Jordan Spieth of the United States plays a shot on the 16th fairway during the second round of the SMBC Singapore Open golf tournament at Sentosa Golf Club's Serapong Course on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016, in Singapore. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
DFSR is proud to bring you, Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly PGA picks, analysis, and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings and FanDuel. 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 providing his DFS PGA Weekly cheatsheet and Season-Long Trends Sheet at absolutely no cost.
East Lake Golf Club - Atlanta, GA
Par 70 - 7,385 Yards
Greens - Bermuda
The long regular season will wrap up this week as the final 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings head to the Tour Championship for a chance at multiple trophies and a ton of cash. That's right, one golfer will walk away with the FedEx Cup Trophy and a cool $10,000,000 to add to his bank account. There are a ton of scenarios for the 30 golfers to win the FedEx Cup this week but if you are one of the Top 5 in the standings you need to do just one thing. Win! Each of the top 5 golfers controls their own destiny. Looking at recent trends, every golfer to win the Tour Championship has won the FedEx Cup in each of the last seven years. The last time a FedEx Cup winner didn't win the Tour Championship was Tiger Woods back in 2009 who saw Phil Mickelson win the final tournament. Speaking of Tiger and Phil, this has been circulating all week and it makes me laugh every time.
For fantasy, I looked closely at the previous winners going back to 2010 and Rory Mcilroy(2016), Billy Horschel(2014), and Henrik Stenson(2013) are the only golfers with multiple wins in the playoffs of their Championship seasons. While you would think that current form would be key to winning the year-end event, it hasn't always been as Jordan Spieth(2015), Bill Haas(2011), and Jim Furyk(2010) all won the Tour Championship without posting a Top 10 in the previous three playoff events. Spieth in 2015 even missed the cut in the first two events. With that said, I still think the momentum of playing well down the stretch is important and will weigh current form the same as normal.
This week we can get back to using course history a little more in our models as East Lake Golf Club has hosted the Tour Championship annually since 2004 and dates back to 1998. A note to consider when looking at course history this week is that East Lake flipped their front and back nines before last years event. Check it out here:
For the purposes of the cheatsheet, I will only be looking at the previous five years results but may reference some from previous seasons. Another very useful tool I have been using lately is the "Past Course Conditions" tab on Fantasy National Golf Club. If you haven't checked it out yet here is a preview and how I use it:
As you can see, last year we saw firm greens and difficult to hit fairways which gives a slight bump to Strokes Gained Off the Tee over Approach, especially considering the thick rough. Scoring Relative to par has been easy to average over the years with an average winning score of -10 which has me giving a bump to Birdie or Better %.
With a very small field, it is difficult to separate yourself in GPP's but there will be a few ways to help with this. Start by leaving more salary than normal on the table(approx $400-$800) and use FanShareSports Most Tagged List to find some pivots off the chalk plays in each salary tier. You can check out my top pivots, which I update at the bottom of this article, on Wednesday morning.
Let's jump right into the picks.
Dustin Johnson
World Golf Ranking (#1)
FedEx Cup Rank (3)
Vegas Odds (7.5/1)
Draftkings ($11,400)
FanDuel ($9,200)
The #1 player in the world has won a ton of tournaments and accomplished many things but still some work to do to get through that bucket list. He can knock a couple off his list this week with a win at the TOUR Championship which would also give him his first FedEx Cup Championship as he sits third in the standings. He has made the finale in seven straight years, not counting the 2014 season in which he was suspended, and has finished Top 10 in four straight. He enters this year's event with four wins on the season including The Northern Trust that kicked off the playoffs a few weeks back. He sits atop my overall model this week which has some to do with the course history but more to do with the stats as he ranks 1st in SG: OTT, 3rd in SG: APP, 3rd in SG: ATG, 5th in Par 4 Scoring, 8th in Bob%, and 3rd in Bogey Avoidance. DJ is my #1 pick to win the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Jordan Spieth
World Golf Ranking (#2)
FedEx Cup Rank (1)
Vegas Odds (5/1)
Draftkings ($11,600)
FanDuel ($9,300)
I really do think Sunday will come down to a battle of DJ and Spieth and I will have almost equal shares of both this week with some stars and scrubs lineups with them together. Spieth has won three times this season and comes in red hot with three straight Top 10 finishes including back to back runner-up's to start the Playoffs. While I highlighted Strokes Gained: Off the Tee as a key stat and he ranks 22 of 30 my cheatsheet, I stress the importance of looking at current stat trends with season-long trends. With Fantasy national Golf Club I filtered out the last 12 rounds overall and here is how Spieth ranks:
Not all worried and like I said, will have equal shares of him and DJ to win this thing or at least rack up a ton of fantasy points.
Paul Casey
World Golf Ranking (#16)
FedEx Cup Rank (10th)
Vegas Odds (18/1)
Draftkings ($8,600)
FanDuel ($8,000)
While I don't think Casey will win this week, I think he makes a great value, especially for cash games. Even with a 33rd place finish last week he gained positive strokes from both the tee and approach which was his fifth straight tournament doing so. The issue last week was that he lost 2.5 strokes around the green but that doesn't concern me a whole lot seeing as he ranks 2nd overall on my sheet in Strokes Gained: Around the Green. The other thing that stood out to me was that over the last eight rounds(two years) here at East Lake, Casey has some top ranks across the board including 2nd in DraftKings points.
Patrick Reed
World Golf Ranking (#20)
FedEx Cup Rank (23rd)
Vegas Odds (33/1)
Draftkings ($7,500)
FanDuel ($6,900)
This one is more of a GPP play as early in the week he is being talked about considerably less than others in his price range like Chappell who picked up a T2 here last year or Tony Finau who has the distance and is coming off an amazing putting performance last Sunday. Reed has been mentioned just once on FanShare on Tuesday afternoon and it makes sense as he is coming off a 65th at the BMW Championship but has the game to pop anytime. He is elite with the putter and around the green so like always it will come down to him finding the fairway to give himself a shot at more greens and fantasy points. The risk is worth it for me if he is under 10% owned in a 30 player field this week.
Gary Woodland
World Golf Ranking (#43)
FedEx Cup Rank (28)
Vegas Odds (66/1)
Draftkings ($6,400)
FanDuel ($5,800)
Woodland stands out this week for more than just his season-low price. He has finished Top 10 here at East Lake in his last two trips(2016 and 2014) and from a statistical standpoint, ranks #10 on my sheet in SG: OTT + APP. He hasn't picked up a Top 10 since the RBC Canadian Open but since he missed cut at the Northern Trust, he has gained 9.3 strokes with his approaches. If he can make some of those putts this week he could very likely finish the season off with another Top 10.
**Updated Wednesday Morning**
**Weather Update**
Chris Durell has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for five years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is an active player in college football, NFL, MLB, NASCAR, NHL 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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