The Shell Houston Open is an interesting field, as some players decide to sit this one out in preparation for Augusta National. This year, we still have an impressive field of golfers to choose from. There is some extra incentive for the players not already in The Masters’ field, as a win will punch their ticket to play at Augusta next week. The players will be teeing it up at The Golf Club of Houston, which is a par 72 course that falls just shy of 7,500 yards. J.B Holmes overpowered this course last year by out-driving the field and leaving himself with less than 50 yards in on several holes. Driving Distance is an important thing to focus on this week and, although Holmes was able to win in spite of not being able to hit many fairways, I still think driving accuracy is more important than it seems. If a player can contain his misses then he should be okay, but missing badly could result in some bogeys or worse, as at least nine holes bring water into play. Let’s get to it.
Course History
Here are the top-25 finishers from the previous five years at the Shell Houston Open:
Of these players, nine of them have finished in the top 25 at least three times in the past five years. Here are those players.
(Having Keegan Bradley showing this early in the article isn’t the strongest of starts, but we will keep it moving and pull it together.)
This method, or one similar, is a popular one for most people to look at when filling out their PGA lineups. I have often looked for players who show a positive course history but a poor recent form so that I can fade that player. If I can accurately predict a poor performance for a player who might be in a lot of lineups, I can gain an edge on those lineups.
On the other side, focusing on course history, at least as a starting point, could lead us to overlook players with either poor or no previous history. A good example of that would be Brooks Koepka – he has no recent course history but ranks in the top-10 for long-term driving distance and in the top 20 for Recent Adjusted Round Score. He is also priced within $500 of J.B Holmes and Charles Howell who could be popular players this week. He could serve as a nice leverage off of the other lineups focusing on course history if you felt that your lineup was following that path.
Statistical Bargain
If you are not familiar with the previous articles, I will rank each player by salary and also rank them by Recent Adjusted Round Score. This is a statistic that is unique to FantasyLabs and not directly factored into player’s salaries. For that reason, it can be one of several ways to show us where there is value, in this instance, and how it’s related to a player’s recent form.
We are going to do this a bit differently this week. I am going to break it into different groups based on salary and offer some notes based on how they rank in relation to Recent Adjusted Round Score. Also, we will make mention of where some of those players rank in driving distance as well as some other statistics that could serve them well this weekend.
$12,900 – $9,000
In this price range we will obviously find the best players in the field. Unlike last week, we have a fairly strong field, so we are also looking at some of the more talented players when looking at this price range. Because of that, you could pose a decent argument to play almost any of the 12 players above $9,000. However, if using Recent Adjusted Round Score as a margin of recent performance, there are a few players who grade well and a few who don’t.
Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Henrik Stenson, Phil Mickelson, Charl Schwartzel, and Louis Oosthuizen are all ranked in the top 10 when looking at Recent Adjusted Round Score. Also, they all have a long-term driving distance of at least 298.
On the other hand, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed, and J.B. Holmes all rank below the top 50 in Recent Adj. Round Score. All three players are also long off of the tee and could break out of any recent slump at any time, but if you were looking to avoid the high-priced guys who have been struggling of late, those are three good candidates.
Here is a little extra information on our boy Jordan Spieth. He mentioned that prior to his loss in match play this past weekend that he was slicing his irons on the range. He said he was attempting to correct it, but couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He ended up trying to compensate for the slice during the round but said that he eventually lost control, and I have not heard any reports on whether or not he has cured the slice. Those kinds of struggles do not fill me with confidence when considering him as a DFS play, but it is nice to hear about a PGA Tour pro going through the same struggles as the common man. He is an unbelievable player and could very well correct the swing at any time, but if he follows my pace on curing the slice, we can expect him to be back in form in roughly four years. Also, I don’t expect this information to drive his ownership down except maybe in the higher buy-ins where things like that are followed more closely.
$7,000 – $8,900
Here are the top-10 players in salary rank vs. recent adjusted round score rank for players between $7,000 and $8,900.
Of all the players listed above, Brendan Steele best fits the bomber category with a long-term driving distance of 301.4. He has one of the better long-term driving accuracy ratings on the slate to couple with his ability to bomb it off the tee. His 10 Pro Trends and solid recent form put him firmly in play for me this week.
Patton Kizzire has a great Recent Adjusted Round Score, but his recent driving distance has dropped from 298.5 to 279.9. He has also seen his greens in regulation drop from 69.6% to 59.7%. I think some regression could be expected. I will be considering him this week and strongly doubt that I will have as much ownership as the field.
$5,000 – $6,900
Here are the top-10 players in salary rank vs recent adjusted round score rank for players between $5,000 and $6,900.
The big name here for me is Fito Cazaubon (listed on DraftKings as Rodolfo Cazaubon.) The funny thing about him is that he stood out immediately to me earlier in the week after I finished using the Pro Models to build a model for this tournament. The top six players in my model go as follows:
- Rickie Fowler
- Fito Cazaubon
- Dustin Johnson
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Phil Mickelson
- Henrik Stenson
I was shocked to not only see him so high, but surrounded by the likeness of the other five players listed. This is mainly due to his recent form being off the charts. He has eight Pro Trends and each one of them is centered on recent play. His recent driving distance is up to 297 from his long-term driving distance of only 284. He also has a recent form driving accuracy of 75% compared to his long-term number of 59.5%. In addition, he is ranked third in recent scrambling % and tied for third in recent G.I.R.
I do have some expectation that his numbers come back down towards his long-term form, but he is only 26 years old and could be coming into his game. Either way, at $5,200 he will get some punt action from me this weekend. I also threw him a follow on Twitter. No follow back quite yet, but I’ll keep you updated.
I am going to leave you with a short clip of Adam Scott winning this tournament in 2007. It takes a few seconds to get into a meaningful shot, but there are some A+ fist pumps from Adam in this clip. It is all about the fist pumps in the PGA YouTube game.
Good luck this weekend!
