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
Bethpage Black hosted the U.S. Open in 2002 and 2009, events won by Tiger Woods and Lucas Glover, respectively. Phil Mickelson was a runner-up on both occasions. The course joined The Barclays rotation in 2012. That year Nick Watney (weird right?) beat out Brandt Snedeker, Sergio Garcia, and Dustin Johnson to claim the crown.
Adjusted Round Score: 67.7, Jason Day
Day stinks. He hasn’t won a tournament since The Players Championship way back in May. Of course, he did win five of the final seven tournaments in 2015, including The Barclays.
Day’s 67.7 Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) is top of the field, his 309.6 LT Driving Distance ranks seventh, and his 28.3 LT Putts Per Round (PPR) is tied for third.
His 64.2 percent LT Scrambling (SC) mark ranks third, while his 16.5 LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) is tied for second. I guess he really doesn’t smell that poorly.
Day also boasts the highest odds to win in the tournament at 12.5 percent, 2.5 percentage points higher than Dustin Johnson.
Golfers with similar salaries and LT Adj Rd Scores have previously produced a +4.98 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 59.4 percent Consistency.
Greens in Regulation: 74.9%, Henrik Stenson
Hitting nearly 75 percent of LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) over a 75-week sample is good. Just look at Henrik Stenson, who hasn’t finished worse than 13th since June.
Both Stenson’s 68.0 LT Adj Rd Score and his 71.5 percent LT Driving Accuracy (DA) rank second. His 16.6 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied with Jordan Spieth for first in the field.
He finished ninth at the U.S. Open held here at Bethpage Black in 2009.
Stenson’s 65.4 Recent Adj Rd Score is flat-out amazing and an accurate indicator of his current form.
Driving Distance: 314.8, Dustin Johnson
Johnson finished T3 here at Bethpage in 2012, the last time The Barclays was played on this course.
In addition to his field-leading length off the tee, DJ’s 68.1 LT Adj Rd Score ranks third and his 16.5 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied with Day for second.
Johnson is in a unique spot this week. In his last time out at the PGA Championship, his ownership was out of control.
He had 41.6 percent ownership on DraftKings across all contests, and was at an incredible 43.4 percent in the $33 Millionaire Maker tournament. He shot a 77 on Thursday and missed the cut by a mile — tilting nearly 50 percent of the PGA DFS community in one fell swoop. How much does that affect his ownership this week?
Prior to that, he was the hottest golfer on the planet with two wins, along with a second-, third-, fifth- and ninth-place finish in six starts.
There’s not many, but golfers with comparable LT metrics have historically generated a +7.60 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 68.8 percent Consistency.
Scrambling: 66.4%, Steve Stricker
Stricker’s 66.4 LT SC percentage is top of the field, as is his 28.1 LT PPR. His 69.4 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for 13th.
Stricker has been enjoying a renaissance of sorts at the age of 49 during the second half of this season, as evidenced by his 68.3 Recent Adj Rd Score — 11th-best overall. He’s made nine of 10 cuts since February, during which time he’s enjoyed three top-10 finishes, including a fourth at The Open Championship.
Stricker finished T16 and T23 at the two U.S. Opens played at Bethpage, and he made the cut but finished 54th at the 2012 Barclays contested here. At $7,100, Stricker is safe in all formats.
Par 5 Adjusted Average Strokes: -7.2, Rory McIlroy
In 2012, the top-four finishers at The Barclays were all ranked inside the top 35 on Tour for Par 5 scoring average. Rory’s LT Par 5 Adj Avg of -7.2 is far and away the best in this elite field.
McIlroy’s 68.0 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for second, his 71.1 percent LT DA is third, and his 302.8 LT DD is 20th. Both his 16.2 LT Adj Bird Avg and 0.6 Adjusted Eagles Per Tournament (Adj Eagle Avg) are third.
Rory finished T24 at The Barclays here in 2012 and T10 at the U.S. Open in 2009. Recently he has either missed the cut or finished in the top-five: He has a win, three additional top-fives, and two missed cuts in his last six starts.
Rory is always an elite tournament play on DraftKings every time he tees it up.
Recent Metrics
I recently found my six-year-old son with a golf ball teed up in the front yard about to take a full swing aimed at my neighbor’s house. Lucky for me I found him before he did. Lucky for everyone else he’s not playing this week.
Adjusted Round Score: 65.6, Phil Mickelson
I previously mentioned Henrik Stenson’s field-leading and amazing 65.4 Recent Adj Rd Score, but right behind him with an equally-impressive mark sits Mickelson at 65.6.
Lefty finished as the runner-up at both U.S. Opens held at Bethpage and finished T38 at The Barclays here in 2012, so he obviously enjoys the track.
Mickelson’s 73.6 percent Recent GIR ranks ninth among golfers who have played more than one tournament the past six weeks. His 71.1 percent Recent SC mark is also fifth. His 16.5 Recent Adj Bird Avg is tied for eighth.
Golfers with similar recent metrics have previously accounted for a +4.23 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 61.3 percent Consistency.
Greens in Regulation: 79.2%, Paul Casey
Casey is actually slightly behind Stenson with his 79.2 percent Recent GIR mark. Casey’s 71.4 percent Recent DA ranks eighth.
Casey’s play has been spotty lately with three missed cuts in his last six starts, perhaps a result of his 31.8 Recent PPR — second-worst in the field.
However, he has finished 10th and 17th in his two most recent tournaments. His 69.2 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for 19th in the field.
Golfers with comparable recent metrics have traditionally provided a chunky +7.72 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 57.9 percent Consistency. In light of that trend, Casey makes for an intriguing tournament flyer.
Driving Distance: 324.6, Lucas Glover
Glover flirted with a 59 briefly last Friday at the Wyndham Championship, but a couple of nine-putts (never let the facts get in the way of a good hyperbole) caused him to settle for a 61.
Glover leads the field with a ridiculous 324.6 Recent DD, nearly five yards longer than Dustin Johnson’s recent average. Glover also leads the field with a hefty 22.0 Recent Adj Bird Avg and is tied for 10th with his 73.6 Recent GIR percentage. His 68.8 Recent Adj Rd Score is also tied for 10th.
Bethpage is the site of Glover’s 2009 U.S. Open win. If you can stomach the putting tilt he’s sure to provide, he’s a fine tournament play, and at only $6,600 he affords you the opportunity to roster a stud or two along with him.
Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament: 20.0, Brooks Koepka
Glover’s 22.0 leads the field, but Koepka’s 20.0 Adj Bird Avg is equally impressive, especially when you consider it was accumulated over a two-count sample while Glover’s comes from one.
Koepka has not finished worse than 13th in his last five completed tournaments (he withdrew from the WGC-Bridgestone after 13 holes), and has two seconds, a fourth- and ninth-place finish during that time frame. His 67.4 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks fourth.
Players with similar Recent Adj Rd Scores and Adj Bird Averages have previously produced a +5.08 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 59.6 percent Consistency.
Par 5 Adjusted Average Strokes: -8, Jhonattan Vegas
Crushing Par 5 holes is not all Vegas has done well lately. His 310.4-yard Recent DD and 66.2 Recent SC percentage both rank 11th, while his 71.3 percent Recent GIR is 17th.
Vegas recently backed up a fourth-place finish at the Barbasol Championship — where he shot a 60 in the second round, by the way — with a win at the Canadian Open. He then finished 22nd at the PGA Championship before struggling to a 50th-place finish at the Olympics. His 68.8 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks 15th.
Vegas’ 17.7 Recent Adj Bird Avg is the fourth-best average in the field.
His ability to go really low and dominate Par 5 holes makes him a really fine tournament play this week.
Bonus
Pro Trends: 11, Jason Day, Brooks Koepka and Ryan Palmer
Since we’ve already discussed Day and Koepka, we’ll concentrate on Palmer here.
Palmer’s most profitable Pro Trend is “Long-Term Driving Distance At Least 75,” which has historically manufactured a +2.44 Plus/Minus on DraftKings. Palmer also has ownership of the “Long-Term Birdie Score At Least 65” Pro Trend, traditionally good for a +2.23 Plus/Minus.
Unlike Day, who is the most expensive golfer in the field, and Koepka, who is the seventh-highest salaried player, Palmer costs just peanuts at $5,900 this week.
Comparably-priced players with six or more Pro Trends have returned a modest +0.05 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 52.0 percent Consistency.
