TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm — formerly TPC Avenel — will host this week’s Quicken Loans National, which was played at Congressional Country Club last year. Confused yet? TPC Avenel previously hosted tournaments known as the Booz Allen Classic and Kemper Open from 1987 to 2006, but the track has not hosted a PGA Tour event since then. Additionally, the course has undergone $20 million dollars’ worth of renovations to be recreated as TPC Potomac. Translation: For all intents and purposes, this is a new course for the PGA Tour with no course history.
That said, the site hosted two Web.com events in 2012 and 2013, and the 2012 edition was won by David Lingmerth. Because Lingmerth arrives in excellent form — his 67.9 Recent Adjusted Round Score (Rec Adj Rd Score) ranks third in the field — and his Web.com win is being touted heavily, he could be chalky this weekend. We provide ownership projections in our Models, and Pro subscribers will be able to review Lingmerth’s ownership across tournaments of various stakes in our DFS Ownership Dashboard shortly after contests lock.
The Course
Since TPC Potomac has no course history with the PGA Tour, this week’s course breakdown will be different from future editions. Let’s start with what we know: It’s a 7,139-yard Par 70 TPC Course with two Par 5 and four Par 3 holes.
Judging by what the Web.com players did, your golfers will need to score on the 560-yard Par 5 tenth hole and the driveable 299-yard Par 4 fourteenth hole. With a short Par 3 followed by a short Par 4 leading up to the 14th, the three-hole stretch from 12 to 14 looks like the most likely place for golfers to earn the DraftKings three-birdie streak bonus.
The 470-yard Par 4 eleventh hole, guarded by Rock Run Creek, played as the most difficult hole on the course and will likely claim its fair share of bogeys or worse this week.
The entire front nine is a stretch where golfers will want to limit damage, as only the 619-yard Par 5 second hole and the relatively benign 365-yard Par 4 fifth hole played as good birdie opportunities for the Web.com events. The winning scores at both Web.com events and the one PGA Champions Tour event played here were never lower than eight under par.
Metrics To Remember (From Comparable Courses)
TPC Southwind and The Old White TPC are both Par 70 TPC courses located on the east coast and with comparable total yardages. Because we have no true course history to draw from this week, we’ll look at some metrics previously produced at these courses.
As our baseline: All courses on the PGA Tour have allowed an average of 50.40 DraftKings points with a -0.57 Plus/Minus and 49.1 percent Consistency Rating (per our PGA Trends tool). Our two comparable courses have allowed 45.58 DraftKings points with a -4.72 Plus/Minus and 44.7 percent Consistency Rating.
Here is how the top quintile of golfers in various metrics have done (in Plus/Minus values) at our two comp courses:
Long-Term Metrics
- Adj Rd Score: -1.22
- Greens in Regulation (GIR): -6.42
- Driving Distance (DD): -3.39
- Driving Accuracy (DA): -2.66
- Scrambling (SC): -2.17
- Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg): +2.47
At first glance, nearly all of these metrics look terrible, but LT Adj Rd Score, SC, and DA look bad because of their negative Plus/Minus values. When you consider, however, that their Plus/Minus values are actually higher than the baseline Plus/Minus — +3.50, +2.55, and +2.06 higher — then we see that LT Adj Rd Score, SC, and DA are possible metrics to leverage this week at TPC Potomac.
Clearly, LT Adj Bird Avg has been an incredibly positive metric for golfers playing at similar Par 70 TPC courses, and it’s likely to be important this week with the birdie-heavy DraftKings scoring.
Recent Metrics
What we see with LT metrics is similar to what we see with Rec metrics: Adj Rd Score, GIR, DD, DA, and SC offer value compared to the baseline. However, Adj Bird Avg produces a shockingly negative Plus/Minus. Considering this is based on a sample of 47, I think this Rec Adj Birg Avg data is noise. I’m not prioritizing it when selecting golfers this week.
Here’s how the top 20 percent of golfers in Rec metrics perform:
- Adj Rd Score: -1.37
- GIR: -2.39
- DD: -2.09
- DA: -2.82
- SC: -2.60
- Adj Bird Avg: -6.45
A Few Names to Remember (From Comparable Courses)
Among golfers with at least five starts in our database at these two comparable courses, both Chad Campbell and Scott Stallings have been consistent, exceeding salary-based expectations in five of their six outings (83.3 percent). Campbell is not in the field this week, but Stallings is, priced at $6,900 on DraftKings and $5,300 on FanDuel. In his six comparable events, he’s scored 57.67 DraftKings points per tournament (PPT) with a +7.22 Plus/Minus.
Ben Crane has the highest comp-course Plus/Minus (+16.20) among golfers with at least five starts, and he also has the highest Upside Rating (20 percent). Averaging 65.70 DraftKings PPT, Ben has exceeded expectations in four of five events. Crane scored 104.5 DraftKings points at the 2014 St. Jude Classic played at TPC Southwind.
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