Welcome back to The PGA Process. The Wells Fargo Championship was a bit of an odd tournament. If nothing else, the event highlighted the variability of the Tour. In a star-studded field, the tournament outcome came down to a playoff between a golfer who entered the event with eight straight missed cuts during the 2016 season (James Hahn) and the No. 282 golfer in the world, Roberto Castro.
Before we move to The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, it’s time to review our process for the week that was.
The PGA Process is intended to review decision-making so that we may improve weekly. Some weeks we will be up and others we will be down, but the main intention is to learn from our success and failures.
(Lineup Percentile: 89th)What Went Wrong at the Wells Fargo Championship
Going into the week I really liked Emiliano Grillo ($7,700) as a contrarian play to Bryson DeChambeau ($7,800) and Webb Simpson ($7,900), both of whom I expected to be rostered in a high percentage of lineups. DeChambeau came in under expectations at only 12.4 percent on DraftKings, but nabbing Grillo at five percent ownership was essentially what I had in mind.
The play worked in terms of pivoting off of golfers with higher ownership percentages, but Grillo’s lack of length off of the tee (290 yards on average) was the only thing that I didn’t feel great about coming into Quail Hollow. Grillo ended up hitting the ball only 275 yards on average this past week (below the Tour average of 280), severely hampering his scoring chances on a course that rewards distance off the tee. Grillo came into the tournament seventh in Recent Adjusted Strokes per Round (67.9) and fourth in Long-Term Greens in Regulation (71.4 percent), but I knew that Driving Distance was especially important this week. While he was a worthy play, I should have put more weight on Grillo’s lack of power.
What Went Right at the Wells Fargo Championship
After being the highest-rostered golfer (29 percent) at the Zurich Classic the week prior and missing the cut, Justin Rose was a perfect recency bias play at the top end of the salary range for the Wells Fargo Championship. Rose didn’t play poorly at the Zurich. He just shot a pair of 72s in the opening two rounds to miss the cut by two strokes. It’s always a positive expected-value move to roster an elite golfer at nearly half the usual ownership one week after a “poor” outing.
I didn’t expect Hideki Matsuyama to be chalk, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was egregiously mispriced for a course like Quail Hollow. I wrote about his Upside in my weekly Recent Form article and gushed over his mouth-watering price in our Plays of the Week piece. After an opening-round 74, Matsuyama played the final three rounds at a combined six shots under par for the tournament.
A Quick Look Ahead to The Players Championship
Playing a shade over 7,200 yards, TPC Sawgrass is a Less-than-Driver course that features water on nearly every hole. It’s a strenuous challenge that tests golfers with extremely small landing zones and quick greens.
Unlike the Wells Fargo Championship, The Players will definitely not encourage us to look for “Bombers”:
Instead, it looks like we’ll want to put extra importance on hitting Greens in Regulation at TPC Sawgrass:
As always, check back later this week for all of The Players Championship prep you need!
You can read past PGA Process articles here: The Zurich Classic, The Masters and The Shell Houston Open.
