Let’s first get the most important piece of information regarding Olympic Golf out of the way: Emiliano Grillo has found his golf clubs.
I am never letting you go again… Until next flight… ?
Nunca más te dejo ir…
Hasta el próximo vuelo… ? pic.twitter.com/neeXxiHzo4— Emiliano Grillo (@GrilloEmiliano) August 9, 2016
What You Need To Know
Perhaps like Matt Kuchar, you may have thought Olympic Golf was a team event . . . maybe a little Ryder Cup-ish perhaps? Turns out that it’s not. It’s just a regular, run-of-the-mill, 72-hole stroke play event — like the PGA Tour plays every weekend, except it has no cut.
The Olympic golf course, built specifically for this event and designed by Gil Hanse, will host the first Olympic golf tournament in 112 years.
For great information on the course, I suggest checking out this article on PGATour.com. In it, Hanse, who also designed Castle Stuart, host of the recent Scottish Open, says, “this style of design has worked at Castle Stuart and has been a great model for us on the Olympic course.”
It sounds like an exciting finish could be in store, as the final three holes set up for an eagle-birdie-eagle finish: The 16th is a driveable Par 4, the 17th is a short Par 3, and the 18th is the shortest of the four Par 5s on the course.
Long-Term Adjusted Round Scores
This is our best all-around metric for determining a golfer’s talent.
High-Priced Golfers ($9,000 and Higher)
The reigning Champion Golfer of the Year, Sweden’s Henrik Stenson checks in with the best Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) in the Olympic field with an impressive mark of 68.0.
Stenson also has the best LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) percentage at a ridiculous 74.6 and LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) at 16.4. He ranks second in LT Driving Accuracy (DA) at 70.9 percent.
He’s in rare form currently, claiming two wins to go along with a seventh- and 13th-place finish in his last four starts. His 66.0 Recent Adj Rd Score leads the field, as does his 79.2 percent Recent GIR.
As an added bonus, Stenson has played extremely well at Castle Stuart, with an eighth-place finish in 2012, third-place in 2013, and 13th this July.
Playing him would not be stupid.
Mid-Priced Golfers ($8,900 – $7,000)
South Korea’s Byeong Hun An is no stranger to the Olympics; both of his parents medaled in table tennis at the 1988 Olympics.
Both An and New Zealand’s Danny Lee share identical 69.6 LT Adj Rd Scores, top marks in the mid-priced tier.
An’s 299.9 LT Driving Distance (DD) is 10th overall and his 68.5 percent LT GIR ranks 16th. His 13.4 LT Adj Bird Avg is 12th.
Lee’s 59.1 LT Scrambling (SC) percentage is eighth in the field and his 65.6 LT Driving Accuracy (DA) is 13th. His 13.5 Adj Bird Avg is just a tick better than An’s, ranking 11th. Lee finished third at Castle Stuart in July.
Golfers in this pricing tier with comparable LT Adj Rd Scores and LT Adj Bird Avg have traditionally accumulated a +1.54 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 55.4 percent Consistency.
Value Plays ($6,900 and Lower)
Germany’s Alex Cejka checks in with a 70.2 LT Adj Rd Score, best among the value plays and tied for 14th overall.
Cejka’s 65.3 LT DA is tied for 15th overall, but his 66.7 LT GIR, while not terrible, ranks in the lower third of this small field.
A concern for Cejka in this no-cut event is his lack of birdie-making: His 11.9 LT Adj Bird Avg is the 15th-worst score in the field.
Portugal’s Ricardo Gouveia has an impressive 68.9 Recent Adj Rd Score, best among the value plays and tied for eighth overall. He has made five straight cuts on the European Tour, with two top-20 finishes in that time.
More intriguing are Gouveia’s LT GIR percentage of 70.3 (11th overall) and LT Adj Bird Avg of 15.0 per tournament (fourth overall). I like him as a potentially scarcely-owned tournament play.
Greens in Regulation
With little wind in the forecast, scores could get really low. Finding the greens in regulation will be crucial.
High-Priced Golfers ($9,000 and Higher)
Other than Stenson, it’s Spain’s Rafa Cabrera-Bello leading the high-priced golfers in LT GIR at 74.1 percent.
Cabrera-Bello is in great form: His 68.3 Recent Adj Rd Score and slightly-improved 74.3 Recent GIR percentage are both fourth in the field this week.
Germany’s Martin Kaymer is another high-priced option who deserves serious consideration. He has been relentless lately, hitting 72.2 percent of Recent GIR, third behind Rafa and Stenson in the high-priced tier.
Kaymer’s LT Adj Rd Score is tied with Cabrera-Bello for 10th overall, and his 67.8 Recent Adj Rd Score is second behind only Stenson. He’s been scoring well, posting an impressive 14.0 Recent Adj Bird Avg per tournament.
Kaymer finished 13th at Castle Stuart in July and 29th there in 2012. He makes a great play in all formats this week.
Mid-Priced Golfers ($8,900 – $7,000)
The Netherlands’ Joost Luiten brings a 71.5 percent LT GIR with him to Rio, a mark that ranks seventh of the 60 golfers in the field.
Luiten’s 13.5 Adj Bird Avg ranks 11th, while his 69.9 Recent Adj Rd Score is 17th. However, Luiten does have two missed cuts in his last three starts, including a missed cut at the Scottish Open, played at Castle Stuart.
Golfers in this pricing tier with comparable LT GIR percentages and Recent Adj Rd Scores have produced a +1.17 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 54.6 percent Consistency.
Chile’s Felipe Aguilar is third in the field with a Recent GIR percentage of 75.0. His 68.8 Recent DA percentage is ninth overall.
Despite Aguilar’s ability to find fairways and greens on a regular basis, he struggles to convert birdies. Both his LT and Recent Adj Bird Avg are in the bottom 15 of the field. That is more than likely due to his putting: His 32.0 Recent Putts Per Round (PPR) is the absolute worst mark in the field.
Value Plays ($6,900 and Lower)
Chinese Taipei’s Cheng Tsung Pan, who was discussed on the Daily Fantasy Flex Pod, has a 75.3 Recent GIR percentage, second to only Stenson.
Pan ranks 12th on the Web.com money list, where he hasn’t finished worse than 19th in his last six starts. His 69.0 Recent Adj Rd score is 10th overall and he sports a massive Recent Adj Bird Avg of 21.0 per tournament. The 21.0 average has been accumulated over five tournaments, making it even more impressive.
If you’re looking for the home-country-advantage narrative, look no further than Brazil’s lone representative, Adilson da Silva, whose 74.1 percent LT GIR is tied for second overall.
The Brazilian also maintains the best LT DA score at 79.2 percent — so we know he can hit the ball straight and find greens with regularity. But apparently he’s incapable of turning his accuracy into low scores, as evidenced by his 71.9 LT Adj Rd Score, the seventh-worst score in the field.
Adilson da Silva spends the majority of his time on the Sunshine Tour, where he has won 12 times and has three top-five finishes in his last five starts.
Scrambling
Thought of as typically a hard-course metric, if this event turns into a shoot-out, the ability to scramble will be key to keep pace.
High-Priced Golfers ($9,000 and Higher)
The United States’ Patrick Reed has the second-best LT Scrambling (SC) score in the field at 61.1 percent.
His 69.0 LT Adj Rd Score and LT Adj Bird Avg of 14.5 both rank sixth. Reed’s 28.4 LT PPR is second overall and his 68.5 Recent Adj Rd Score is fifth.
He hasn’t finished worse than 13th in his last four starts, which includes two Major championships. Reed enjoys links-style golf: He finished 12th at The Open Championship and 10th at Castle Stuart.
I think fading the Americans could be an interesting strategy in tournaments, but Reed is a player I find very intriguing this week.
Mid-Priced Golfers ($8,900 – $7,000)
Canada’s David Hearn has the best Recent SC score in the entire field at 75.4 percent.
For those unafraid of the mark of the beast, Hearn’s 66.6 percent LT DA ranks 10th overall to go along with his 28.4 Recent PPR, tied for sixth in the field.
Hearn’s 11.6 LT Adj Bird Avg is the 12th-worst average in the field, which gives me pause in a no-cut event in which scores could get very low.
Value Plays ($6,900 and Lower)
Bangladesh’s Siddikur Rahman has the best LT SC mark in the field at 62.4 percent. His 27.9 LT PPR is also best in the field and his 70.3 LT DA percentage is fourth.
Before turning the man from Bangladesh loose, however, know that his 72.4 LT Adj Rd Score is the fifth-worst score in the field and his 56.4 percent LT GIR is the absolute worst.
Although he is cheap, other players priced below $6,000 with comparable LT Adj Rd Scores and LT GIR percentages have made previous owners ill with a -19.19 Plus/Minus. Only six of the 51 golfers in the sample met or exceeded their salary-based expectations.
