Because of the new team format at the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic, you’ll need to go Euro on DraftKings if you want to play daily fantasy golf this week.
Topwin Golf and Country Club in Beijing, China, hosts the Volvo China Open for the second consecutive year. Last year, Li Haotong won the event at a massive 22-under par, as 38 total golfers finished the week under par by double digits. Finding the golfers who rack up birdies this week will be one of the keys to success. Haotong and runner-up Felipe Aguilar were a combined 28-under par on the Par-4 holes last year.
Pro subscribers utilizing our Player Models for this week’s Euro contests will likely want to utilize some combination of Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score), LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (LT Adj Bird Avg), and Greens in Regulation (GIR) in their models. I’d also pay special attention to our Average Adjusted Par 4 Strokes (Adj P4) metric when using the Lineup Builder.
The Favorites
Feel The Bernd (Again)
Bernd Wiesberger ($12,000) is coming off a win at the Shenzhen International at last week’s Euro Tour event, where he scored 116.5 DraftKings points. He currently has the highest odds to win this week (9.1 percent). Wiesberger’s 79.9 DraftKings points per tournament (PPT) over the past calendar year is the second-highest total in the field among golfers who have played in more than one tournament during that time.
Bernd’s 69.3 LT Adj Rd Score leads the field, his 71.9 LT GIR percentage is 14th, and his 13.9 LT Adj Bird Avg is 21st overall. Per our Trends tool, golfers with comparable salaries and metrics have produced a healthy +5.23 Plus/Minus with a 54.7 percent Consistency Rating and 19.7 percent ownership in large-field guaranteed prize pools:
Also from the Trends tool: The 98 golfers with salaries of at least $12,000 since 2015 have provided a +5.47 Plus/Minus with a 61.2 percent Consistency Rating, and 28 of those golfers scored at least 100 points. Wiesberger himself compiled a mammoth 152.5 DraftKings points at the 2016 British Masters with a salary of $12,100.
Despite his high salary, Wiesberger could have chalky ownership, which Pro Subscribers can review across tournaments of various stakes in our DFS Ownership Dashboard shortly after contests lock.
Teach Me To Fisher
Ross Fisher ($11,800) has the second-highest salary and odds to win (8.3 percent) this week. He’s finished third in two of his last three stroke events, averaging 106.5 PPT in those two events.
Fisher’s 69.7 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for second, his 73.7 percent LT GIR is fifth, and his 14.2 LT Adj Bird Avg is 14th overall. He arrives at this tournament in excellent form: His 68.7 Recent Adj Rd Score is the second-best score among golfers with more than one start in the past six weeks.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Jordan L. Smith ($10,200): Smith’s 69.3 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks 10th, his 70.6 LT GIR percentage is 20th, and his 14.5 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for seventh in the field. And Smith has been great on Par-4 holes: His -1.4 LT Adj P4 ranks fourth overall.
Alexander Levy ($9,400): Levy has finished inside the top 10 in two of his last three starts on the Euro Tour, including an eighth-place finish at last week’s Shenzhen International. Levy’s 70.5 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for 10th, his 14.5 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for seventh, and his -0.1 LT Adj P4 is 13th overall. He finished 28th here last season.
Gregory Bourdy ($8,500): Bourdy’s 70.4 LT Adj Rd Score ranks ninth, and his 70.1 LT GIR percentage is 21st. Moreover, he’s been on a heater: His 69.3 Recent Adj Rd Score is 11th, and his chunky 18.5 Recent Adj Bird Avg is second among golfers with more than one start in the past six weeks. Bourdy finished third at last week’s Shenzhen International and placed 21st at this event last year.
James Morrison ($7,300): Since February of this year, Morrison has finished outside of the top 25 just once in six events — a 29th-place performance at last week’s Shenzhen International — and he has four finishes inside the top 15 in his last five events. Morrison’s 17.5 Recent Adj Bird Avg ranks sixth among golfers with more than one start in the past six weeks.
Jorge Campillo ($6,800): Campillo’s 70.7 LT Adj Rd Score is 15th, and his 13.8 LT Adj Bird Avg is 22nd in this field. Campillo has sandwiched two missed cuts around a 19th-place finish at the Trophee Hassan II. Prior to that he finished as a runner-up at the Tshwane Open, where he accumulated 114.5 DraftKings points. He could be a viable GPP piece in a stars-and-scrubs strategy this week.
Good luck in the Euro contests! Be sure to use the Labs Tools to research all of the golfers and check out the videos on our Premium Content Portal.
