Golf’s final major of 2017 comes to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the PGA Championship. Although the PGA Championship rotates courses, we do have a healthy amount of course history at Quail Hollow, thanks to it hosting the Wells Fargo Championship since 2003. That said, all course history should be analyzed somewhat cautiously this week considering Tom Fazio has created three new holes at Quail Hollow that haven’t been played in previous events. The new first hole is a combination of the old first and second holes, and both the fourth and fifth hole have been reconstructed from the old Par 5 fifth hole. The back nine remains largely unchanged, and the infamous Green Mile will still show its teeth as the leaders come down the stretch on the weekend.
The field features 113 players in the top-115 of the Official World Golf Rankings, including the man in search of the career grand slam, Jordan Spieth. Spieth was owned at 14.21 percent in the $33 Dogleg on DraftKings last week, and he’s likely to somehow fly under the radar again this week. FantasyLabs provides ownership projections in our Models, and Pro Subscribers will be able to review Jordan’s ownership across tournaments of various stakes in our DFS Ownership Dashboard shortly after contests lock.
The Course
Originally designed by George Cobb in 1961, the course has undergone several modifications throughout the years, thanks to Arnold Palmer and the aforementioned Fazio, who has adjusted the course on three different occasions. Before hosting the Wells Fargo Championship — as it has done for 14 years — Quail Hollow previously played host to the Kemper Open and the Paine Webber Invitational. The club will also host the Presidents Cup in 2021.
New Bermuda grass — Champion Ultradwarf Bermudagrass, to be exact — has been installed on all the greens since this course was last played. At least 900 trees were removed as part of the recent reshaping and also to allow more sunlight to bake the greens as the day progresses. At the end of the day, the course is a little bit longer, has been reshaped in some spots, and has been reduced to a Par 71 — but a good portion of the course is still the same.
Metrics To Remember
As our baseline: All courses in our database have allowed an average of 50.18 DraftKings points with a -1.14 Plus/Minus and 47.9 percent Consistency Rating (per our PGA Trends tool). Golfers at Quail Hollow have historically averaged 45.43 DraftKings points per tournament (PPT) with a -6.23 Plus/Minus and 45.0 percent Consistency. The course was already no joke, and it’s likely to play even harder with its new PGA Championship set up.
For an in-depth look at how all of our metrics have performed at both Quail Hollow and in recent years of the PGA Championship, check out Bryan Mears’ Building an Optimal Model for the 2017 PGA Championship.
Here is how the top-20 percent of golfers in various metrics have done (in Plus/Minus valuation) at Quail Hollow:
Long-Term Metrics
- Adj Rd Score: -2.43
- Greens In Regulation: -0.85
- Driving Distance (DD): -2.14
- Driving Accuracy (DA): -5.49
- Scrambling (SC): -6.26
- Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg): -3.42
Similar to last week, at a course with a -6.23 Plus/Minus average, every metric we see produces negative results. However, GIR is a whopping +5.38 above the baseline, and Adj Rd Score, DD, and Adj Bird Avg all provide solid value when compared to the baseline.
Recent Metrics
- Adj Rd Score: -2.03
- GIR: -4.87
- DD: -3.27
- DA: -2.61
- SC: -4.35
- Adj Bird Avg: +2.61
- Adjusted Bogeys Per Tournament (Adj Bogey Avg): -4.45
All of the recent metrics above have provided varying degrees of value and should be considered when creating lineups this week. But holy cow, have a look at that Recent Adj Bird Avg number. It’s +8.84 above the baseline and could potentially be an excellent way to target some high-upside but low-owned golfers like Chez Reavie, who leads the field with a gargantuan 21.0 Recent Adj Bird Avg.
A Name To Remember
Among players with three events played at Quail Hollow in our database, Brendan Steele has averaged a very healthy 71.67 DraftKings PPT with an excellent +18.4 Plus/Minus. He is tied for 13th among golfers with at least three starts here with his 69.6 Course Adjusted Round Score. Steele has missed two of his last three cuts, which has caused his Recent Adj Rd Score to balloon up to 71.5, but his 69.3 LT Adj Rd Score paints a more accurate picture of the type of golfer he is.
The Levitanimal
Adam Levitan created a course history model, which I’ve adjusted slightly. And for the second consecutive week, Rory McIlroy is the model’s top golfer and this week’s Levitanimal. McIlroy has won twice here and has finished 10th or better in all five of his most recent trips. McIlroy appears to have turned his disappointing season around with two top-five finishes in his last two starts. We currently have Rory projected for 21-25 percent ownership in large-field guaranteed prize pools (GPPs), but I wouldn’t be shocked to see him break 30 percent in DraftKing’s Millionaire Maker.
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Good luck, and be sure to do your own PGA research with the FantasyLabs Tools and watch our PGA videos on our Premium Content Portal.
