The PGA Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each week’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable golfers.
A star-studded field has come to play at Torrey Pines Golf Club in La Jolla, California, for the Farmers Insurance Open, including the seven-time champion: Tiger Woods.
The Course
Torrey Pines South — a difficult 7,628-yard Par 72 course — hosts three of the four rounds of the Farmers Insurance Open, including the two most important rounds after the 36-hole cut. Each golfer will want to make the best of their one round on Torrey Pines North, which typically plays much easier than the South course.
As always, I backtested all metrics within our PGA Models to find which ones have been valuable at this tournament. Per the Trends tool, here is how the top 20 percent of golfers in various metrics have done (in Plus/Minus valuation) at Torrey Pines. Historically, Torrey Pine’s rotation has yielded averages of 44.49 DraftKings points and a -5.54 Plus/Minus with 42.6 percent Consistency to the field. These numbers are light years behind the guaranteed three rounds of birdies we looked at last week.
- Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score): -4.89 with 46.6 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Greens In Regulation (GIR): -2.64 with 50.6 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Driving Distance (DD): -1.08 with 53.0 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Driving Accuracy (DA): -6.49 with 38.7 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Adjusted Putts per Round (Adj PPR): -9.22 with 37.2 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Scrambling (SC): -5.70 with 46.1 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg): -6.48 with 48.3 percent Consistency
- Recent Adj Rd Score: -2.60 with 49.0 percent Consistency
- Recent GIR: -3.48 with 49.2 percent Consistency
- Recent DD: -3.96 with 44.1 percent Consistency
- Recent DA: -8.65 with 40.6 percent Consistency
- Recent Adj PPR: -5.33 with 44.5 percent Consistency
- Recent SC: -3.57 with 47.2 percent Consistency
- Recent Adj Bird Avg: -2.80 with 49.5 percent Consistency
Everything looks ugly, but when compared to the baseline both Long Term and Recent Greens in Regulation and Driving Distance, as well as Recent Adjusted Round Score, Scrambling, and Birdie Average all hold some value.
The Studs
Jon Rahm ($11,800) is the defending champion here at the Farmers Insurance Open thanks to an amazing final round 65, in which he rolled in a 60-foot eagle putt on the final hole.
Wild Wednesday: Watch Jon Rahm’s impressive eagle putt on the final hole to win the Farmers Insurance Open. https://t.co/EUBFs5RSBv
— tgw.com (@TGW_tweets) February 1, 2017
Rahm has played the first two events of 2018 at around 28 percent average ownership, and I would expect him to be one of the highest-owned golfers on the slate again this week. You can check out player exposure and much more with our PGA Contests Dashboard. And be sure to utilize our new Entries Manager tool in Player Models. Rahm is tied for third in the field with his 68.4 LT Adj Rd Score, and he’s tied for fourth with his 16.0 LT Adj Bird Avg. Thanks to his win last week, his 67.0 Recent Adj Rd Score is the best mark in the field.
Rickie Fowler ($11,400) checks in with both the second-highest salary and second-best odds to win (7.7 percent). Fowler’s 68.1 LT Adj Rd Score is the best in the field, and his 16.0 LT Adj Bird Avg is equal to Rahm’s. Players with comparable salaries and LT metrics have previously produced an average of 77.92 DraftKings points per tournament (PPT) with a +2.55 Plus/Minus and 54.9 percent Consistency Rating. All that said, Fowler has missed the cut at Torrey Pines in three of his past four trips.
Hideki Matsuyama ($10,800) ranks second in the field with his 68.2 LT Adj Rd Score, and his 16.8 LT Adj Bird Avg is the best in the field among golfers with more than three PGA starts in the past 12 months. Hideki finished fourth at the Tournament of Champions and has sandwiched two top-35 finishes around two missed cuts here at the Farmers.
Justin Rose ($10,600) is on a tear: In his last nine combined starts on the PGA and European Tours, he has finished worse than 10th only once while piling up two wins. Rose is tied for fifth in the field with his 68.5 LT Adj Rd Score, and he is tied with Rahm and Fowler with his 16.0 LT Adj Bird Avg.
The Value Plays
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.
Francesco Molinari ($7,400): Molinari is tied for seventh in the field with his 68.7 LT Adj Rd Score this week. Marc Leishman — whose salary is $1,800 higher — shares the same score. Molinari finished 14th here last year, and his 14.7 LT Adj Bird Avg ranks 14th overall.
Kyle Stanley ($7,400): Stanley’s 69.1 LT Adj Rd Score ranks 12th, he has a top-30 LT Adj Bird Avg (13.9), and he finished 10th his last time out at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Kyle hasn’t missed a cut on the PGA Tour since August of last year, and he has improved his finishing position at this event in each of the past three years. With that long term and recent resume, combined with his salary, Stanley should be strongly considered in cash games this week.
Lucas Glover ($7,100): Glover was a value play last week when he put up 84.5 DraftKings points with a +31.65 Plus/Minus, so we’ll go back to the well again this week. Glover is tied for 13th in the field with his 69.2 LT Adj Rd Score this week, but he hasn’t finished better than 24th here since a ninth-place finish back in 2010. If he continues his recent trend of alternating missed cuts with top-35 finishes at Torrey then he is due for a missed cut this time around.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Tiger Woods ($9,700): Woods has won this event seven times; throw in his victory at the 2008 U.S. Open, and that’s eight wins here at Torrey Pines. Most dudes in this tournament won’t win eight PGA events in their career, let alone eight events at one track. By the way, he’s Tiger f***ing Woods.
Jason Day ($9,400): Hump’s brand revolves around picking Jason Day to win, which he did do here at Torrey Pines in 2015. That said, Day has missed the cut at this event in each of his past two trips and hasn’t played a competitive round since October of last year at the HSBC Champions. Despite an uneventful and winless 2017 season, Day is tied for fifth with his 68.5 LT Adj Rd Score and ranks eighth with his 15.1 LT Adj Bird Avg.
Charles Howell III ($8,300): Howell’s stellar 68.7 Course Adj Rd Score at Torrey Pines leads the field among golfers with more than one start here: He has three top-10 finishes here in his past five starts, including a runner-up last year. Howell finished 20th at last week’s CareerBuilder Challenge, and his 69.0 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks eighth among golfers with more than one start over the past six weeks.
