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
The John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Illinois, has been around since 1971. During the past seven years of the event, only four different winners have hoisted the hardware.
Steve Stricker went back-to-back-to-back from 2009 to 2011. Jordan Spieth won twice in 2013 and 2015. Zach Johnson (2012) and Brian Harman (2014) are the other two winners since 2009.
Adjusted Round Score: 68.8, Jon Rahm
Rahm’s 68.8 Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) is just one-tenth of a point better than Zach Johnson’s and Kevin Na’s marks this week.
Rahm also has the seventh-best LT Driving Distance (DD) at 302.6 yards and ranks second in LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) at 15.5.
His 66.7 LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) percentage, 21st in the field, has historically been a metric that has been a huge part of winning here.
Golfers with similar LT metrics have accumulated a +2.75 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 55.6 percent Consistency.
Greens in Regulation: 71.2%, Thomas Aiken and Chris Smith
Aiken and Smith are tied atop the GIR rankings this week.
Smith is a long-time pro who is currently 160th on the Web.com Tour’s money list. He has made two of 11 cuts this year. He recently missed cuts at events like the Ellie Mae Classic and Utah Championship.
Smith’s 72.7 Recent Adj Rd Score is the seventh-worst score in the field and his 72.5 LT Adj Rd Score is 13th-worst. He missed the cut at the John Deere Classic in 2015, 2014, 2011, and 2010. His 75.3 Course Adj Rd Score is the worst score in the field for any player who has made more than one start at TPC Deere Run.
Smith should not be on your radar for any reason.
Aiken is coming off a missed cut at last week’s Travelers Championship, but had made three straight cuts prior to that and has a fourth-place finish at the BMW PGA Championship to his credit this season.
Aiken’s 73.1 percent LT Driving Accuracy (DA) ranks second in the field and his 70.5 LT Adj Rd Score is 13th. His Recent Adj Bird Avg of 15.0 is tied for 10th.
Golfers with comparable LT metrics and Recent Birdie Averages have disappointed previous owners with a historical -2.21 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Putts Per Round: 27.2, Brian Gay
Gay leads the field in LT Putts Per Round (PPR) and is the only player with an average under 28. Of the 11 players who finished inside the top 10 in 2015, six ranked inside the top 20 in Strokes Gained: Putting.
Gay’s LT Scrambling (SC) percentage of 62.4 is third overall. However, his 8.3 LT Adj Bird Avg is the 13th-lowest average in the field. His Recent Adj Bird Avg is even worse: 3.3, second-worst in the field.
Gay has a ninth-place finish at this course in 2011 and came in 12th in 2008. He missed the cut in 2012 and finished 61st in 2013.
If you’re willing to lean on putting and that old sliver of positive course history, you could roster the $5,800 Gay in an extreme stars-and-scrubs approach.
Scrambling: 66.5, Steve Stricker
In addition to having the top LT SC percentage, Stricker also has the third-best LT Adj Rd Score at 69.4, and ranks 12th in LT Adj Bird Avg at 12.5.
As previously noted, Stricker won at TPC Deere Run three straight years. His 68.3 Course Adj Rd Score is second-best overall, only one-tenth of a point behind Zach Johnson. Stricker’s 67.8 Recent Adj Rd Score is the best in the field this week.
Stricker makes for a very judicious play in all formats, although you’ll want to consider his projected ownership in large-field GPPs. For what it’s worth, he’s my favorite play this week.
Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament: 19.0, Brian Bullington
Who the hell is Brian Bullington?
He’s a 2015 graduate of the University of Iowa who’s currently playing on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica after failing to qualify for the Web.com Tour. Not inspired? That’s understandable.
His LT Adj Bird Avg of 19.0 is hefty, although it has been mostly accumulated on the unknown tracks of the Latinoamerica Tour.
Bullington does bring a nice combination of both power and accuracy to the party: His 300.2 LT DD is ranked 14th this week, his 69.6 LT DA is seventh, and his 68.1 LT GIR percentage is 12th.
He recently qualified for the Web.com’s Rust-Oleum Championship, in which he finished 56th. If you’re going extreme stars-and-scrubs, Bullington is sure to be extremely low-owned and is a good bet to accumulate a few birdies.
Recent Metrics
Since 2009, both Stricker and Zach Johnson have crushed this course. In addition to Johnson’s win in 2012, he has three second-place finishes and two third-place finishes in that time frame.
In my slightly-modified Adam Levitan Course History Model, Johnson has a ridiculous 92.30 rating and Stricker has an equally-impressive 91.55.
Adjusted Round Score: 68.1, Zach Johnson and Kevin Na
Refer to the above featured image if you’re looking to identify the player with the best Recent Adj Rd Score in the field. (Hint: It’s Steve Blanking Stricker.)
Both Johnson and Na are tied for second with encouraging 68.1 scores.
We’ve talked about Johnson’s history here: His 68.2 Course Adjusted Round Score is the best in the field.
In addition to having great recent metrics, Johnson’s 68.9 LT Adj Rd Score ranks second, his 61.5 LT SC percentage is sixth, and his 67.1 percent LT DA is 13th overall. He makes for a sensible play in all formats, although in large-field GPPs his projected high ownership could make him a fade candidate.
For those looking to fade Johnson (and/or Stricker), Na is a very shrewd tournament play. His 68.9 LT Adj Rd Score is tied with Johnson for second-best and his 61.0 percent LT SC is tied for eighth. Na’s 14.4 LT Adj Bird Avg ranks fourth this week. While his course history isn’t nearly as robust as Johnson’s, he finished 13th in this event in 2014. More recently, he’s made six straight cuts and finished seventh at the U.S. Open.
Greens in Regulation: 75.7%, Boo Weekley
It’s actually the aforementioned Chris Smith who has the top Recent GIR percentage, but we’ve already discussed the stupidity dangers of choosing to roster him.
Weekley checks in with the second-best Recent GIR percentage this week at 75.7. But it’s not just Recent GIR where Boo pops — he’s also second in Recent DA at 72.3 percent, and his Recent Adj Rd Score ranks him an impressive 11th in the field.
However, on a track where putting performance has proven to be important, Weekley’s 30.4 Recent PPR is 10th-worst.
That said, players with similar Recent GIR, DA, and Adj Rd Scores have amassed a +4.77 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 57.4 percent Consistency.
Scrambling: 81.4%, Tyrone Van Aswegen
If you had never heard of Van Aswegen but watched the Travelers Championship last week, you know who he is now. Van Aswegen was in contention for a win the entire tournament until a final-round 71 dropped him to fifth place — his best finish on tour this season.
His 81.4 Recent SC percentage is off-the-charts good, but his 70.2 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks only 24th, and his 63.9 Recent GIR is squarely in the middle of the pack.
Van Aswegen’s 70.8 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for 16th, but he finished 55th here in 2015 and missed the cut in 2014. He’s nothing but a tournament dart this week.
Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament: 20.0, D.J. Trahan
An Adj Bird Avg of 20.0 is very large, even if the birdies were accumulated at the Barbasol and Barracuda Championships.
Trahan is assaulting greens recently, as evidenced by his 73.6 Recent GIR percentage, tied for fourth in the field, and his Recent Adj Rd Score of 70.6 ranks 28th.
However, his 72.3 LT Adj Rd Score is very concerning; it’s the 15th-worst score in the field.
Trahan has a long history at TPC Deere Run that includes four missed cuts in his last five attempts. His 72.8 Course Adj Rd Score is tied for eighth-worst among golfers with more than one start here.
There may be a sagacious reason to play Trahan this week . . . I just can’t think of one.
Odds To Win: 4.8%, Daniel Summerhays
Predictably, it’s Zach Johnson (14.3 percent) and Steve Stricker (7.7 percent) who have the best odds to win in the field.
The youngster, Jon Rahm, checks in third at 6.7 percent, then it’s Summerhays with the next-best odds to win this week.
Summerhays has excellent recent course history here: He finished fourth in 2013, 13th in 2014, and eighth last year. His 69.9 Course Adj Rd Score is seventh-best among golfers with more than one start here.
He also arrives at the event in excellent form, finishing third and 11th in his last two starts. Summerhays’ 68.9 Recent Adj Rd Score is fifth-best this week.
Players with comparable Course Adj Rd Scores, identical odds to win, and priced under $11,000 have produced a chunky +5.66 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with dependable 61.9 percent Consistency.
Bonus
Pro Trends: 8, Hudson Swafford
I think this is an all-time low for the highest Pro Trends in a Data Dive, but we take what we’re given.
Swafford’s most profitable Pro Trend is “Long-Term Driving Distance Score At Least 75,” historically worth +2.37 of Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Swafford also matches the “Averaging At Least 80 PPG Past Month” Pro Trend, good for a +1.81 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Swafford has made the cut in nine straight events and finished 35th here last year.
Players with similar salaries who have matched eight Pro Trends previously have had a -4.78 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
