Last week, I left my apartment way more than I usually do. How did that go for me, you wonder? It resulted in a car accident, a sun burn, and my phone dying on my way home from New Hampshire, leaving me with no idea how to find Route 3. On the bright side, I have added several items to my list of reasons for not leaving the house, and we are going to play it a bit safer this week and spend some more time on my couch, playing PGA DFS.
I will tell you that I did play the best round of my life on Thursday, so now I firmly believe that having a stiff back and neck as the result of a car accident is the key to a pure golf swing. It was truly an amazing feeling and I was riding pretty high until I played again on Sunday afternoon. I played so poorly that by the fifth hole I was standing over the ball and whispering things to myself like “I have no idea what to do here,” “How have I forgotten how to play golf?” and the classic, “I hate this game.” One thing that I know for sure is that a car accident the day before a round resulted in the round of my life. No car accident before the next round resulted in my deciding to stop keeping score after the sixth hole. I’m not going to come right out and say that you guys should try getting rear-ended before a round of golf, but the facts speak for themselves.
The Zurich Classic of New Orleans
Anyway, we have some PGA action this weekend as the Tour heads to New Orleans for the Zurich Classic. This tournament is played at TPC Louisiana, a par-72, Pete Dye-designed course that plays around 7,400 yards. This tournament is typically a scoring fest, with the winner being at least 19 under par the past four years.
As always, I am going to be placing an emphasis on long-term and recent-form adjusted round scores. Also, I will be placing some weight on driving distance and greens in regulation, as I want players who are going to be in positions to score often this week. If the scoring trend continues and players aren’t in position to make birdies, they will have a tough time competing or making the cut this week.
Here are the top-25 finishers from the prior five years at the Zurich Classic:
There isn’t quite the course history that we saw with Charley Hoffman last week, but there is some impressive stuff in there. Here are the players with multiple top-25 finishes over the past five years, excluding players not in the field this year.
Justin Rose has the most impressive recent course history, but his win last year is sure to inflate his ownership, and he is the second-highest priced player this week. Let’s start the breakdown with him.
$8,000 – $12,500
Let’s get right to it and attack the Justin Rose ($11,800) situation. He has good course history and is coming off of a win here last year. He has six-consecutive top-25 finishes since his last missed cut and is in killer recent form. His 12 Pro Trends lead the slate, and his long-term GIR of 72 percent is bananas. Even though he is the most expensive that he has been since October, it’s tough to argue against him in cash games. With PGA being a super-volatile sport, there is always merit to giving a golfer like him some fade consideration, but I do think I will be rolling out some Rose in my lineups this week.
Another golfer who garners my interest is Rickie Fowler ($11,100). I won’t be throwing him into a cash game lineup, but I am giving him some serious tournament consideration. First, let’s look at the negatives. Fowler played awful at The Masters, and he has missed the cut in his two prior appearances at the Zurich Classic. Also, he has the fewest Pro Trends of any golfer priced above $10,000. His Recent Adjusted Round score is around the middle of the pack, but his Long-Term Adjusted Round is good for third in this slate (behind only Justin Rose and Jason Day). Rickie is a solid player, and my interest in him is as simple as that. He grades well in most statistical categories, as he is fully capable of hitting greens and making birdies. If people are going to be off of him this week, that gives us more reason to sprinkle in some exposure in tournaments.
Jamie Lovemark ($8,400) is a golfer near the bottom of this range who stands out to me. His Long-Term form points to his being closer to a bomber than anything else, but his recent form has changed a bit. His driving distance is down to 304 from 309.7, which has resulted in his driving accuracy increasing to 63.7 percent from 55.4 percent. He is far from the picture of Consistency, having missed three cuts in his past seven tournaments. Still, he has been playing in some tougher fields, which is shown in his Recent Field Score of 94.2 percent.
There are several other golfers who deserve consideration in this price range. The most obvious example is Jason Day ($12,500), who is the most expensive player and deserves consideration every week. Also, Charles Howell III ($8,700) is grading near the top of my model this week. He shouldn’t be ignored given that his salary is less than $9,000 and he has 11 Pro Trends.
$6,500 – $7,900
This is a price range that I will need to dip into this week, specifically in the lineups that feature Day, Fowler, or Rose. Lucas Glover ($7,200) is popping in a few categories. His 70 percent Long-Term GIR is fourth-best in the slate and his five Pro Trends are tied for the highest in this price range. His recent form has remained consistent with his Long-Term statistics, aside from a slight bump in Driving Accuracy.
It’s happening again: Keegan Bradley ($7,700) is sneaking up my rankings. I’ll probably give Keegan some run this week, but, as always, Keegan at your own risk. He is a classic boom-or-bust golfer who has really busted more than boomed recently, missing six of ten cuts since the turn of 2016. Bradley has been hitting nearly 70 percent of his greens and fairways lately and just needs to catch a hot putter to post a low round. Still, he is a GPP-only option until he begins to show any sort of Consistency or ability to putt with the traditional length putter.
Whee Kim ($7,100) has made five straight cuts and finished T8 here last year. Hurting him is his Driving Distance of only 284.5, but he has been making more birdies recently. His 15.3 birdies per tournament is the sixth-highest in the field. His price is a little higher than I would like but his low-expected ownership adds to his tournament appeal. Although I will likely have more of him than the field, my exposure to him will be relatively limited compared to other players.
$5,500 – $6,400
As was the case last week, I’m going to try my best to avoid the golfers in this price range. Bronson Burgoon ($6,300) has one of the better adjusted round scores in this cohort. He missed the cut last week but was able to play through the weekend in his two prior tournaments. He is hitting 65 percent of his greens in regulation, which is a solid number when considering his price. He is by far my favorite (and probably only) play at this price range. Andrew Langley ($5,900) also slightly stands out. He has been playing better recently, making three of his last four cuts after missing four straight, but I still don’t feel comfortable having anything more than very limited tournament exposure to him.
This week is going to be about the mid-priced players and rolling out some balanced lineups with maybe one or two of the top-tier golfers. We are in a bit of a tough stretch with PGA action, but The Players Championship is coming fast.
For our parting video, we have Jason Day being a savage from 191 yards on a par 3. If he is swinging it like this, look out.
Good luck this weekend!
