Welcome back to the PGA Recent Form Report.
This article is intended to highlight golfers on the PGA Tour who are in excellent Recent Form. Since recent performance is such a substantial part of the DFS golf equation, we’ll be highlighting golfers using some of the dynamic statistics and tools we have to offer.
Let’s get to the data.
Hideki Matsuyama Headlines the High-Priced Tier
I’d be remiss not to play/mention Hideki Matsuyama when he is in the field.
Matsuyama’s recent form this year has been inconceivable. [Editor’s Note: Word.] He is third in the Memorial field in Recent Adjusted Round Score (behind only Jason Day and Rory McIlory) and has six finishes of T15 or better in nine tournament events this season. That’s a scorched-earth pace.
Matsuyama’s 82nd-percentile Recent Greens in Regulation lines up perfectly with what we’re aiming for this week and as our Jon Cabezas mentioned, “Matsuyama’s eight competitive rounds (at Memorial) have all been under par.”
Course history is a bit of a contentious topic among the Golf DFS community, but we shouldn’t ignore consistent top results at a specific course. Matsuyama’s Adjusted Course Round Score is in the 96th percentile this week at Muirfield. The trend below provides a bit of context for that number:
The trend screens the percentile (in this case, 95th and above) of Adjusted Course Round Score for top-priced golfers. Adjusted Course Round Score is not perfect by any means, but it is a decent proxy and the trend’s high Plus/Minus gestures toward Matsuyama’s Upside.
(Plus/Minus, Upside, and other premium exclusive metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.)
Daniel Berger And Adjusting For Form In Pricing Tiers
In the Memorial field, seven golfers have Recent Adjusted Round Scores of 68 or below. Of those seven golfers, the usual elite golfers are in place. Six of the seven are priced over $9,800 on DraftKings this week.
Except for one: Daniel Berger.
Since missing back-to-back cuts in February, Berger is on an NBA Jam-level hot streak, rattling off six straight top-20 finishes, four of which were T11 or better.
To put Berger’s ascension — and value for this week — into context, I pulled a trend for golfers who A) are priced between $7,500 and $7,900 and B) have Recent Adjusted Round Scores no higher than 68.
Here is the trend with no salary filter (just golfers with Recent Adjusted Round Scores of 68 or lower):
And here is the trend to account for price (within Daniel Berger’s salary range for the Memorial):
The extremely small sample skews the Consistency, but it also shows how egregiously mispriced Berger is this week. Vegas odds can be very inefficient, but Daniel Berger and Phil Mickelson have the same odds of winning the Memorial (two percent), yet Berger comes at a $1,300 savings. Given how closely salaries are usually correlated with Vegas odds, there is enormous value with Berger this week.
Recent and Long-Term GIR Is Lethal At Muirfield
Our Bryan Mears has shown that all golfers, regardless of price, absolutely shred at Memorial. This means we have to go beyond typical “course fit” data for Muirfield.
Combining our traditional Long-Term stats with Recent data provides intriguing results this week. Here’s a simple trend combining 60th-percentile Recent GIR and Long-Term GIR at Muirfield:
And here is how this trend has fared in back-to-back seasons. Note the year-over-year correlation:
Finally, below is the same trend, just with Recent Form as the lone filter. Note that even though the Plus/Minus drops the Consistency stays above 70 percent:
If nothing else this week, take a deep look at GIR on both a Long-Term and Recent basis in your model.
