Useful Tidbits and Miscellaneous Ramblings: PGA Championship
Greetings, everyone! It’s quickly back to action with a major golf event, as we have the PGA Championship this week. It begins just eleven days after the conclusion of The Open Championship, a scheduling quirk thanks to the upcoming Olympic games in Rio. The guys at RotoGrinders asked if I would be willing to do this article series again for this event, and I happily obliged. Perhaps writing this article is my good luck charm, after I had my best ever PGA week during The Open. We’re about to find out!
This article is intended to be a random mishmash of thoughts that might help you as you set your lineups on DraftKings, especially if you are playing in the Millionaire Maker GPP. These tidbits will go from general to specific as the article goes on.
Some of them will be pointless. Some of them might be silly. The hope is that at least one of them can help you out as you set your lineups. Let’s dig in!
Editor’s Note: Our next designated DraftKings King of Summer contest will be the $600,000 PGA Birdie. The event has just a $3 buy-in and also will wrap up our King of July leaderboard!
21 USEFUL NUGGETS FOR THE PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
1) The event is being held at the Lower Course at Baltusrol Country Club in Springfield, New Jersey. The course is a hefty par 70 that measures 7,428 yards from the tips.
2) This club has hosted seven U.S. Opens and one PGA Championship. It is a very difficult course (as it must be in order to host a U.S. Open seven times), and the winning score in the 2005 PGA Championship was just four under par.
3) Seven of the twelve par fours on this course measure 450+ yards in length, and two of them are over 500 yards. Those two holes (#3 and #7) were the two most difficult holes on the course during the 2005 PGA Championship.
4) Phil Mickelson won the 2005 event by one stroke over Steve Elkington and Thomas Bjorn with a birdie on his last hole. The event was extended into Monday because of rain. Tiger Woods finished two shots back.
5) There are only two par fives on this course, and they are the last two holes on the course. If you start on the front nine, you don’t see a par five until #17…
6) … And #17 measures 650 yards on the scorecard. It’s becoming pretty easy to see why this course plays tough.
7) The par five 18th hole is the only hole that is guaranteed to play under par for the week. It was easily the most lenient hole in 2005, measuring around a half stroke under par, yielding 13 eagles and 158 birdies compared to just 14 bogeys and two double bogeys for players who made the cut.
8) The front nine is the harder side on this course. It averaged 1.35 strokes over par in 2005 for the players who made the cut, while the back nine averaged 0.03 strokes under par. This makes sense, since the two hardest holes are on the front side, and the easiest hole is on the back side.
9) Distance will help on the long par fours and the two par fives, which will lead many fantasy players to emphasize distance this week.
10) Distance will not help if you can’t keep the ball in the fairways. Many of them are tree-lined, there is out of bounds everywhere, and there are plenty of bunkers that can come into play. I’m actually leaning toward accuracy over distance this week.
11) The greens are tricky, too. Several of them have “layers” or “tiers” which can make putting very difficult if you end up on the wrong side of the green. Have I mentioned that this is a challenging golf course? Don’t expect a birdie fest this week.
12) Don’t over-react to the weather. After what happened at The Open Championship, many daily players will become hyper-sensitive to the weather forecast. Golf in New Jersey is not like golf in Scotland.
13) Speaking of the weather, the current forecast calls for 7-8 MPH winds for all four days of the tournament. Obviously, this could change, but as of now it looks like the conditions will be relatively benign. That might help the scoring just a little bit.
14) Don’t over-value the data from course history in 2005. A lot of the current golfers weren’t even playing then, and we have to be careful not to over-analyze a one-time sample size.
15) You shouldn’t have too much trouble creating a roster you like this week, as the pricing is soft as usual for another major. Don’t be afraid to leave some money on the table to differentiate your GPP lineups!
16) In a GPP, it often pays to fade a highly owned golfer, because anything can happen in this game. Matt Kuchar was 41% owned for The Open Championship, and he wasn’t to be found on any GPP-winning lineups after a massive Sunday fade. Candidates for that spot this week include Phil Mickelson (because of his performance at The Open and his victory here in 2005) and Matt Kuchar once again (he rebounded with another solid performance at the RBC Canadian Open).
17) The DraftKings algorithm has a vendetta against Andy Sullivan. He has six straight top 25’s worldwide (including T-23 and T-12 in the last two majors), and that has netted him a price tag of $6,100. He is the most criminally under-priced player in the whole field. This guy is a much better golfer than this.
18) Seriously, Andy Sullivan is $500 cheaper than John Daly.
19) Recent form trumps most factors for me this week. Finding that low-owned dark horse that might be finding his groove is paramount. For The Open Championship, that was Phil Mickelson. For the PGA Championship, it just might be Brandt Snedeker. He has quietly put up three straight top 25 finishes, including a fifth place finish in Canada a week ago.
20) A stars-and-scrubs approach might work best this week. The fantasy scoring will be relatively low on a difficult course, putting more weight on the finishing position bonus on DraftKings. Perhaps it will be worth it to pay up for two stud golfers. Dustin Johnson will be the chalk here with his recent form, but I really like Rory McIlroy on this course. He is my pick to win the tournament.
21) To close out with lucky #21, here are a few guys I like for this event:
High-End Picks – Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Adam Scott
Mid-Range Picks – Charl Schwartzel, Matt Kuchar, Patrick Reed, Jim Furyk
Cheap Picks – Andy Sullivan, Emiliano Grillo, Kevin Na, Gary Woodland
Good luck! Go out there and win yourself some cash during the final major of the year!