FantasyLabs is a data company. With our free 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.
For this special Open Championship week, we are putting out three separate Data Dives, one for each salary tier. Today, we will focus on players priced $6,900 and lower (The Value Plays). Part 2 will focus on the golfers priced between $7,000 and $8,900. Part 3 on Wednesday will look at golfers priced $9,000 and higher.
Long-Term Metrics
DFS Golf hasn’t been around very long, but Darren Clarke in 2011, Ben Curtis in 2003, and Todd Hamilton in 2004 – right here at Royal Troon – are just a few of the surprising long-shot winners of The Open Championship that most likely would have been priced as value plays.
Adjusted Round Score: 69.0, Jon Rahm
Rahm’s 69.0 Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score) is not only the best in the value tier, but eighth-best in the entire field.
Rahm qualified for The Open Championship with a third-place finish at the Quicken Loans National, his first professional event, one week after being the only amateur to make the cut at the U.S. Open. Ironically, Rahm gave up his exemption into the Open as the world’s No. 1 amateur when he turned pro. It didn’t take him long to earn his spot back.
Rahm’s 28.4 Long-Term Putts Per Round (PPR) is tied for the fifth-best mark in the entire field. The extremely-rare player in this pricing tier with comparable LT Adj Rd Scores and LT PPR has historically produced a +8.50 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 66.7 percent Consistency.
Greens in Regulation: 74.3%, Rafael Cabrera-Bello
Cabrera-Bello is playing in his fifth Open; his previous best finish was T21 in 2013. Rafa’s 74.3 LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) percentage isn’t just the best mark in the value tier, it is tied with Henrik Stenson for the best mark in the entire field.
Rafa’s 30.9 LT PPR is tied for the second-worst mark in the field, however.
Cabrera-Bello finished T21 at the Scottish Open last week and fourth at the Open de France the week prior.
Scrambling: 66.0%, Steve Stricker
Stricker is playing in his 14th Open; his previous best finish was seventh in 2008. He has skipped this event and played a limited schedule to spend more time with his family in recent years, but qualified this year with a second-place finish at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. Stricker has 12 top-10 finishes in Majors.
His 66.0 percent LT Scrambling (SC) mark is not just the best in the value tier, it’s the best in the field. Stricker’s 28.1 LT PPR is tied for third-best in the field and his LT Adj Rd Score of 69.6 is tied for 14th-best overall.
Golfers with analogous LT metrics have historically generated a +2.77 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Birdies Per Tournament: 15.8, Zander Lombard
The 21-year-old Lombard is making his Open Championship debut at Royal Troon this week.
While his LT Birdie Average is massive, so is his LT Adj Rd Score of 73.2, tied with David Duval for the seventh-worst mark in the field. In fact, the majority of Lombard’s LT metrics (other than Birdie Average) are frightening.
That being said, his recent numbers have shown marked improvement: Lombard’s 70.8 Recent GIR percentage is tied for 11th-best in the entire field and his 61.9 percent Recent Scrambling is 13th-best.
Somewhat surprisingly, golfers with large LT Birdie averages and value prices have hurt owners with a historical -0.93 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Par 4 Adjusted Strokes Per Tournament: -0.9, Patton Kizzire
Kizzire’s -0.9 Par 4 score is the best in the value tier, but more importantly, only Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Henrik Stenson, and Dustin Johnson have better LT Par 4 scores in this field.
Kizzire’s 15.2 LT Birdie average is third-best in the value tier and tied for eighth-best in the field.
Value plays with similar marks for LT Par 4 and Birdie averages have historically manufactured a +1.70 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Kizzire is making his Open Championship debut at age 30.
Recent Metrics
Zach Johnson is the reigning Open Champion, winning last year at St. Andrews. Todd Hamilton defeated Ernie Els in a playoff the last time The Open Championship was played at Royal Troon. Phil Mickelson finished one shot back in third place that year.
Greens in Regulation: 75.7%, Ross Fisher
Fisher is playing in his ninth Open; his previous best finish was T13 in 2009. He has some impressive recent metrics coming into this week. Fisher’s 75.7 percent Recent GIR is not only best in the value tier, but second-best in the field. His 68.2 percent Recent Driving Accuracy (DA) and 68.9 Recent Adj Rd Score are ninth-best and 18th-best overall this week, respectively.
Fisher finished 39th at last week’s Scottish Open. He was briefly the final round leader at the Open Championship held at Turnberry in 2009. He has five European Tour victories under his belt.
Value plays with comparable recent metrics have historically delivered a +4.09 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 59.1 percent Consistency.
Driving Distance: 318.8, Jordan Niebrugge
Niebrugge is playing in his second Open Championship thanks to an incredible T6 finish at St. Andrews last year. The Arizona State student has played in only two pro events since then, finishing 40th in the Australian Open and missing the cut at the Quicken Loans National in June.
His 318.8 Recent Driving Distance is second in the field to only Dustin Johnson.
Niebrugge’s Recent DA is a laughable 32.1 percent, the worst in the field. To be fair, his 53.6 LT DA is significantly better. With that type of accuracy it’s a good thing he can scramble: His Recent SC mark of 61.5 percent is tied for 14th-best overall and his LT SC percentage of 65.4 is second-best in the field.
Driving Accuracy: 71.6%, Miguel Angel Jimenez
It’s actually Steve Stricker who has the best Recent DA mark in the value tier at 73.2 percent, but right behind him is Jimenez, whose 71.6 percent mark is good enough for third-best in the field.
Jimenez is playing in his 24th Open Championship at the age of 52; his previous best finish was T3 in 2001. He has missed the cut at the Open the past two years, but never finished worse than 27th in the five-year window from 2009 to 2013. In 2013, he was the 36-hole leader at Muirfield. Fourteen of Jimenez’s 21 European Tour victories have come since he turned 40.
The Old Fart’s Jimenez’s 28.3 Recent PPR is tied for 10th-best in this week’s field and his 59.4 percent Recent SC is 19th-best overall.
Value Plays with similar recent metrics have returned a -0.35 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Par 4 Adjusted Strokes Per Tournament: -1.5, Gary Woodland
It’s once again Stricker who holds the rights to the best score in the value tier, but Woodland’s -1.5 Par 4 Score is not just second to Stricker in this price range, but fourth-best overall.
Woodland is playing in his fifth Open Championship; his previous best finish was T30 in 2011. He has never missed a cut at the Open.
Woodland can scramble well, as evidenced by his 67.0 percent Recent SC mark, tied for fourth-best in the field. He comes into Royal Troon hitting the ball both far and straight: His 309.3 Recent DD is seventh-best in the field and his 65.5 percent Recent DA is 13th-best in the field.
Odds To Win: 1.2%, Alexander Noren
Bryan Mears has written a bunch about Vegas Bargain Rating and the stars-and-scrubs approach in DFS Golf roster construction.
Noren’s current 1.2 percent Odds to Win this week is the best mark among the value plays. He is playing in his sixth Open Championship and his previous best finish was T9 in 2012.
Noren’s 68.9 Recent Adj Rd Score is 18th-best in the field and his 66.0 percent Recent GIR mark is 27th overall.
Value plays with Odds to Win equivalent to Noren have traditionally yielded a delicious +6.95 historical Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 56.7 percent Consistency.
Noren is fresh off a win at the Scottish Open.
Note: Our Player Models update in real time to give subscribers the most accurate information available. Vegas Odds to Win for Alexander Noren and other players may change after this article is published.
Bonus
Because you can never have too much value.
Pro Trends: 11, Brendan Steele
Steele is playing in only his second Open Championship. He missed the cut in his only other appearance in 2014.
Steele’s current 11 Pro Trends are the most for the value plays, while his 69.4 LT Adj Rd Score is 12th-best in the entire field. He brings a rare combination of power off the tee and accuracy to the green. Steele is one of only seven players in the field with a LT DD of 300 or more yards coupled with a LT GIR percentage greater than 69.0.
Steele’s most profitable Pro Trend is “Long-Term Driving Distance Score At Least 75,” which has historically produced a Plus/Minus of +2.48 on DraftKings.
The five previous value plays with at least 10 Pro Trends have delivered a gigantic +16.45 historical Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 100 percent Consistency.
