There have been three rounds of 62, and the AU70 bonus will be in play for almost any golfer that makes the cut.

THE COURSE

Corales Golf Club is located in Puntacana in the Dominican Republic, and it’s a coastal course that’s wide open. It plays as a par-72 over 7,600 yards (7,668 to be precise) and as mentioned above, the Tom Fazio-design has played incredibly easy. The four par-5s in 2017 saw 34 eagles and had an average score of -0.4145 across all four holes, with the two on the front-9 playing the easiest; at 515- and 563-yards, the 7^th and 4^th holes will need to be scored on over four days to stay in good shape.

One of the few spots that Corales shows its fangs will be on the par-3s, as they all sit above 200-yards, with two of the four averaging over par last year. Two of the par-3s will also have to contend with weather as they’re right on the water and are wide open to the elements; the greenside bunkers are punitive on three of the four, with the 204-yard 9^th having both water in front and the beach on the left as potential hazards. The other area the course will be tough is the stretch from 16-18, known as the “Devil’s Elbow” – the 16^th and 18^th are above average in terms of toughness, with the par-3 17^th playing as the toughest hole on the course.

Off the tee, golfers will be faced with easy-to-hit fairways in terms of width – although they narrow considerably past the 325-yard mark – and will have to contend with a ton of diabolically-placed fairway bunkers, the occasional stretch of beach, and water on a few holes. The rough here is tough, but the paspalum fairways are so easy to find from the tee and are offer very easy lies to control approach shots from, so targeting the golfers that can bomb it seems like it will be the right approach to take.

Hurricanes Irma and Maria caused severe damage to four holes (7-9, 18) that all sat alongside the water, so those holes have new greens that were just installed recently – expect them to be incredibly firm and tough to hold on approach. All the greens here are Paspalum (as are the fairways) which is similar to bentgrass, and they have some tiers and undulation but for the most part will be straight-forward. They’re easy to hit thanks to their size and play around average speed for the PGA Tour.

STATS

With the Tour not having any ShotLink data for Web events in the Dominican Republic, here are the leaderboards from 2017 and 2016 with each player’s rank for the pertinent (off-the-tee and approach) categories at the end of that season. Please note that GIR is obviously not a great metric to capture approach, but this is all there is on offer.

2017 Top-10:

Name	Finish	Distance Rank	Accuracy Rank	GIR Rank
Nate Lashley	1	T70	86	58
Augusto Nunez	2	8	131	117
Rafael Campos	T3	17	108	130
Tyler Duncan	T3	88	1	T42
Seth Reeves	T3	6	110	109
Jimmy Gunn	T6	10	118	108
Adam Svensson	T6	T89	24	T42
Richard S. Johnson	T8	N/A	N/A	N/A
Kyoung-Hoon Lee	T8	91	35	19
Adam Long	T8	73	T55	50
Carlos Ortiz	T8	T40	52	28

 

2016 Top-10:

Name	Finish	Distance Rank	Accuracy Rank	GIR Rank
Dominic Bozzelli	1	29	105	127
Roberto Diaz	T2	120	123	142
Sam Ryder	T2	22	20	20
Blake Adams	T2	101	19	60
Albin Choi	T5	49	49	53
Jeff Gove	T5	105	22	43
Bryan Bigley	T7	90	39	29
Zack Sucher	T7	91	32	23
Matt Fast	T7	98	40	T54
Seamus Power	T7	57	T94	T13

 

What these two charts seem to show is steady accurate golfers can perform well, but the 2017 leaderboard shows some strong scoring from golfers that aren’t afraid to smash the ball. This week’s stats will stick to the more simplistic counting stats. There are two ways to make a lineup this week: the high-risk/reward bombers play, or the dart-throwing accuracy golfers; because piling up birdies/eagles is so important for DFS compared to finish position, I’m looking more for bombers as they tend to score more often than shorter hitters.

The Strokes Gained stats to focus on in order (not including Tee to Green):

• Approach
• Off the Tee
• Putting
• Around the Green

Counting stats to focus on in order:

• Driving Distance
• Birdie or Better %
• Par-5 Scoring
• Greens in Regulation
• Par-3 Scoring

Top-Tier Golfers

Emiliano Grillo ($11600): Was there ever any question that Grillo would be featured here? He’s the highest-ranked player in the world teeing it up this week, and he continues to have an excellent season off a T26 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational a week after finishing 6^th at the Hero Indian Open. He’s yet to miss a cut on the PGA Tour this year, and he’s had strong finishes at both the Farmers (T12) and the Honda Classic (T8). Unfortunately from a course history perspective, Grillo graduated to the PGA after 2015, so he hasn’t played this course before.

This season, Grillo’s been elite at getting to greens (10^th, 70.99%), and is a top-50 player in every strokes gained category except for SG: Around the Greens where he’s been inept (-0.332SG, 182^nd). Grillo’s accurate off the tee without losing too much yardage, sitting 76^th in Distance (288.3) but 23^rd in Accuracy, and T24th in Distance from Edge of the Fairway which is a better judgement of how he’s placing his shots. Because Grillo puts himself in such great spots off the tee, his SG: Approach doesn’t reflect his great iron play as he’s 40^th in SG: App, but 14^th in Proximity to the Hole. Short-to-mid-irons are the Argentinian’s bread and butter, a combined -19 between 125-175 which will be the main approach shot distances this week.

As mentioned last week, Grillo is still having a resurgent year with the putter (30^th SG:P) which is either a portent of things to come for him this season or due to regress, but given his knack for putting himself in great spots and scoring (3.81 birdies/round, 21.14% BoB), he should be locked in for Puntacana.

Scott Piercy ($11200) – Both of last week’s value plays pop up as top-tier plays this week, but Piercy off a missed cut last week still shows out very well for this course. He remains a stud from tee-to-green (14^th) although his play off the tee has been a struggle, he’s hitting 70.31% of greens in regulation, and continues to be a fantastic scoring golfer: 26^th in BoB%, 39^th in Par-5 BoB%, 25^th in Birdie Average.

His putting is still a struggle, but if his approach game keeps up – and it should given how strong he is with short-to-mid irons – he’ll be put into positions to score on almost every hole.

Other golfers to consider if you’re sick of seeing Grillo and Piercy on here: Patrick Rodgers ($10000), Trey Mullinax ($8800)

 

Value Golfers (below $8000)

AUTHOR NOTE: This was written before prices were released. Still like Conners as a play this week, especially as that price tag should keep ownership off him.

Corey Conners ($9100): Conners finished T53 here when it was a Web event, shooting -8 after a poor fourth round, but since jumping onto the PGA Tour, Conners has missed only one cut (Pebble Beach) in eleven attempts, and looked incredible at the Valspar until a…poor fourth round…which was his seventh fourth round over par in those eleven events. He may not win until he learns how to close out a tournament – zero career wins on the MacKenzie/Latinoamerica/Web/PGA – but that doesn’t hurt his value for DFS purposes, as he can still score like a top-of-the-field golfer.

On the Web Tour last year Conners was 1^st in GIR (77.07%) which has carried over onto the tougher PGA Tour courses (currently 29^th at 69.64%), and he had the 19^th-best Scoring Average. His Driving Distance doesn’t scream bomber but he is above average in that regard at 302 yards, and he’s been gaining strokes off the tee enough to place him 21^st in that category. His play both on and around the greens has been putrid, but at Corales he should be able to safely get on from almost anywhere, and he’s been strong enough with his irons to get himself within 25’ fairly consistently.

 

Harold Varner III ($7800) – Although his season couldn’t look much worse than it does currently – four made cuts and three missed with no top-25s and losing strokes in every category – HV3 fits the high-risk/high-reward bomber mold that could see him take this tournament down.

Varner is typically strong on par-5s thanks to his distance off the tee, but that’s yet to show up this year as he’s struggled to figure out his iron play. He’s currently making BoB on only 40% of par-5s, which is much worse than years previous (42% 2017, 48% 2016), but he’s above average at making eagles which will go a long way at a scoring-fest course like Corales.

HV3 will be able to hunt flags and go for the green more often than most of this field which will put him ahead of the pack, it’s just a matter of whether or not he’ll be able to play the par-4s without making big numbers. One of the advantages he’ll have this week is that there are a few dogleg holes where the longer hitters will almost be able to drive the green, whereas the short knockers will have to dial it back off the tee and take a short iron in. Cannot emphasize enough: high-risk, high-reward.

Other values: Tom Lovelady ($7300), Tyler Duncan ($7000)

 

Good luck this week! You can follow me on Twitter @adalyfrey if you have any questions, and my DMs are always open.