What You Need to Know
The CareerBuilder Challenge is a goofy event at which golfers are paired with amateurs each of the first three days and play 54 holes on three different courses before a cut is made. On Sunday, the top 70 professionals return to finish the tournament at the TPC Stadium Course at PGA West, where they played one of the first three days. The current forecast calls for rain and/or gusty winds for all four days of the tournament, adding to the weirdness excitement.
The Kinda Sorta Big Four
There are six golfers in this field with salaries of at least $10,000, but none of them is a prohibitive favorite to win the event. Of the six, four seem more noteworthy than the other two.
Everything’s Bigger In Texas
Patrick Reed ($11,200) lit this event up with three consecutive rounds of 63 on his way to victory in 2014.
Reed’s 68.9 Long-term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) ranks fourth, his 61.8 percent LT Scrambling (SC) is tied for 12th, and his 14.9 LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) is fourth overall. Reed currently has the highest odds to win (6.7 percent).
Per our free Trends tool, golfers with comparable salaries and LT metrics have historically generated a +3.67 Plus/Minus with 57.7 percent Consistency at an average ownership of 19.0 percent in tournaments.
Old Man Walking
Phil Mickelson ($10,800) leads the field with a 68.5 LT Adj Rd Score, and he ranks 11th in LT Adj Bird Avg with 14.2. His 71.2 DraftKings points per tournament (PPT) is third in the field over the past 12 months.
Mickelson has won this event twice (prior to 2005), and he finished T3 here last year. His last time out (in the Safeway Open in October) he finished eighth.
The Former Two-time Champion
Bill Haas ($10,500) won this event by one stroke over five different golfers in 2015. Overall, Haas has two wins in the CareerBuilder and five top-10 finishes, one of which was last year. He was the runner-up in 2011.
Haas’ 69.1 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for seventh, and his 63.9 LT SC percentage is third. His 68.3 percent LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) sets him up nicely for birdie opportunities. He trails only Reed with his 5.9 percent odds to win, and he finished 13th at the Sony Open in Hawaii, so he’s in good form to start the year. Haas is likely to be heavily owned in all formats this week.
Nothing Flashy
Zach Johnson ($10,200) is coming off a sixth-place finish at last week’s Sony Open in Hawaii, where he totaled 116.5 DK points. Johnson has played well in this event recently, with a T8 finish in 2012 and a T3 finish in 2014.
Johnson’s 69.0 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for fifth, his 28.7 LT Adjusted Putts Per Round (PPR) is 16th, his 61.4 percent LT SC is 21st, and his 13.6 LT Adj Bird Avg is 23rd.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Francisco Molinari ($10,300): Molinari finished T10 in this event in 2015. He ended the 2016 season smoking hot with a win at the Italian Open, fourth- and sixth-place finishes on the PGA Tour, and another fourth-place finish on the Euro Tour. His 69.1 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for seventh, his 67.7 LT Driving Accuracy (DA) is 13th, and his 14.3 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for ninth. Molinari’s 69.3 DK PPT over the past 12th months is the fifth-best average in the field.
William McGirt ($7,400): Ol’ Dirt McGirt’s 69.1 Recent Adj Rd Score and 86.8 DK PPT are the best scores in the field among golfers who have played more than one tournament over the past six weeks. He finished ninth and 49th in the two tournaments played in Hawaii this month. McGirt’s 69.4 LT Adj Rd Score is 14th overall.
Jamie Lovemark ($9,600): A PGA Frankentsein of mine from last season, Lovemark also comes in hot with a fourth-place finish at last week’s Sony Open in Hawaii. Lovemark was the 36-hole leader at the CareerBuilder last year and fired three consecutive rounds of 65 before falling to T6 with a 73 on Sunday. Lovemark’s 305.1-yard LT Driving Distance (DD) ranks 17th, and his 69.9 LT Adj Rd Score is 32nd overall.
Jason Dufner ($9,200): Dufner’s 69.3 LT Adj Rd Score and 14.2 LT Adj Bird Avg are both tied for 12th, and his 70.2 percent LT GIR is tied for 24th. Dufner defeated David Lingmerth in a playoff last year to win this event.
Lucas Glover ($7,700): Guaranteed prize pool extraordinaire and supreme tilt-master, Glover is tied for the 14th-best LT Adj Rd Score (69.4) and has the eighth-best LT GIR percentage (72.0 percent). Glover posted back-to-back top-five finishes in his final three tournaments of 2016 and finished T15 at the CareerBuilder in 2015.
Ryan Brehm ($6,400): Brehm’s 70.3 DK PPT over the past 12 months is fourth in the field, although it was accumulated in just six events. Brehm finished 45th at last week’s Sony Open and has done an admirable job with LT GIR (69.8 percent), LT SC (60 percent), and LT Adj Bird Avg (13.7). Brehm crushes the ball off the tee: His 317.5-yard LT DD ranks third in the field. He could be a unique piece of a stars-and-scrubs lineup.
Grayson Murray ($7,000): Murray accumulated eight top-10 finishes in 17 events on the Web.com Tour last season and notched a top-10 finish on the PGA Tour in October’s Sanderson Farms Championship. His 69.5 LT GIR percentage has helped him rack up the field’s eighth-best 14.4 LT Adj Bird Avg.
Trey Mullinax ($6,600): If you’re looking for a #ProAmNarrative, Mullinax finished T12 in last season’s BMW Charity Pro-Am on the Web.com Tour. Mullinax’s 314.3-yard LT DD is fourth overall, and his 14.2 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for 12th.
Be sure to visit our suite of Tools to research all of the golfers and peruse the slate’s tournaments in our Contest Guide.
Good luck this week!
