Eagle Point Golf Club in Wilmington, North Carolina, is this week’s host of the Wells Fargo Championship, an event that is normally played at Quail Hollow. While that leaves daily fantasy sports players with no course history to draw from this week, Eagle Point is getting some rave reviews from PGA Tour players on social media. DFS fan favorite Steven Bowditch even hinted on Twitter that the course reminded him of Augusta National, tweeting “This place is unreal.”
Because Eagle Point is basically unknown, we will rely heavily on Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) and Recent Adj Rd Score as well as Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg).
Return Of The Mack
“So I’m back up in the game / Running things to keep my swing / Letting all the People know / That I’m back to run the show”
— Mark Morrison, Return of the Mack
Dustin Johnson currently has mammoth 18.2 percent Vegas odds to win the tournament and is the highest-priced golfer on both DraftKings and FanDuel. Per our Trends tool, the 33 previous golfers on DraftKings with comparable salaries and odds to win have produced a +6.08 Plus/Minus with a 60.6 percent Consistency Rating. Of course, they’ve also had a chalky 36.6 percent ownership.
Because he’s returning from injury and sporting a salary $2,000 higher than that of any other DraftKings golfer, Johnson’s ownership is somewhat uncertain. Pro subscribers can review ownership across various buy-in levels in our DFS Ownership Dashboard shortly after the tournament starts.
Johnson’s 67.6 LT Adj Rd Score and 17.0 LT Adj Bird Avg both lead the field this week. DJ was on an epic heater before falling down the stairs at Augusta: He has won the last three events he’s played in, including two World Golf Championship events.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Jon Rahm: Rahm is one of the highest-rated golfers in the Bales Player Model. Rahm’s 68.4 LT Adj Rd Score ranks third, his 70.2 percent LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) is tied for 11th, and his 16.7 LT Adj Bird Avg is second overall. Rahm’s 68.1 Recent Adj Rd Score is fifth in the field: He has finished 10th or higher in five of his last seven events. Rahm trails only Johnson with his 83.8 DraftKings points per tournament over the past calendar year.
Paul Casey: Casey leads the field with his 66.6 Recent Adj Rd Score, and his 16.0 Recent Adj Bird Avg is tied for fifth. Paul has been assaulting the greens lately: His 77.8 Recent GIR percentage is third overall. Casey hasn’t played since the Masters, where he finished sixth.
Daniel Berger: Berger’s 68.8 LT Adj Rd Score is sixth overall, and his 13.9 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for 14th. Berger has finished inside the top 30 in four of his last six events, scoring more than 100 DraftKings points in two of those.
Byeong-Hun An: An’s 69.4 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for 19th, his 14.6 LT Adj Bird Avg ranks eighth, and his 69.3 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for 14th. Importantly, An makes cuts: His 10 percent missed cut rate over the past 75 weeks is tied for fifth in this field.
JT Poston: Poston’s price continues to rise on DraftKings, but he is still relatively cheap on FanDuel, where he can be played comfortably in the first two rounds. JT is one of the most consistent birdie-makers in the field: His 14.9 LT Adj Bird Avg is fourth. Poston hasn’t missed a cut since the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in early February, and he has placed inside the top 30 in five of his last six events.
Emiliano Grillo: Compared to his LT Adj Rd Score (69.1), Grillo’s DratftKings and FanDuel salaries are underpriced. And Grillo loves himself some birdies: He’s tied with Poston for fourth in the field with his 14.9 LT Adj Bird Avg.
Humpnostication
There is no course history for this event so we get no Levitanimal. Instead, I subject you to horrific Humpnostication. Be forewarned, these prognostication pontifications have lacked accuracy up to this point.
That said, I’m putting my weekly Coors Light monies on Alexander Noren, whose 69.3 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for 14th and LT Adj Bird Avg ranks 17th overall. Moreover, Noren won three tournaments on the Euro Tour in a span of seven events between September and Novemember last season. He’s been brutal in limited action on the PGA Tour this season, but he’s a ‘proven winner’. [Editor’s Note: I think that last sentence is ironic?]
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Be sure to use our suite of Tools to research all of the golfers and watch our PGA podcast and model preview on our Premium Content Portal.
Good luck this week!
