The First Tee- Dell Technologies Championship by Adam Daly

After the exciting Sunday watching two titans go head-to-head (congratulations to DJ for being as aggressive as he ways), the FedEx Cup playoffs continue this week at TPC Boston for the Dell Technologies Championship (formerly Deutsche Bank). The field this week is limited to 96 – the top-100 in FedEx points, minus the few players who have shut it down for the year along with Henrik Stenson who will be sitting out; what this means for DFS purposes is almost treating it like a no-cut event, as only 26 golfers or fewer will be sitting out the weekend.

This Week:

THE COURSE
TPC Boston is another easy test for the high-quality field this week, with the winning scores fluctuating between -15 and -22 over the last five years – the cut last year came in at E with 72 golfers making it through. It will be a birdie-fest course so scoring is at a premium, with 1240 birdies and 21 eagles being made here in 2016 (20.7% of scores).
Part of what makes TPC Boston such an easy course is the width of the fairways; although Gil Hanse re-designed the original Arnold Palmer design in 2007 to add some fescue to the rough and to add some “chocolate drop” mounds in place of some bunkers, the fairways are still very wide and easy to hit (~66% DA). Getting too wild off the tee will result in hitting the fescue or ending up in the trees which will make approach shots much harder, but there are plenty of safe landing spots on this course. The rough is long but thin, so as long as the ball stays out of the fescue or bunkers it should be fine.

At 7,297 yards, this par-71 features some short par-4s – six are below 450 yards, including two which are risk/reward holes that play around 355 yards – as well as two reachable par-5s in the 530-542 range. The third par-5 is 600 yards and actually plays slightly easier than the 542-yard 2nd, which is thanks to a large pool of water that guards a peninsula green making it very tough to reach in two. The four par-3s are some of the toughest on the course thanks to some tricky work on the greens, making it tougher to stick the first shot on some tough slopes.
Approaching the greens from the fairway at TPC Boston is also typically pretty easy, again with ~66% of greens hit in regulation. For a track with a lot of short holes, most approach shots will still come outside 150 yards though, as a lot of golfers choose to lay up with a wood or long iron instead of pulling driver. The approach this week has to be pure to stick the fast undulating greens, and also to avoid the large greenside bunkers that Hanse prefers.
The bentgrass greens as mentioned are fast, have lots of front slopes and undulation, and see a lot of putts from the 10-25’ proximity. It’s tough to count on anything but the best putters to hit putts from that distance, but to score on this course that will be imperative.

STATS
The Strokes Gained stats to focus on in order (not including Tee to Green):
1) Approach
2) Off-The-Tee
3) Putting
4) Around the Green
Counting stats to focus on in order:
1) Birdie or Better %
2) Greens in Regulation %
3) Par-4 Scoring
4) Driving Distance
5) Bogey Avoidance

The Golfers:

Hideki Matsuyama ($10100) – At the fifth-highest price point of the week, using Hideki paired with someone in the Paul Casey ($8900) to Jon Rahm ($10600) range can be easily done with the amount of value lower on the board, and Hideki would be my favorite to win this week.
Matsuyama is tied with Jason Day for the most DK points on firm bentgrass courses over their last 24 rounds (caveat: this was with short rough, given how thin the rough is it made more sense to use that modifier than anything else), even if that’s a small sample of courses. Hideki has had his coming-out party in 2017 after looking tremendous since arriving on Tour, winning two WGCs as well as the Waste Management Open, and finishing T5 at the PGA earlier this month. He’s accomplished that by being one of the best ball-strikers on Tour, consistently gaining strokes both off the tee and on approach, and that should continue on a relatively easy course that rewards the best ball-strikers.
Last year HidekiBOT finished T15 here, and T25 the year prior – his debut here in 2014 was a lackluster T57, but this version of Hideki is much improved. The main concern with his play will be around the greens, as he can get in trouble if he has to scramble, but he’s shown this year that he can putt half-decently (especially on bent), which had previously been the part of his game holding him back. From a roster construction point of view as the bulk of lineups get centered around either Spieth or DJ, starting with Hideki will see both lower ownership and allow for some unique roster construction which is hard in a small field event.

Value Picks (Below $7600):

Patrick Cantlay ($7200): As a fair warning if using Cantlay: PREPARE FOR CHALK. The resurgence of Cantlay as a pro has been one of the better stories of the year, as the UCLA grad now sits 50th in FedEx points off his T10 at the Northern Trust last week. Cantlay is a perfect 10/10 in 2017 for made cuts, and he’s been excellent both off the tee (0.780SG, would rank 6th if qualified) and on approach (0.411SG, 41st) – helping lead him to a total SG:T2G of 1.161 which would place him 15th. Those skills are exactly what’s needed to succeed at TPC Boston, and if he can continue putting at his above-average clip, he should find himself in the top-10 yet again and on to the finals in two weeks.

Chris Stroud ($7200): After missing the cut the last two weeks, Stroud will go larger ignored (especially being priced equal to Cantlay) this week but shows lots of potential as his course fit here is excellent. Stroud is typically a poor putter, but excels on firm bentgrass (small sample) and on the comparable Quail Hollow course Stroud managed a T9 finish which will slip under the radar for most. On birdie average alone Stroud sits 39th which bodes very well for his DraftKings scoring, and with the easy fairways and relatively easy areas around the greens he should be able to hold any big numbers off his card. Stroud has played this course three times going back to 2011, and finished T35, T45, and T42 which aren’t the most inspiring finishes but he should more than make up for his finishing points by scoring well.

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