The FedEx Cup Playoffs continue in Norton, Massachusetts, with the Dell Technologies Championship at TPC Boston. Norton is actually closer to Foxborough and Rhode Island than it is to Boston, but TPC Norton doesn’t sound “neahly as wicked awesome.” This course has hosted the special Labor Day Monday finish event since 2003. Only the top-100 golfers in the season-long FedEx Cup points race qualified to play, and with Brandt Snedeker, Henrik Stenson, J.B. Holmes, and Scott Piercy qualified but electing not to play, the field is down to 96 players.
As you might imagine, the field is loaded, which may keep the ownership levels down for any one particular player. Be sure to check out the new PGA Contests Dashboard, where you can see what type of exposure any DFS user has to a golfer in various contests this week. You can also look at stack ownership percentages, salary breakdowns, and duplicate lineups. It’s amazing.
The Course
TPC Boston is a Par 71 playing at 7,342 yards. The course’s original layout was redesigned in 2007 by Gil Hanse (the same guy who designed The Olympic Golf Course in Rio last year) and local Rhode Island native, Brad Faxon, who was a consultant helping to give the course a local feel. This year, both the 12th and 13th holes have been reshaped. The 12th has a new tee, a re-done fairway with additional bunkers, a new green, and has been lengthened by 49 yards. The 13th hole has been shortened by four yards and has a new green with five additional bunkers. These changes made on two holes shouldn’t force you to shy away from our Course Adjusted Round Score metric. Interestingly, each of the last three winners here finished at 15-under par, and two of the past four winners went on to win the FedEx Cup.
Per PGATour.com, the fun begins right away with the 365-yard Par 4 first hole. Big hitters can attempt to drive the green, but a gigantic bunker with grass islands guards the front left; it’s a risk-reward decision. Prudent players will choose to play a fairway wood or even a long iron off the tee and leave themselves with a wedge shot into the green. Once an easy birdie hole, the 542-yard Par 5 hole was renovated in 2010 and now requires an accurate drive followed by a precision long approach shot into a small and undulated green guarded by both water and bunkers. The 353-yard Par 4 fourth hole is another drive-able Par 4 for the big hitters, but there are plenty of deep bunkers ready to collect any wayward tee shots. Hopefully your player has collected a birdie or two when they arrive at the 466-yard Par 4 fifth hole that isn’t afraid to take strokes back with its three-tiered green. The 600-yard Par 5 seventh hole is the third in a string of difficult holes that should favor players that can hit it both straight and long off the tee.
The back nine begins with another short Par 4 hole — the 425-yard 10th hole. Players can hit either a fairway wood or a driver here to set themselves up for a birdie as long as they avoid the two-tiered bunker on the right side of the green. The 231-yard Par 3 11th hole is a beast and players will be happy to walk off the green with a par. Players need to avoid the chocolate drop mounds scattered up the left side of the fairway on the 495-yard Par 4 14th hole if they want to set themselves up with a decent approach shot into a small green. The shortest Par 3 on the course — the 187-yard 16th hole — features a green guarded by water in the front and left and an old fashioned New England stone wall. The 412-yard Par 4 17th hole could be the source of some fireworks in Monday’s final round, as some of the monster hitters will be able to set themselves up with a very short wedge into the green. The 530-yard Par 5 18th hole may also end up changing the fortunes of many as eagles, birdies, and bogeys or worse are all possible outcomes on this fantastic finishing hole.
Metrics To Remember
As our baseline: All courses on the PGA Tour have allowed an average of 50.42 DraftKings points with a -1.03 Plus/Minus and 48.2 percent Consistency Rating (per our PGA Trends tool). Golfers at TPC Boston have historically averaged 59.76 DraftKings points per tournament (PPT) with a +8.51 Plus/Minus and an amazing 72.5 percent Consistency. You’ll need to work really hard to play bad golfers this week and it makes sense: At least 70 percent of golfers will make the cut, and that number could potentially end up being closer to 80 percent depending on ties.
Here is how the top-20 percent of golfers in various metrics have done (in Plus/Minus valuation) at TPC Boston:
Long-Term Metrics
- Adj Rd Score: +8.00
- GIR: +5.73
- Driving Distance (DD): +10.10
- Driving Accuracy (DA): +9.59
- Adjusted Putts Per Round (Adj PPR): +4.29
- Scrambling (SC): +7.11
- Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg): +6.13
- Adjusted Bogey Percentage (Adj Bog): +7.08
It’s not surprising to see — at a course with a +8.51 Plus/Minus average — every metric producing positive results. It’s very surprising to see that DD (+1.59) and DA (+1.08) are the only metrics to produce results above the baseline. It’s also surprising that Adj Bird Avg is -2.38 Plus/Minus points below the baseline.
Recent Metrics
- Adj Rd Score: +6.14
- GIR: -2.26
- DD: +5.13
- DA: +11.33
- Adj PPR: +8.67
- SC: +8.37
- Adj Bird Avg: +6.22
- Adj Bog: +6.99
Among the recent metrics, DA (+2.82) and Adj PPR (+0.16) produced the only positive results compared to the baseline. Because most daily fantasy sports players will be targeting the bombers this week, using Recent DA could be a way to select some effective contrarian golfers.
A Name to Remember
Speaking of accurate drivers, Zach Johnson has averaged a healthy 69.0 DraftKings PPT with a +12.55 Plus/Minus, 100 percent Consistency Rating, and 7.3 percent ownership in the three tournaments at TPC Boston in our database. Per our new and improved PGA Models, he ranks fourth with his 67.1 LT DA percentage, and he is tied for 12th in the field with his 68.2 Recent Adj Rd Score.
The Levitanimal
Adam Levitan created a course history model, which I’ve adjusted slightly. Louis Oosthuizen is the model’s top golfer and this week’s Levitanimal. Oosthuizen’s 67.0 Course Adj Rd Score ranks first among golfers with at least three starts here. In three trips, Louis has a runner-up, an eighth-, and a 12th-place finish. Plus, Oosthuizen has played well recently: He finished second at the PGA Championship and was 10th at last week’s Northern Trust.
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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.
