Every day, people on Twitter ask us some variation of this question: “Who are your top plays?” When people ask that question, we refer them to our Plays of the Week article, which we publish every Wednesday for Euro Tour.
In every Golf DFS Plays of the Week post, a few FantasyLabs writers will use our Trends tool and Player Models to highlight each one golfer to roster heavily in cash games and/or tournaments.
Here are today’s plays of the week for the Nordea Masters 2016.
Bryan Mears: Henrik Stenson
Stenson is a notable name atop the list of golfers in this week’s Nordea Masters. People likely recognize his name in the tournament field because he plays on the PGA Tour. He’s playing in this week’s Nordea Masters — in Stockholm, Sweden — because he’s from (you guessed it) Sweden.
The field here is much softer than it normally is on the typical PGA Tour stop, which is why Stenson was $9,600 at The Masters and is $12,400 here. We know that Vegas odds to win a tournament are highly correlated with DraftKings pricing, so it’s no surprise to see Stenson so expensive, as he has the best odds to win the Nordea Masters at 13.3 percent.
He doesn’t actually fit the course especially well, as it sets up primarily for bombers as opposed to ball-strikers, and Stenson’s elite Greens in Regulation (GIR) and Driving Accuracy marks show that he is definitely in the latter group. But given the softer field we should probably focus more on Stenson’s talent and less on his lack of “fit.” Per our tools, Stenson is the cream of the crop this week.
Also, check out the Euro Tour segment in this week’s PGA Daily Fantasy Flex podcast, with Bryan, Peter Jennings (CSURAM88), and PGA Director Colin Davy.
Sean Valukis: Lee Westwood
From an ownership arbitrage perspective, Westwood is a smart pivot away from Stenson, who will likely be (justifiably) rostered in a high percentage of lineups and whose popularity will probably come at the expense of Westwood’s ownership. As a result, pivoting to Westwood could help improve your win probability.
Westwood has an intriguing course history. He has made only one appearance at the course, but it was a win back in 2012. Additionally, he comes into the tournament with both the second-best Recent Adjusted Round Score and Long-Term Adj Rd Score.
His GIR scores are skewed by poor early-season performance, but he has averaged 71.1 percent over his last 5 tournaments, which is good for top-15 GIR in the field this week.
Adj Rd Score, GIR, and other premium metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.
Kelly McCann: Sebastien Gros
After two years at PGA Sweden National, the Nordea Masters this year returns to Bro Hof Slott Golf Club, where it was played from 2010 to 2013. During those years, the winners typically outperformed the field in Driving Distance (DD), GIR, and Scrambling.
Gros really pops in a lot of these metrics. First of all, Gros hits the ball a country mile off the tee, ranking first in both Long-Term and Recent DD in this week’s field. But Gros isn’t just some donkey who drops bombs off the tee. He’s tied for tenth in Long-Term GIR and thirteenth in Recent GIR, which will give him plenty of opportunity to go low in Sweden this week.
Also, Bro Hof Slott boasts five Par-5 holes, including an extremely long 606-yard opening hole. Gros’ 318.4-yard Long-Term DD and -5.3 Long-Term Par-5 form is by far the best in the field and his -7.8 Recent Par-5 form is third best in the field. The dude dominates the Par-5s.
Gros has never played the Nordea Masters, but he enters the event in excellent form, as demonstrated by his 70 Recent Adj Rd Score, tied for ninth best in the field. He has made five straight cuts and finished tenth at last week’s Irish Open. Use Gros with great confidence in all guaranteed prize pools.
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The Plays of the Week series is our answer to the question, “Who do you guys like today?” We publish a Plays of the Week article every Wednesday for Euro Tour and PGA and a Plays of the Day every weekday for MLB.
