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 US Open week, we have put out three separate Data Dives, one for each salary tier.
Part 1: $6,900 and lower (the “value plays”)
Part 2: $7,000 to $8,900
Part 3: $9,000 and higher
Normally, the Majors are fun because you have a lot of options with which you can construct super-teams. You could roster just about anyone this week — but you should probably be sure to roster one golfer in particular.
Go ahead, guess who it is. Yes, you guessed correctly.
Let’s get into the numbers.
Long-Term
Adjusted Round Score: Jason Day, 67.9
It’s not exactly a surprise to see the odds-on favorite have the highest Long-Term Adjusted Round Score, but it’s exactly what separates him from the rest of the Big Three. Since August of last year, he has won a full third of all the tournaments he has entered, and with massive margins of victory. He’s tough to fade this week, especially if you believe top players gear themselves around majors.
Greens in Regulation: Henrik Stenson, 74.1%
Stenson’s always a player who has lived and died by shot-making and accuracy, so his Long-Term Greens in Regulation dominance is no surprise either. Even in his awful round at Sawgrass this year, he still put up a 69-percent GIR, so there’s not a lot of reason to suspect that his downswing will affect this stat. And it’s a compelling one this week, if you’ve seen the practice videos of the Oakmont rough.
Driving Distance: Dustin Johnson, 313.6 yds
With the best Long-Term Driving Distance in the field, Johnson is the rare top player who doesn’t have recent results priced in: Last week’s T5 at St. Jude, where DJ was in typical bomber form, as he always seems to be. This week, there may be a secret rain angle that gives driving distance a boost. If the rain forecast holds up, going the bomber route could pay hidden dividends.
Scrambling: Jason Day, 64.4%
Scrambling generally is one of the weaker predictors of long-term score, but Day’s iron play is so phenomenal that he just has so much less danger off the fairway than his peers have. There’s two approaches to roster construction with Oakmont’s rough this week: Pick people who won’t hit it, or pick people who will be okay when they do. Given the wind forecast, I’m going with the latter.
Consistency: Dustin Johnson, 94%
His distance gives him a high floor for racking up birdies. It’s an open question as to how much that will matter this week, though. Still, his incredible Consistency is hard to ignore.
Consistency and other premium exclusive metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.
Recent
Adjusted Round Score: Jason Day, 66.5
The degree to which he dominated Sawgrass can’t be overstated.
Greens in Regulation: Justin Rose, 74.3%
Rose has hit the sweet spot between distance and accuracy lately, which naturally parlays into a good GIR. The only blemish on his recent results is a missed cut at New Orleans, which can probably be discounted on account of the awful weather there.
Driving Distance: Jason Day, 311.7 yds
As if excellent iron play weren’t enough, Day hasn’t averaged fewer than 310 yards off the tee since Heritage in April. Seriously running out of nice things to say about him.
Scrambling: Jason Day, 67.5%
Even after all his accolades here, this may be the most eye-popping stat, since his closest competitor, Jordan Spieth, clocks in at 62.9 percent. Whatever you think of Spieth’s excellent play around the greens, Day still rates out better.
Birdies: Jason Day, 22.5
Yeah, I’m all out of words at this point.
