The PGA Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each week’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable golfers.
The FedEx Cup Playoffs come to a conclusion this week at the Tour Championship. It’s Round 4 of 4, which means that only the top-30 golfers will compete for a chance at claiming the Cup. Obviously, it is a no-cut event and virtually everybody will be alive on the weekend. Get ready to sweat.
The Course
East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia, is a Par 70 course playing at 7,362 yards. The length alone should favor players with distance, but the tight fairways place a premium on Driving Accuracy (DA) and Greens In Regulation (GIR). To give more concrete numbers, I backtested all metrics within our PGA Models. Per the Trends tool, here is how the top-20 percent of golfers in various metrics have done (in Plus/Minus valuation) at East Lake:
- Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score): +3.56 Plus/Minus, 60.9 percent Consistency
- LT GIR: +10.40 Plus/Minus, 76.9 percent Consistency
- LT Driving Distance (DD): +3.20 Plus/Minus, 65.5 percent Consistency
- LT DA: +10.79 Plus/Minus, 72.7 percent Consistency
- LT Scrambling (SC): +1.33 Plus/Minus, 58.9 percent Consistency
- LT Adjusted Birdie Average (Adj Bird Avg): +3.33 Plus/Minus, 60.8 percent Consistency
- Recent Adj Rd Score: +3.71 Plus/Minus, 60.7 percent Consistency
- Recent GIR: +10.29 Plus/Minus, 68.8 percent Consistency
- Recent DD: +4.96 Plus/Minus, 62.2 percent Consistency
- Recent DA: +7.41 Plus/Minus, 61.5 percent Consistency
- Recent SC: +4.58 Plus/Minus, 62.2 percent Consistency
- Recent Adj Bird Avg: +4.84 Plus/Minus, 69.7 percent Consistency
The thing that stands out immediately is that DA and GIR — in both the LT and Recent samples — produce the beefiest Plus/Minus. Also noteworthy: Adjusted Round Score generated much lower Plus/Minus numbers, but all of these golfers are elite and the field is very small — there’s not much of an edge in looking at Adj Rd Score.
The Studs
They’re all studs; finding the right combination of studs will be a key to success this week. Per our PGA Contests Dashboard, even though Paul Casey, Phil Mickelson, and Patrick Reed were all owned at greater than 27 percent as individuals in the $33 Dogleg last week, their ownership as pairs was much more attractive. Casey and Reed were owned together in 7.47 percent of rosters, Casey and Phil in 7.36 percent of rosters, and Phil with Reed in 6.94 percent of rosters. If you had paired Casey — owned at the highest percentage in the Dogleg (28.28 percent) — with a more moderately-owned Rickie Fowler (13.16 percent), you would have hit on a combo owned at just 1.97 percent.
Speaking of Fowler, he is one of just two players in the field who has a LT DD over 300 yards and a LT DA of at least 60 percent. According to the Trends tool, players with comparable LT driving metrics have generated a whopping +11.63 Plus/Minus with 80.0 percent Consistency here at East Lake. Fowler has been one of the most consistent and productive golfers on Tour this year: His 92 percent fantasy year Consistency ranks third, and his 81.8 DraftKings fantasy year points per game (PPG) mark is fourth overall. The only other player in the field who meets the driving requirements for this trend is Sergio Garcia, who has been great at East Lake: His 68.6 Course Adjusted Round Score ranks fifth among golfers with at least two starts at this track.
Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson are tied atop the field with their 67.9 LT Adj Rd Scores. Both have been striking the ball extremely well the past few weeks but Spieth has been more reliable on a week-to-week basis. Johnson won the Northern Trust but finished 33rd last week, while Spieth has two runner-ups and a seventh-place finish over the past three weeks. Spieth won this tournament in 2015, and Johnson hasn’t finished worse than sixth at this track in his last three trips; getting this one right could be the difference for your lineups this week. Although, you could play them both in the same lineup if you’re feeling frisky.
Jason Day has had a pedestrian season overall but has finished inside the top-10 in three of his last four tournaments; he could be peaking at the exact right time for a Tour Championship victory. Day is tied for second in the field with his 17.8 Recent Adj Bird Avg and is tied for seventh with his 67.4 Recent Adj Rd Score. Day’s putter — one of the keys to him previously being the No. 1 ranked player in the world — has really come around lately: He is tied for third in the field with his 27.7 Recent Adjusted Putts Per Round (Adj PPR). Day is comfortable at East Lake: Even with last year’s withdrawal, his 67.6 Course Adj Rd Score is tops among those with more than two starts here.
In the midst of an absolutely GOAT-tastic season, Justin Thomas has five wins in 2017, including a major victory at the PGA Championship. Thomas’ 18.3 Recent Adj Bird Avg leads the field, and his 66.8 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks second overall. Thomas finished sixth here last year in his Tour Championship debut.
The Value Plays
What does being perfect (in terms of Consistency) for an entire season look like? Something like this:
That’s what Patrick Cantlay has done this year. He is the only player in the field with perfect 100 percent Consistency over the past 12 months. Cantlay’s reward for his ninth-place finish and 86.5 DraftKings points last week? An $800 salary decrease. That’s what I call value. Cantlay is tied for fourth in the field with both his 15.4 LT Adj Bird Avg and 68.3 LT Adj Rd Score, while his 69.8 Recent GIR percentage ranks fourth alone.
Kevin Chappell finished second here at East Lake last year and has ripped off four top-15 finishes in his last six starts while accumulating the 10th-best Recent Adj Bird Avg (16.5) in the field. Nothing Chappell does statistically jumps off the page, but his 83.6 DraftKings PPG over the past month ranks 10th in the field.
With a salary of $7,100, Tony Finau may be 100 percent owned this week (that’s hyperbole), but who cares? In his last 10 tournaments, Finau has produced a very pleasing +20.07 Plus/Minus with 100 percent Consistency.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Charley Hoffman has shown up in big events this year, and even though his recent finishes haven’t been great, his ball-striking has. That said, Hoffman’s 29.3 Recent Adj PPR is one of the 11 worst scores in the field. If he can somehow get hot with the putter this week — watch out.
Kyle Stanley is nearly minimum-priced and hasn’t been owned at greater than eight percent in the past three tournaments. He has exceeded his salary-based expectations each time while averaging 73.83 PPG in those three events.
