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. Part 1 focuses on players $6,900 and lower (the “value plays”). Part 2 focuses on the golfers priced between $7,000 and $8,900. Part 3 will look at golfers priced $9,000 and higher.
Long-Term Metrics
Welcome to the Henrik Stenson show . . .
Adjusted Round Score: 67.8, Jason Day
Day won the PGA Championship last year with a then-record 20 under par score. (Henrik Stenson tied that mark at The Open Championship a couple of weeks ago.) Day finished T15 in 2014 and T8 in 2013. It’s safe to say that he has performed well in the recent history of this championship.
Day’s 67.8 Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) is the best in the field, his 63.8 LT Scrambling (SC) is third, and his 16.5 LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) is tied for third.
But it doesn’t stop there. His 28.3 LT Putts Per Round (PPR) is tied for fourth, his LT Driving Distance (DD) of 310.1 yards is fifth, and his LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) is 25th overall.
So is there anything he doesn’t do well? Yes . . .
Day’s 53.7 percent LT Driving Accuracy (DA) is the 12th-worst score in the field and his Recent DA is even scarier — 42.0 percent, the third-worst in the field. Moreover, his Recent GIR has dropped to 59.7 percent. These issues are very concerning.
Funnily enough, Day has frustrated owners in the majors this season, but he finished T10 at the Masters, T8 at the U.S. Open, and T22 at The Open Championship.
If the perceived disappointment is enough to repress his ownership this week, he has tournament-winning upside.
Greens in Regulation: 74.4, Henrik Stenson
Stenson’s 74.4 LT GIR percentage is top of the field, and unsurprisingly his LT DA of 70.9 percent is second-best overall.
His 68 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for second and his 16.5 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied with Day’s for third.
Since withdrawing from the U.S. Open, Stenson has been spitting hot fire with two wins and a 13th-place finish in three starts. His 65.5 Recent Adj Rd Score nearly broke the Adj Rd calculator.
He has made seven of nine cuts in PGA Championships with four top-10 finishes. He had back-to-back third-place finishes in 2013 and 2014, and finished T47 here at Baltursol back in 2005.
Rolling out Stenson in any format this week is a judicious decision.
Driving Accuracy: 62.4%, Rory McIlroy
Stenson actually leads the high-priced tier with a 70.9 percent LT DA, second-best in the field. Rory’s 62.4 percent is good enough for second in the high-priced tier, but it’s only 39th overall — a fact that further highlights how unique Stenson’s skill set is among the expensive golfers.
Rory’s 68.1 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for third, his 16.3 LT Adj Bird Avg is fourth, and his 70.2 LT GIR percentage is 10th overall.
High-priced golfers with similar LT metrics have a modest Plus/Minus on DraftKings, but more importantly they have met or exceeded salary-based expectations in 34 of 56 chances.
Rory enjoys the PGA Championship: He has made the cut in all seven of his appearances, won the championship twice (in 2012 and 2014), and finished third twice.
He has a win, a third-, a fourth- and a fifth-place finish sandwiched around a missed cut at the U.S. Open in his last five starts.
He will be one of highest-owned golfers in the Milly Maker, but he could win the tournament. He excels in DraftKings’ scoring system.
Scrambling: 64%, Jordan Spieth
Spieth leads the high-priced tier in LT SC and is second overall in the field, behind only Steve Stricker.
His 68 LT Adj Rd Score is tied with Stenson’s for second and his LT Adj Bird Avg of 16.8 is the best in the field.
Spieth finished second to Day at this event last year but failed to make the cut in his other two appearances.
He finished 30th at The Open Championship and 37th at the U.S. Open this year. And, of course . . . we all remember what happened at the Masters.
High-priced golfers with similar LT Adj Rd Scores have produced a +3.13 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 60.0 percent Consistency.
Adjusted Bogies Per Tournament: 7.5, Rickie Fowler
Fowler has the best LT Adjusted Bogey average among the high-priced golfers and is tied for second overall.
Fowler’s 68.9 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for seventh, his 60.8 LT SC is 16th, and his 66.9 LT GIR percentage is 29th overall.
Fowler has made five of six cuts at the PGA Championship, finishing T3 in 2014. He missed the cut at both this year’s Masters and U.S. Open but finished 46th at The Open Championship more recently.
His early-season form was extremely shaky, but he makes an excellent tournament play this week.
Recent Metrics
All three of this season’s major championship winners have been first-timers.
Adjusted Round Score: 66.4, Dustin Johnson
It’s actually Stenson who owns the best Recent Adj Rd Score in the field, thanks to the way he manhandled Royal Troon at The Open Championship.
Johnson sits comfortably in second place with a very impressive 66.4 Recent Adj Rd Score. You can argue that nobody on the planet has played better than Johnson since the calendar flipped to June.
Since that time DJ has not finished outside the top 10, with five top-five finishes and two wins in six starts.
In the three major championships this season, DJ has a win, a fourth-, and a ninth-place finish.
His 325.7-yard Recent DD leads the field by more than 10 yards. His 68.5 Recent SC percentage is third and his 68.8 percent Recent GIR ranks 19th. His Recent Adj Bird Avg of 15 is tied for ninth.
He’s a possible fade in the Milly Maker based solely on projected ownership, but he’s not a fade for the weak of heart. His form is unreal right now.
Greens in Regulation: 69.0%, Sergio Garcia
Yes, Stenson leads this metric too, with a ridiculous 81.3 percent Recent GIR. See how many points CSURAM88 assigns to Recent GIR in his PGA Championship Model.
Up next in the high-priced tier is Garcia at 69 percent. Sergio’s 66.9 Recent Adj Rd Score is third and his Recent Adj Bird Avg is fifth overall.
High-priced golfers with comparable Recent Adj Rd Scores have provided a +2.60 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 61 percent Consistency.
Garcia finished T23 at Baltusrol at the 1995 PGA Championship and has two second-place finishes in this event. He, however, has also missed seven of 17 cuts in this championship.
Sergio has one win and has also finished no worse than fifth in his last four starts, including fifth-place finishes at both The Open Championship and U.S. Open.
Driving Accuracy: 66.1%, Phil Mickelson
It’s f*cking Stenson again as the top golfer in this category, but, holy cow, that’s not a typo — Mickelson is second-best in the high-priced tier for Recent DA. In fact, Mickelson’s 66.1 Recent DA percentage is 12th in the entire field.
This isn’t your grandfather’s Mickelson. [Editor’s Note: That might be the greatest single sentence so far in the history of FantasyLabs.]
Phil won the PGA Championship here at Baltusrol in 2005. He has two runner-up finishes in this championship and nine top-10s in 23 events. He has made 22 of 23 cuts at the tournament.
Mickelson’s 67.5 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for seventh and his 63 percent Recent SC is 16th overall.
High-priced golfers with comparable Recent metrics have traditionally yielded a +1.60 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 61.3 percent Consistency.
Fantasy Month Points Per Game: 67.0, Bubba Watson
Henrik: 111 points per game. Moving on.
Stenson, Rory, DJ, Phil, Sergio, Spieth, and Day actually all have higher points-per-game averages this month, but we’ve highlighted all of them already. Yawn.
Bubba has a lot of recent metrics going for him: His 68.6 Adj Rd Score is tied for fourth, his 312.0-yard DD is second, his 15.4 Adj Bird Avg is tied for sixth, and his 69.2 percent GIR is seventh overall.
He has made six of nine cuts at the PGA Championship with a second-place finish in 2010.
Despite driving the ball way over the train tracks into the woods at The Open Championship (which is exactly what I would do every single time), he still managed to finish 39th.
He has made the cut at all three majors this season . . . but hasn’t finished above 37th.
Priced at only $9,000, he’s a cash consideration even though he’s a bit too wild on this type of track for my taste. He’s clearly a great tournament option.
Odds To Win: 3.2%, Justin Rose
There are seven golfers we’ve talked about above with better current Odds To Win, but at 3.2 percent the yet unmentioned Rose has the eighth-best Odds in the field.
Rose finished 22nd at The Open Championship two weeks ago, quelling some of the concerns about his injured back. He missed the cut at the U.S. Open but finished 10th at the Masters. Rose finished fourth in last year’s PGA Championship.
Rose’s 68.6 LT Adj Rd Score is fourth and his 70.3 LT GIR is ninth in the field.
Golfers with similar salaries and Odds to Win have historically generated a +1.32 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 55.2 percent Consistency.
Note: Our Player Models update in real time to give subscribers the most accurate information available. Vegas Odds to Win for Stenson, Rose, and other golfers may change after this article is published.
Bonus
Because it’s the last major for eight freaking months!
Pro Trends: 13, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson
Boom! Both Rory and DJ currently have a baker’s dozen Pro Trends.
Other than Vegas-Implied Odds to Win, Rory’s most profitable Pro Trend is “Long-Term Driving Distance Score At Least 75,” traditionally good for a +2.46 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
One of DJ’s most profitable Pro Trends is “Averaging At Least 80 PPG Past Month,” generally producing a +1.90 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Golfers with similar salaries, odds to win, and more than 10 Pro Trends have provided a +13.71 Plus/Minus on DraftKings, exceeding or meeting salary-based expectations six of nine times.
