Charlie Hoffman on the ninth hole during the second round of the Transitions golf tournament Friday, March 16, 2012, in Palm Harbor, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
DFSR is proud to bring you, Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly PGA picks, analysis, and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings. As every week in DFS PGA changes with the course setup, field of players and weather, Chris will be providing a range of different picks for cash games as well as upside plays for tournaments. If you have any questions to lineup lock you can reach him a variety of ways. Leave your question/comment below in the comments section, find him in the DFSR Chat room or hit him up on Twitter(@Jager_Bombs9).
Chris is also currently providing his DFS PGA cheatsheet for FREE while it is still in BETA mode. You can also grab a copy of the Salary/DK Points/Ownership Trends Sheet HERE.
With the OPEN Championship behind us, the PGA Tour moves onto Canadian Soil for the RBC Canadian Open from Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario. Before jumping into my picks and breakdown, be sure to jump over to my blog and check out my Early Thoughts article.
Glen Abbey Golf Club is a standard Par 72 setup with four Par 3's, four Par 5's and 11 Par 4 holes. It has narrow fairways and some challenging doglegs that will force players to have to get the ball in the right position to have a shot at the green. The first cut of rough is very manageable so we will likely see guys ripping it as far as they can to get wedges into their hands to attempt to hit the smallish greens. I was originally going to weight Strokes Gained Off the Tee with emphasis on Driving Accuracy but will now be looking more in the direction of Good Drive % to go with SG: OTT. With the greens being smaller than average, I will also be weighing Strokes Gained Around the Green and Scrambling. The last two stats that I will be leaning heavily on this week are Par 5 Scoring and Birdie or Better %. All four Par 5 holes should be reachable in two by the entire field as they all range between 524 and 558 yards on the scorecard. At least 50% of a players score will come from these holes. Don't believe me? Head over to FantasyNational.com and search RBC Canadian Open at the top and then sort by Par 5 for the years the tournament was held here. In 2016, 18 of the 22 players finishing Top 20 gained strokes on Par 5's and in 2015, 20 of the 21 players inside the Top 20 gained strokes on the Par 5's.
Glen Abbey Golf Club - Oakville, ON
Par 72 - 7,253 Yards
Greens - Bentgrass
Past Winners at Glen Abbey
My Key Stats(no particular order):
Matt Kuchar
World Golf Ranking (#12)
Vegas Odds (10/1)
Draftkings ($11,400)
FanDuel ($10,100)
Course history, stats, current form. Kuchar has it all this week and ranks #1 in my overall model. There is some risk of fatigue after a final round battle with Spieth at Royal Birkdale last week but who really knows? Jason Day lost the OPEN two years ago and then showed up at Glen Abbey and won the tournament. The price may be a little too high for the risk in cash games but even with high ownership, he will be very tough to fade here with his history. He has made five straight cuts at the Canadian Open including a T9, T7, and T2 in his last three trips to Glen Abbey. He also leads the field in form when looking at the sheet and ranks 9th in SG: ATG and 23rd in SG: OTT.
Rickie Barnes
World Golf Ranking (#265)
Vegas Odds (75/1)
Draftkings ($7,400)
FanDuel ($5,600)
I wanted to go the value route with my second CH pick. Enter Ricky Barnes who appears to enjoy his trips to Canada lately with a T11 and T5 in his last two trips to Glen Abbey. Looking at those two years specifically, he ranks 15th in DK points, 9th in SG: APP, 3rd in SG: ATG and 16th in putting(courtesy of FNGC). He is coming off a season-best T15 at the Barbasol Championship where he hit 41/56 fairways(73%) along with 58/72 greens(80.6%). He is definitely a GPP only play as he has missed 12 cuts this season but has some upside at a possible lower ownership(just five tags on FanShareSports on Tuesday afternoon).
Strongly Consider: Jim Furyk, Alex Cejka
Charley Hoffman
World Golf Ranking (#38)
Vegas Odds (25/1)
Draftkings ($10,300)
FanDuel ($9,000)
When it comes to form in this field, no one has been better than Kooooch but I have him listed under the Course History section as he has been dominant here. Right behind him, there are a group of players ranked very close in my current form model and I lead with Charley Hoffman. He started out the season on a bad note as he missed three straight cuts but six of his seven missed cuts on the season came before April. Since his last cut(RBC Heritage), Hoffman has made nine straight including Top 10 finishes at the Travelers and US Open. Looking at the FantasyNational tools and breaking down the last 24 rounds at Glen Abbey, Hoffman ranks 4th in DK points, 5th in SG: OTT, 8th in SG: ATG, and 1st in SG: Putting. In the upper tier of DK pricing this week, he makes a nice pivot off DJ and Kuchar who are most likely more popular.
Chad Campbell
World Golf Ranking (#161)
Vegas Odds (50/1)
Draftkings ($7,500)
FanDuel ($6,800)
Looking at some value for the form section, Chad Campbell is the first name that pops up. He is a four-time PGA Tour winner that hasn't won since the 2007 Viking Classic but is playing some of his best golf of this season right now. Since missing the cut at the PLAYERS, Campbell has made the weekend in five of his last six tournaments with four Top 25 finishes. He also ranks 13th on my sheet in average DK points over his last five tournaments. He comes cheap and is a great play in all formats.
Strongly Consider: Patrick Cantlay, Chez Reavie
Luke List
World Golf Ranking (#151)
Vegas Odds (200/1)
Draftkings ($7,600)
FanDuel ($6,000)
If you are looking for a safe stats pick to target, take a look at Tony Finau and Dustin Johnson who lead the way in the category this week. Safe is never a word you will hear in a sentence with Luke List. He has missed 10 cuts in 25 events but always seems to show up in these weaker-field, high-scoring environments. He started the season off red hot with two top 10's and five Top 25's in his first six tournaments but has been struggling lately missing seven of his last 10 cuts. Another filter I have been using this week on FNGC is last 12 rounds on easy scoring/bentgrass greens and List ranks 6th in DK points, 2nd in SG: OTT, 29th in SG: ARG and 5th in SG: Putting(I was also shocked reading that stat).
Seamus Power
World Golf Ranking (#319)
Vegas Odds (125/1)
Draftkings ($6,800)
FanDuel ($6,400)
He ranks 21st in my weighted stats but fourth among those priced under $7K on DraftKings. What stands out the most is his 3rd rank in Par 5 Scoring and 4th rank in Par 5 BoB%. He also ranks 12th in Bogey Avoidance thanks to his awesome scrambling and around the green game(20th on sheet in SG: ATG, 10th in Scrambling). The 30-year-old rookie has been somewhat overlooked this season with zero Top 10 finishes while 21 other rookies have at least one and five rookies have already won. He comes in with some decent form as well with four straight cuts made including his first Top 20 of the season. A Top 10 and possibly a win are in his near future.
Adam Hadwin
World Golf Ranking (#55)
Vegas Odds (90/1)
Draftkings ($7,400)
FanDuel ($8,000)
The Canadians aren't being mentioned a whole lot this week(none with more than 6 tags on FanShare as of Tues am) and it probably has to do with their lack of success on their home turf. Other than De Toit's T9 in his first trip it is Adam Hadwin who has had maybe the most success in the Canadian Open, especially here at Glen Abbey with a T49 last year and T7 the year before. He is going to be mostly over looked due to his poor form, missing back to back cuts, and that makes him a high upside GPP target.
Strongly Consider: David Hearn
**Weather Update**
Chris Durell has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for three years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is active player in college football, NFL, NBA and of course PGA. He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada with his wife and two daughters. You can follow him on Twitter at @jager_bombs9 for advice, strategy, answers to any PGA questions and how he copes with the winters up north.
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