FantasyLabs is a data company. With our Trends tool and Player Models, you can leverage our advanced statistics and premium exclusive metrics to identify players to use in your daily fantasy sports lineups.
Each week, our Data Dive articles use 10 of these metrics to highlight notable players for the week’s PGA DFS slate.
Long-Term Metrics
Mike Weir is Canadian. He’s not good at golf. Don’t roster guys who aren’t good at golf. Even if they are Canadian.
Adjusted Round Score: 67.8, Jason Day
Despite not playing well recently — and by “not playing well” I mean “not winning any of the last four tournaments he’s played in” — Day continues to maintain the best overall Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score).
Day’s 64.2 percent LT Scrambling (SC) mark is second in the slate, while both his 309.4-yard LT Driving Distance (DD) and 28.3 LT Putts Per Round (PPR) are sixth.
With both his 16.8 LT Birdies Average and 0.7 LT Eagles Average, Day is tied with super-human Dustin Johnson for the top spot in the field.
Day won the Canadian Open here at Glen Abbey last season.
Greens In Regulation: 72.2%, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Thomas Aiken
Fitzpatrick and Aiken share an identical LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) mark of 72.2 percent, best in the field. They are two of only five golfers at the tournament with a percentage above 70.
The two also have similar LT Driving Accuracy (DA) scores and LT Adj Rd Scores. Fitzpatrick has a 70.4 percent LT DA and 70.4 LT Adj Rd while Aiken carries a 72.4 LT DA and 70.6 LT Adj Rd Score.
Golfers with comparable LT metrics have historically provided a +2.14 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 52.5 percent Consistency.
Driving Accuracy: 73%, Colt Knost
Knost leads the field in LT DA and carries the 11th LT Adj Rd Score at 70.
His Recent Adj Rd Score of 69.1 is tied for sixth. Before missing the cut at the Open Championship, Knost had three top-five finishes in five starts.
Many believe Par-5 scoring will play a big role on DraftKings this week, and Knost has excelled in that area. His -3.8 LT Average Adjusted Par-5 strokes (Avg Adj Par-5) is tied for fourteenth and his Recent Adj Avg Par-5 of -5.0 ranks eighth.
Players with similar LT metrics have a modest +0.68 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Knost finished 48th at Glen Abbey last year and missed the cut in 2013 and 2009.
Scrambling: 64.9%, Jerry Kelly
The only player in the field with a LT SC percentage higher than Day’s is Kelly. His 70.4 percent LT DA is fourth-best, behind Knost, Aiken, and Justin Leonard’s marks.
Kelly’s 70.4 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for 15th in the field, but his Recent Adj Rd Score of 72.6 is the eighth-worst score overall. Kelly has missed four straight cuts and five of his last six.
Kelly missed the cut at this event last year but finished fifth in 2009.
Birdies Per Tournament: 14.9, Patton Kizzire
As mentioned earlier, Day and DJ hold the best LT Birdie average. The second-best score belongs to Kizzire.
Kizzire doesn’t dominate in any one area, but he shows well in a lot of LT metrics. His 70.1 LT Adj Rd Score and 67.8 percent LT GIR are both 12th in the field. His -4.6 Avg Adj Par-5 ranks seventh and his 59.7 percent LT SC mark places him 22nd.
Kizzire made the cut last week in his Open Championship debut.
Recent Metrics
When the Canadian Open has been played at Glen Abbey, the last four winners have been Day (2015), Brandt Snedeker (2013), Nathan Green (2009) and Chez Reavie (2008).
Adjusted Round Score: 66.4, Dustin Johnson
Over the past month and a half, Johnson has been the best golfer on the planet, as evidenced by his 66.4 Recent Adj Rd Score. Third at the Memorial, fifth at the St. Jude Classic, back-to-back wins at the US Open and WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, and a ninth-place finish at the Open Championship — that’s pretty freaking impressive.
DJ’s field-leading 321.4-yard Recent DD and 10th-best 70.5 Recent GIR percentage will set him up with plenty of scoring opportunities around this track.
Johnson finished second at this event in 2013 and withdrew in 2008.
Greens In Regulation: 76.4%, Graham DeLaet
Ranking first in CSURAM88’s favorite model-building metric (Recent GIR) is Canada’s own DeLaet.
And it’s not just his beard the Recent GIR that’s impressive. DeLaet’s 80.4 Recent DA is also first in the field, as is his Recent Birdie Average of 20. His 70.6 percent Recent SC is third and his 69.2 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for 13th.
The 13 previous golfers who have had comparable Recent metrics delivered a juicy +9.98 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with a massive 84.6 percent Consistency.
DeLaet withdrew from this event in 2015 and missed the cut in 2013.
Scrambling: 74.1%, Michael Kim and Ben Crane
Kim and Crane share the top spot for Recent SC at 74.1 percent. They also sound like the people you call after an auto accident.
Kim’s 69 Recent Adj Rd Score and 14.8 Recent Birdie Average are both tied for 11th in the field. His -4.3 Recent Avg Adj Par-5 is 12th.
Crane has the sixth-best Recent DA in the field at 70.2 percent. His 69.9 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for 20th. Crane finished 48th in this event last year and his 69.8 Course Adj Rd Score is tied for 12th.
Par-5 Average Adjusted Strokes: -7, Chez Reavie and Roberto Castro
Both Reavie and Castro share mammoth -7 Recent Avg Adj Par-5 scores, tops in the field.
Bizarrely, they also share identical 69.2 Course Adj Rd Scores and 70.2 LT Adj Rd Scores.
Golfers with comparable metrics have hurt previous owners with a -4.02 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Reavie finished 41st here last season and 31st in 2013. He won the event in 2008 and missed the cut in 2009.
Castro finished 48th last year and sixth in 2013.
Odds to Win: 6.7%, Matt Kuchar
Day has extremely large 16.7 percent Odds to Win and DJ is up next at 15.4 percent.
For what it’s worth, golfers priced above $12,000 with Odds to Win greater than 15 percent but under 20 percent have lit previous money on fire with a -12.43 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Kuchar, on the other hand, has 6.7 percent Odds to Win and is priced at $10,600. Golfers with similar salaries and Odds to Win have also frustrated owners with an average -1.68 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
However, 53.3 percent of these golfers have met or exceeded their salary-based expectations, including Phil Mickelson, who had a +13.92 Plus/Minus at the Scottish Open two weeks ago.
Bonus
Because Graham DeLaet’s beard deserves all the attention it can get.
Pro Trends: 15, Dustin Johnson
I’m tempted just to write, “He’s f*cking DJ, man” and drop the keyboard, but I’m pretty sure that my editor would like a bit more and my keyboard might break.
Johnson has four more Pro Trends than Day and five more than Kuchar, the only other golfers with double-digit Pro Trends.
One of Johson’s most profitable Pro Trends is “Long-Term Driving Distance Score At Least 75,” historically producing a +2.39 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
