The First Tee – WGC Bridgestone by Adam Daly

Last week was a fairly good performance from the First Tee, highlighted by Brandon Hagy’s T5 and Seamus Power’s T10, so here’s to keeping the train rolling this week! Turning the focus to this week, the PGA is in both Reno, Nevada for the Barracuda, and in Akron, Ohio for the WGC – Bridgestone. With the Barracuda using Stableford scoring, DraftKings will only be posting for the Bridgestone, so that’s where the focus of the First Tee will be.

This Week

THE COURSE

The WGC Bridgestone takes place at Firestone Country Club (South), a par-70 that plays at 7400 yards and is one of the lesser lights when it comes to the schedule every year. With only a few scoring holes, this course is a tougher test than should be expected in a no-cut event highlighting the world’s best; over the last two years, only the par-5 2^nd and the short par-4s on the back nine have played under par while the second par-5 has been a grueling hole given its 667-yard length. Dustin Johnson won the event last year with a paltry (for a WGC) -6. One change from last year’s event will be the field size; last season’s iteration of the event came opposite the French Open so the field was only 61 (including a horrifying Daniel Berger WD), whereas this year it returns to its normal ~75 golfers.

With only the two par-5s the focus this week will be on the par-4s and the four par-3s, three of which play above 200 yards. With seven par-4s coming above 450 yards, long approach shots (above 150) will be important to find any success this week, and distance off the tee will also be at a premium.

Off the tee, golfers are looking at very narrow fairways lined with trees and the occasional dogleg. Unlike last week at Glen Abbey, water won’t come into play off the tee, and although there are a few well-placed fairway bunkers on the course they won’t come into play nearly as often as up in Canada. Accuracy will be important given the width of the fairways, but the key here will be distance – 7400 yards as a par-70 makes for a long course.

The other issue off the tee, and one that will help cut down on distance, is that these fairways slope and play very firm. There will be lots of long rolling drives, but putting the ball in the optimal spot could be tough even for a WGC event.

Approaching the green out of the fairway should be relatively easy for the best golfers in the world, as the greens are above-average in size (~7600 sq. ft.), but the greens are typically incredibly fast (~13 on the stimp) which will make holding the ball very tough. For that reason along with the toughness off the tee, Firestone doesn’t see many greens hit in regulation (60%). As mentioned, with the length of the course the golfers that are better at hitting long approach shots should find more success – it’s not a drive, wedge, putt course. There is also some water to contend with on approach as well as some bunkers around the greens that can be very punitive thanks to the green speed.

The fast bentgrass greens are very demanding for golfers, because beyond the speed, they’ll have to deal with some complex undulation. This is not a week to take a chance on historically bad putters (see: Si Woo Kim, Kevin Chappell, etc.) given how tough it is just getting into position to putt.

The X factor this week will be weather – the tournament is still a touch too far away to determine the rain situation, but IF it rains this will soften up the course and make it much, much easier. It won’t turn into a birdie fest, but the wilder players off the tee will have more of a shot at keeping balls in the fairway and the greens will turn very receptive. Basically a completely different course, so it’s something to keep an eye on.

STATS

 

The Strokes Gained stats to focus on in order (not including Tee to Green – THIS SHOULD BE WEIGHTED HIGHER THAN NORMAL):

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

Counting stats to focus on in order:

• Bogey Avoidance
• Greens in Regulation %
• Par-4 Scoring
• Scrambling %
• Long Approach (over 175 yards) – this will have to be an amalgamation of the 175-200 and >200 statistics.
• Driving Accuracy %

The Golfers

Jon Rahm ($9700) – With all the elite golfers at the top, starting a lineup with Rahm and fading everyone above him for a more balanced lineup will be a rare lineup build this week, as stars and scrubs is the typical no-cut event build. Rahm projects incredibly well statistically, and has reasonably good form to back that up, gaining an average of 5.5 strokes from tee to green over his last ten rounds and continuing his revelatory season.

There are two main concerns for Rahm, the first being his atrocious accuracy off the tee – currently sitting at 58.55% from tracked PGA rounds – but his rank of 129^th in that category is actually better than Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose and Brooks Koepka as examples. The other concern with the Spaniard is his fiery temper which won’t show up as a knock against him on any stat site, but Rahm can be prone to angry outbursts and lost focus. On a four day event without fear of a missed cut, he’ll have lots of time to calm himself down and put low numbers (relatively), so he should be fine.

Looking at his statistics on the year (PGA only, doesn’t include his absurd 6-shot victory at the Irish Open), Rahm crushes in almost every key category:

• 4^th in Par-4 Scoring / 5^th in Par-5 Birdie or Better %
• 20^th in Bogey Avoidance
• 2^nd in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green
• 3^rd in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee / 4 in SG: Approach
• 3^rd from 175-200 yards / 90^th outside 200 yards

The only categories that Rahm has struggled with this year is around the green (109^th in strokes gained) and he’s only an above average putter, not an elite putter (59^th). Although there are punitive bunkers around the greens, Rahm will still put himself either on the green or in great position so often that he can manage to give a shot or three back with poor sand save efforts. Play him with absolute confidence.

Value Picks (Below $7600):

• Kyle Stanley ($6700): Stanley finally picked up his first win in years at the Quicken Loans National, and he managed to pull it off while losing strokes to the field with his putter. That speaks to just how talented a golfer he is getting from tee to green, and at an incredible value of only $6700, Stanley is almost a must-play. He missed the cut at Birkdale which was disappointing, but he’s finished 6/21/27 this season after missing a cut so his form isn’t a concern. He’s accurate off the tee and rarely ends up in any deep trouble, missing both the fairway and rough 2.26% of the time (14^th), and just needs a few decent rounds with the putter to contend.
• Russell Henley ($7100): Henley could conceivably show up in this article every week if he’s priced cheaply enough or the field is strong enough, and luckily that’s the case this week. Henley isn’t the best golfer on approach or around the greens, but he’s above average in hitting both fairways (59^th) and greens (20^th) and has had a lights out putter all year. Henley really succeeds on the so-important par-4s both in avoiding bogeys but he’s also been excellent at scoring on them (17.93% BoB on par-4s) and hits it long enough off the tee his struggles on long approaches (above 200) won’t be that much of a factor.
• Thomas Pieters ($7300): Pieters has had an excellent track record at WGCs, finishing 23^rd/14^th/5^th in his only attempts, and absolutely stripes the ball. That distance will help him make up the few times where he can get wild off the tee, and it’s really on approach where Pieters’ true talents show out. He’s gained 1.6 strokes on approach over his last five PGA events, and has had a bit of a mixed bag in Europe during that time – finishing T13 at the French Open and T14 at the BMW PGA Championship, but also missing the cut at the Irish Open and a mediocre finish at Birkdale given his expectations as a long hitter.

Pieters will see low ownership as a European Tour player that doesn’t pop up given his lack of PGA stats, but has the upside to hit a top-5 finish.

 

The Fade is still dead. It’s a no-cut event, so unless you’re running minimal lineups it doesn’t hurt to reach on some golfers with low-ownership projections.

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