The PGA Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each week’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable golfers.
We’re in the dog days of summer for sports, and this week the PGA tour stops in Potomac, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., for the annual Quicken Loans National. These summer tournaments in between the four Majors have weaker fields, and that’s definitely the case this week: There are only two golfers ranked in the top 15 of the Official World Golf Rankings in Rickie Fowler (9) and Justin Thomas (12).
The Course
The site of the QLN rotates every year, which means that we have little data on this week’s course, the TPC Potomac. All we really know about the course is its length: It is a Par 70 that plays at 7,139 yards. At that length, it favors accuracy and distance equally, so even that data point isn’t too helpful in guiding us toward golfers who ‘fit’ the course well. As mentioned in Kelly McCann’s Course Breakdown, there have been some Web.com tournaments hosted here since major renovations back in 2006. Unfortunately, given the large talent gap between those golfers and these, there’s not much we can take away from prior events here.
Instead, it is probably wise to lean more than ever on our proprietary Adjusted Round Score metric, which is defined as:
Average adjusted strokes per round over the past 75 weeks; adjustments are made to account for the difficulty of the course and the strength of the field
Adjusted Round Score, and specifically Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd), is perhaps the most powerful metric we have at FantasyLabs. It is a great all-in-one metric to identify talent, and simply using that versus a player’s salary is a fantastic way to spot value. In fact, in our Models if you did nothing else but weight LT Adj Rd with 100 of 100 points you would have a powerful, predictive model in which the top five percent of rated golfers have historically averaged a +4.90 DraftKings Plus/Minus. The r-squared value of the model is a solid 0.9616:
So in weeks like this in which the field is uninspiring and we have no course history to use, we might as well let LT Adj Rd do the heavy lifting for us. On that note, let’s talk about the players who stand out in that regard.
The Studs
Fowler owns the best LT Adj Rd of the field at 68.5, and his 11.1 odds to win the tournament are the highest. My weekly Vegas Bargain Ratings piece (out later today) shows that Fowler owns a perfect 100 VBR. As highlighted in that piece every week, the top guys — be they Rickie, Thomas, or even Patrick Reed — can’t be properly priced according to their odds to win. Fowler, Thomas, and Reed are at 11.1, 7.7, and 6.7 percent odds to win this week; no other player is above 4.3 percent. For more on Fowler, Thomas, and Reed check out this week’s PGA Daily Fantasy Flex.
If DraftKings and FanDuel were to price the studs above the rest of the field in a manner reflective of their odds, they would be too expensive to roster under the salary cap. That means it is highly optimal to go with a stars-and-scrubs approach, although we must factor in ownership as well. Pro subscribers can review ownership trends across guaranteed prize pools of various stakes in our DFS Ownership Dashboard shortly after contests lock.
It isn’t until you get down to J.B. Holmes and Russell Henley at $9,400 and $9,200 on DraftKings that you find golfers who are projected for potential single-digit ownership at nine to 12 percent. Going stars-and-scrubs means being chalky at the top; if you’re going to do it, you must find contrarian scrubs with upside, some of whom we cover in this week’s Five Under Five.
Back to the studs: Fowler owns the best LT Adj Rd, Reed has placed in the top 25 in five of his last six tournaments (including fifth- and 13th-place finishes over the past two weeks), and Thomas missed last week’s cut, shooting a 73 and 72 on Thursday and Friday. He was close to making the cut, and he’s shown what he can do on the weekends: Just two weeks ago he made U.S. Open history by firing off a record 63 on Saturday. Along with someone like Rory McIlroy, JT is perhaps the ideal DraftKings golfer: He ranks first among all players on Tour in both Birdie or Better Percentage (27.12 percent) this season and Par 4 Birdie or Better Percentage (25.28 percent). He’s more volatile than Rickie and Reed — he’s missed 25 percent of the cuts over the past year — but he has more upside than anyone. He’s always intriguing in guaranteed prize pools (GPPs), especially this week if he’s the lower-owned stud because of his recent MC.
The Value Plays
In terms of LT Adj Rd, the three most mispriced value golfers are Charles Howell III ($7,000), Lucas Glover ($6,900), and Adam Hadwin ($6,900).
Howell has an elite 69.1 LT Adj Rd, but he hasn’t played in a tournament since April 16 at The Heritage. He was good before his break, averaging a +16.81 Plus/Minus with a 60 percent Consistency Rating in his last 10 tournaments, but the break is concerning: Per the Augusta Chronicle, Howell has been dealing with a rib injury: “By the time he plans to return from a rib injury at the Quicken Loans National at the end of the month, Howell will have missed 10 weeks — eight since he first discovered the stress fracture at the end of April.” Even if that news takes Howell out of cash consideration until we see how he performs, his LT Adj Rd — tied with Reed’s score for the sixth-best mark in the field — is too good to fade completely in GPPs.
Glover. . .
. . . and Hadwin . . .
. . . are similar this week in that they have elite LT Adj Rd marks of 69.3 and 69.2, are cheap at $6,900, and own below-average Recent Adj Rd marks of 70.8. Hadwin hasn’t been in the top 50 in his last four events, and Glover has missed three of the last four cuts. That said, similarly cheap golfers with excellent LT but poor Recent Adj Rd marks have done well at low ownership (per the PGA Trends tool):
DFS isn’t like the stock market, but buying low on these guys isn’t the worst idea this week.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Byeong-Hun An: He’s pricier this week at $8,600, but he’s first in the field with an average of 14.2 birdies per tournament over the past year, and he has stellar LT and Recent Adj Rd marks of 69.3 and 69.1. He’s missed just 12 percent of the cuts over the past year, highlighting just how solid of a cash-game option he is every week, especially in a weak field like this.
Brendan Steele: He owns elite LT and Recent Adj Rd marks of 69.0 and 68.4, and he’s right behind An with an average of 14.0 birdies per tournament over the last year. He is projected to be the highest-owned player on DraftKings at 21-25 percent, but he’s just so steady: He’s averaged a ridiculous +15.45 Plus/Minus with an 80 percent Consistency Rating over his last 10 tournaments.
Kevin Streelman: He has eighth-, 13th-, and 18th-place finishes over his last three outings, and he’s second in the field behind Bill Haas with his 67.8 Recent Adj Rd. Streelman has had a scorching putter lately, averaging 27.6 putts per round over his last three tournaments, and he’s projected for just nine to 12 percent ownership.
Martin Laird: He’s been disappointing lately, but he hasn’t missed cuts by much and still owns a nice 69.4 LT Adj Rd. In fact, if you use Models to sort by LT Adj Rd for all golfers this week, he’s the golfer with the highest mark who’s also projected for under five percent ownership.
Be sure to keep an eye out for my VBR piece (out soon), and good luck this week!
