We are all waiting patiently for the FantasyLabs PGA Beta to launch. If you signed up, you will be receiving any updates via email. I thought that I would help ease that urge by giving everyone something to dig into for this week’s upcoming tournament. Once the Beta launches, I will be looking into the potential for some weekly stuff with the FantasyLabs data, but for now, this should help ease the waiting pains.
This week we have the Northern Trust Open being played at the Riviera Country Club located just west of Los Angeles in Pacific Palisades, California. Weather is not expected to be an issue, but that could always change later in the week. We are targeting upside in GPPs and I like to look for players who I think have a good chance of finishing in the top 25. In cash games I am focusing more on having my players make the cut, but this week I will be mostly on GPPs. Here is the top 25 for the past five years at the Northern Trust Open.
It is often debated how useful course history is when selecting which golfer you are going to roster each week. We can dive into that conversation at a later date, but I think that I may look into it more than some other players. I would not use it as a way to blindly pick who we are going to play, but I do think it is, at the very least, a good way to see where we want to focus some more of our energy. None of these golfers finished in the top 25 each of the past five years, but four golfers did manage to do so in four of the past five years.
Also, we can see that 12 players finished in the top 25 in three of the past five years.
Again, I do not like to put too much emphasis on a player’s course history. Rather, I want to find a reason why these players may have fared well in the past. After playing a few easier courses, the Riviera Country Club will put up more of a fight than what the field has seen the past few weeks. With a very talented field that is filled with past Major Champions, I decided to take a look at how each player ranked in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, which is a great overall measure of how a player has been performing on average against the field. First, it is worth noting that Strokes Gained: Tee to Green was not introduced until 2014, I believe. Luckily, PGATour.com did have the rankings dating back to 2011. Again, I am only looking at the players who finished in the top 25 in the Northern Open for that year.
2011: Five players ranked in the top 25 of Strokes Gained: Tee to Green.
2012: Seven players ranked in the top 25 of Strokes Gained: Tee to Green. Five of those players were ranked in the top 10 and three of them ranked in the top five.
2013: Ten players ranked in the top 25 of Stokes Gained: Tee to Green. Three of those players were ranked in the top 10 and one of them ranked in the top five.
2014: Eight players ranked in the top 25 of Strokes Gained: Tee to Green. Five of those players ranked in the top 10 and one of them ranked in the top five.
2015: Eight players ranked in the top 25 of Strokes Gained: Tee to Green. Six of those players ranked in the top 10 and two ranked in the top five. In this year, six of the top-10 finishers were ranked higher than 15th in the Strokes Gained: Tee to Green statistic.
This isn’t too surprising given that this statistic is a good measure of how well a golfer has been playing, so you would expect some of the top-ranked players to finish atop of a leaderboard. To give you a visual of what I listed above, here’s the leaderboards for the past five years with those players’ rankings. (SG: T-G = Strokes Gained: Tee to Green)
Lastly, I wanted to give you guys some Vegas line info to take a look at. DraftKings pricing and the Odds to Win are nearly identical at the top half of the salaries. It is no different this week, as we can see another obvious correlation.
Below, I listed the top-14 players in order of their Odds to Win in Vegas. Alongside of them is their DraftKings salary.
There is an obvious correlation to be seen. If it wasn’t for the flip-flop of Charl Schwartzel and J.B. Holmes, the lists would move in the exact same order. For those of you who may be new to PGA, this is not out of the ordinary. If we take a look at how the list continues, we can begin to see some differences in the order.
Keegan Bradley sticks out to me here. He is ranked 15th in Odds to Win at +5000, but he is priced alongside the likes of Jason Dufner at +7000 and Danny Lee at +8000.
Okay, I can’t believe I am going to do this, but I am going to finish this up by talking a bit more about Keegan Bradley. If you played PGA DFS in the past, you have probably been burned by him on several occasions. He has missed three of his last six cuts with one top-10 and one top-25 finish. He is Mr. Boom-or-Bust, but that is what I like about him. Some people may have been burned so badly last year by Mr. Bradley that they can’t stomach playing him this week, and his recklessness is exactly what I want at the Northern Trust. With a course that offers some risk-reward holes, including a Par 4 that gives players the options of going for the green off of the tee, I am going to target players who will take some chances. Keegan has finished in the top 20 in all four of the prior four years, with two of those finished being in the top-5. His small bargain in relation to the Vegas odds is helping me to make my case for him as I begin my roster construction. By the way, he does rank 32nd in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green this year.
He is not a comfortable play for me, but that also gives me a reason to look further into him. I hope that you guys get your feet wet with some PGA action this week, as it should be an awesome tournament to watch. Take down a GPP while you’re at it, but if you don’t, I hope this at least helped make the wait for the PGA Beta a bit easier. Don’t worry, it is coming soon and it is going to be awesome.
