Yahoo Fantasy Golf Contest Tournament Preview-Quicken Loans National

Hey there Yahoo Contest Players and welcome back after an absolutely great week from our picks in the Yahoo preview last week. Day and Watson, the two big dogs showed their bite and came in 1-2. Some of our other picks backed them up nicely with Tony Finau, Matt Kuchar, Jim Furyk, Brooks Koepka, Pat Perez, and Chad Campbell all coming through big for us. Lets try and get another stellar group of picks this week and keep climbing up or staying atop the Yahoo standings.

This week the PGA Tour takes us to Gainesville, Virginia and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club for the Quicken Loans National. This is one of only five tournaments given “invitational” status by the PGA Tour, which means it has a reduced field of only 120 players (as opposed to most full-field open tournaments with a field of 156 players). This is an important fact for you DFS players to note, since it will be easier for players to make the cut. Robert Trent Jones GC is a par 71 course that plays 7,385 yards. Another important thing to note is that this tournament has been held at Congressional Country Club the past three years (also 2007-2009) and Aronimink Golf Club 2010-2011 not Robert Trent Jones GC. Tournament history thus will need to be discounted dramatically if not completely. Robert Trent Jones Golf Club has not hosted any other PGA Tour events to compare, only the President’s Cup in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2005, which we do not feel are even applicable. We have posted the Quicken Loans tournament history just to see who has played well in this tournament in the past, but please do not put too much weight on it since it has been on different courses.

Because we do not have exact course history and thus no comparable stats we need to be careful this week. Without all of this data, it will reduce our edge over the field and thus we should decrease the amount of our bankroll in play this week for you DFS players. Rather than having 15-20% of you bankroll in play, we would recommend you drop that to 8-10% because of the lack of information. We don’t want to give back our profits from last week when the information and recommendations were so strong.
The statistics we will look at this week will be strokes gained tee-to-green, which is the most indicative of success as shown in our articles, “Do statistics really matter in Fantasy Golf”, which if you have not read, you absolutely need to. In addition to strokes gained tee-to-green, we will analyze greens in regulation, par 4 scoring, and strokes gained putting.

 

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The A-List:

The Favorites:
Bill Haas
Tiger Woods
Harris English
Stephen Gallagher

Right off the bat we are going to go ahead and say no to Tiger once again. We have been correct every single time so far this season so why mess around now. If/When we see him show that he can compete on tour, we can start considering him as a viable option, but not before. Although we do not love Bill Hass, he seems like the best option in the A-List. Haas has not had his normal consistent make cuts type of season as he has already missed five. He does have eight Top 25s so when he makes the cut he usually finished high. He did have a win at Humana in January and a T7 at Cadillac. He ranks 50th in greens in regulation and 45th in strokes gained tee to green which are the stats we are favoring most this week. A close second to Haas for us this week is Harris English, who has a T68 at the Open, T72 at John Deere, and T25 at Travelers. Not real impressive for his skill level, but that might discourage some people from choosing him. He is capable of Top 10s as he has three of them this year including a runner-up at Farmers. Of the options this week Haas and English are our favorites. If you are looking for an under the radar type guy this week, go with Stephen Gallacher. He clearly cannot play a lick in Majors as he has missed the cut in all three. However he has had some good showings in regular events including a T24 at The WGC HSBC and T38 at the Players. We definitely do not like him as much as the other two, but if you are desperate to try and hit some home runs, he is an option.

Our Picks: Haas, English
Sleeper Pick: Gallacher

 

B-List:

The Favorites:
Justin Rose
Rickie Fowler
Jimmy Walker
Gary Woodland

Much like last week where there is very little top end talent, we think the play is to stick with the chalk. Justin Rose is clearly the cream of the crop this week and look for a performance similar to Bubba and Day last week. We know that this event has not been played at Robert Trent Jones in the past, but it does not seem to matter where it is played, Rose plays well in this event. A win last year at Congressional and a 16th in 2009 plus a win in 2010 and 15th in 2011 at Aronimink Golf Club. We think he has a chance to win this event on the third different course this week. He looked very good at The Open Championship finishing T6. Other nice performances in the past three months include a T27 at the U.S Open, 2nd at Memorial, T2 at The Masters, and a win at the Zurich Classic. He ranks 20th in driving distance, 82nd in driving accuracy, 29th in greens in regulation, 26th in strokes gained tee-to-green, and 86th in strokes gained putting. Do not mess around with this list, go with the studs. One of the other three studs is Jimmy Walker. A T30 at The Open, T58 at the U.S Open, T2 at Byron Nelson, and T65 at Crowne Plaza are his results over the past two months. As you know, he is an unbelievable putter and ranks 1st in strokes gained putting. In addition he ranks 17th in driving distance, 177th in driving accuracy, 42nd in greens in regulation, 27th in strokes gained tee-to-green, and 56th in par 4 scoring. Finally, we will mention Rickie Fowler. We have not recommended Fowler hardly at all this season and we have been correct as his only great performance he has had was at The Players. At The Players, he put together a miraculous three-hole stretch on Sunday to nab a playoff spot and took advantage of the opportunity. Outside of that, he has not played anywhere remotely close to last year where he placed in the Top 5 in all four majors.(he did win the Scottish Open) Fowler has missed three cuts this year in only 14 events played and has only had four Top 10s. He ranks 45th in driving distance, 59th in driving accuracy, 131st in greens in regulation, 53rd in strokes gained tee-to-green, and 131st in strokes gained putting. For sleeper, we really like George McNeill. Much like with Justin Rose, no matter where this event was held over the past seven years (Congressional or Aronimink Golf Club), Mcneill has played well and made the cut (four Top 35s). McNeill missed the cut in his last event played this season at The John Deere three weeks ago, but before then he had been great (only MC at Chambers Bay in previous two months). Even at his best, T5 at Crowne Plaza, not too many people rostered McNeill in DFS. He is one of those guys who is perpetually under the radar, which is good for us. He has seven Top 25s this season in 21 events played. He ranks 129th in driving distance, 72nd in driving accuracy, 135th in greens in regulation, 64th in strokes gained tee-to-green, and 47th in strokes gained putting. We are hoping the three weeks off have recharged his battery and he is ready to produce another Top 20 this week. Finally how about this one- Kevin Chappell. How many of you were burned by Kevin Chappell last week? We just raised our hands as well. How many times though do you see a guy who has been playing outstanding , then misses a cut and then bounces back and gets back on track. Before his inexplicable missed cut last week, Chappell had been playing extremely well including a consecutive made cut streak of seven, which included four Top 25s. He currently ranks 62nd in driving distance, 68th in driving accuracy, 102nd in greens in regulation, 118th in strokes gained tee-to-green, 37th in proximity to the hole, and 62nd in strokes gained putting. We will be getting back on board with Chappell ourselves and hopefully it was just a mirage last week.

Our Picks: Rose, Walker, Fowler
Sleeper Picks: McNeill, Chappell

C-List:

The Favorites:
Justin Thomas
Brendon Steele
Pat Perez
Shawn Stefani
Tony Finau

We really like Thomas this week, but because he will be extremely popular and we have already used him a bunch this year we personally are going to go with others. If you have not used him as much as us this season, please go ahead and roster him because he looks great for this week. Instead we are going to go with Jason Bohn. In his last seven tournaments played, Bohn has four Top 15s including, a T12 at John Deere, T13 at Greenbrier, T2 at Crowne Plaza, and T9 at Wells Fargo. His current form is very good right now and that is the most important variable we have this week. Statistically Bohn ranks 182nd in driving distance, 4th in driving accuracy, 26th in greens in regulation, 4th in par 4 scoring, 39th in strokes gained tee-to-green, and 49th in strokes gained putting. Steven Bowditch is another guy with great current form. Outside of a missed cut at John Deere, Bowditch has played great golf over the past two months. A win at the Byron Nelson, T52 at the Memorial, T22 FedEx St Jude, T15 at Travelers, T13 at Greenbrier, and T30 at The Open Championship have marked his excellent current form. Bowditch ranks 22nd in driving distance, 178th in driving accuracy, 35th in par 4 scoring, 150th in greens in regulation, 72nd in strokes gained tee-to-green, and 66th in strokes gained putting. In a week where we are putting a heavy premium on current form, Bowditch looks to be a good option. For a sleeper playscheck out Vaughn Taylor. In his PGA Tour tournaments this season, Taylor has been really consistent, if not great for what is generally his low price in DFS. 8 made cuts in 9 events played, with five Top 25s and two Top 10s. For some reason his statistics do not rank him on PGATour.com, but we figured them out anyway. If he qualified, based on his events played he would rank 130th in driving distance, 40th in driving accuracy, 42nd in greens in regulation, 13th in strokes gained tee-to-green, and 30th in strokes gained putting. Now there are several other players that have great current form on this list that we could get behind rostering, including Tony Finau, David Lingmerth, Danny Lee, Chad Campbell, and Ollie Schneiderjans. Since tournament history and rock solid tournament stats are not helpful this week, current form is the best indicator and all of these guys have been playing well in the past month. We would probably give the edge to Ollie, out of that group because not too many people know who he is yet, but they will very soon.

Our Picks: Bohn, Bowditch, Schneiderjans, Finau
Sleeper Pick: Taylor

That is all for this installment of the Yahoo Contest, please let us know how you are doing. Good luck this week!

-Fantasy Golf Insider

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