The PGA Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each week’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable golfers.
After a brief break, the PGA Tour is back with the Safeway Open in Napa, California, at the Silverado Resort and Spa’s North course. While some familiar names like Phil Mickelson, Webb Simpson, and Tony Finau are in the field, these early PGA Fall swing events will also feature a ton of recent Web.com Tour graduates.
The Course
Silverado is a Par 72 course playing at 7,166 yards, which is on the shorter end of the spectrum for a Par 72 layout. The course was purchased and upgraded by Johnny Miller and two partners in 2010. Judging by the numbers, this track has gotten progressively easier for the pros over the last three years, playing to a field average of 70.83 last year when Brendan Steele won with a score of 18-under par; 21 golfers finished the tournament double-digits under par. Birdie or Better percentage, Greens In Regulation (GIR), good putting, and Scrambling (SC) have historically helped golfers here, but 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 Silverado.
- Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score): +2.54
- Recent Adj Rd Score: +3.15
- Course Adj Rd Score: +1.95
- Long-Term GIR: +2.45
- Recent GIR: +4.80
- Long-Term Driving Distance (DD): +4.93
- Recent DD: +3.71
- Long-Term Driving Accuracy (DA): +2.53
- Recent DA: -1.68
- Long-Term Adjusted Putts Per Round (Adj PPR): +5.50
- Recent Adj PPR: +2.01
- Long-Term SC: +3.48
- Recent SC: +6.88
- Long-Term Adjusted Birdies Per Round (Adj Bird Avg): +16.38
- Recent Adj Bird Avg: -0.95
Unsurprisingly, because the course has played relatively easy, most of the metrics produce positive results. Long-Term (LT) Adj Bird Avg is off the charts, while Recent SC, LT Adj PPR, LT DD, and Recent GIR all perform very well. The only negatives on this list are Recent Adj Bird Avg and Recent DA. The Recent Adj Bird Avg is weird, especially when you consider how valuable LT Adj Bird Avg has been and how important birdies are in DraftKings scoring. My theory: Because many golfers arrive at this event with only one or sometimes no events played in the prior six weeks, that metric is thrown off and too noisy.
The Studs
Tony Finau, who is tied for second in the field with his 69.1 LT Adj Rd Score, has the largest implied odds to win (6.7 percent) in the field. His $11,500 DraftKings salary is massive, but his fourth-best 14.2 LT Adj Bird Avg will likely help him to rack up the points on this course. Per the Trends tool, five out of seven golfers with implied odds of at least 5.0 percent to win here at Silverado have crushed expectations, and two (Jimmy Walker in 2014 and Matt Kuchar) have failed to exceed salary-based expectations. Overall, favorites have been very profitable here, producing 82.36 DraftKings points per tournament (PPT) with a hefty +10.12 Plus/Minus. Finau has finished 32nd or better here each of the last three years, and he is tied for sixth with his 68.8 Course Adj Rd Score among golfers with two or more starts at Silverado. It’s likely Finau will be quite chalky this week: He’s projected to be in a slate-high 17-20 percent of lineups.
The second-highest priced golfer in the field, Webb Simpson ($11,200) was on fire coming down the stretch to close out the 2016-2017 season, averaging a +21.25 Plus/Minus in his final six events. That said, he has missed the cut here at Silverado in each of the past two years, which could potentially keep his ownership in check this week. Simpson is tied for second with his 69.1 LT Adj Rd Score, ranks 16th with his 13.1 LT Adj Bird Avg, and ranks 19th with his 60.8 LT SC percentage.
Checking in with the third-highest salary this week, Phil Mickelson ($11,100) hasn’t been priced at or above $10,000 since July’s Greenbrier Classic. In 16 events with a similar salary since the 2015-2016 season, Phil has averaged 79.28 PPT with a juicy +10.96 Plus/Minus and 75 percent Consistency. He’s also been owned at an average of 15 percent in large-field guaranteed prize pools (GPP) in those tournaments, topping out at 31.3 percent at the St. Jude Classic in June. Mickelson leads the field with his 68.7 LT Adj Rd Score and ranks third with his 14.3 LT Adj Bird Avg.
The Value Plays
You might remember Andrew Landry ($7,200) from the 2015 U.S. Open. He led the championship after Day 1, thanks to an Oakmont-best opening round of 66, and he played well enough to go off in the final group on Sunday. He eventually finished T15 thanks to a final round of eight-over par. Landry played in several PGA Tour events in 2016, including the John Deere Classic, where he scored 104.0 DraftKings points thanks to an eighth-place finish and four rounds under 70. Since that time, he has played on the Web.com Tour, where he accumulated one win and an additional six top-five finishes in 18 events during 2017. Overall, Landry finished in the top-25 in 13 of those 18 events. He is tied for 21st in the field with his 69.2 Recent Adj Rd Score, tied for 19th with his 69.8 Recent GIR percentage, and his 67.8 Recent SC percentage ranks ninth overall this week. Per PGATour.com, both his 69.26 scoring average and 4.33 birdie average ranked fifth on the Web.com Tour, where he finished fourth on the priority ranking.
One way to use FantasyLabs to find potential value golfers in our Models is to leverage our LT Adj Rd Score metric. If you sort the field by LT Adj Rd Score, you are looking at a list of players who have been the best golfers over the past 75 weeks. Among these golfers, those who have high Adj Rd Scores and low salaries make great value plays. This week, both Sung Kang and Vaughn Taylor are tied for 20th in the field with their 70.0 LT Adj Rd Scores but are priced at just $6,900. Kang was eliminated from the FedEx Cup Playoffs after the BMW Championship but did have five top-12 finishes on tour last season, including a fifth-place finish at the Quicken Loans National in July. Over the course of last season, he accumulated a +4.87 Plus/Minus with 58 percent Consistency. Taylor was both reliable and valuable last season, producing a +7.00 Plus/Minus with 74 percent Consistency. Vaughn is tied for 21st in the field with his 69.2 Recent Adj Rd Score and tied for 26th with his 14.0 Recent Adj Bird Avg. Taylor finished 15th here at Silverado last season.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Sang-Moon Bae ($7,200): Bae completed two years of mandatory military service in South Korea and returns to the PGA Tour for the first time since the 2015 TOUR Championship. He won this event in 2014; as a result, his 66.7 Course Adj Rd Score leads the field.
Kevin Na ($9,400): Na leads the field with his 16.7 Recent Adj Bird Avg, ranks second with his 68.4 Recent Adj Rd Score, and his 67.4 Course Adj Rd Score is the best score among golfers with more than one start here at Silverado. He has finished seventh and second at this track the past two seasons. There’s a solid chance that Na is the highest-owned golfer in the field this week.
Corey Conners ($7,200): Conners’ 76.2 Recent GIR percentage is tops among golfers who have made at least three starts during the past six weeks. Conners was able to graduate from the Web.com Tour thanks to top-15 finishes in two of the final three events this season. The 25-year-old Canadian was the runner-up at the 2014 U.S. Amateur.
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Good luck this week!
