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 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 where he provides stats, course history, current form, fantasy points, and much more. Grab your copy today and edge out the competition
Welcome back golf fans. Last week was another perfect example of how the weather can change on a dime on a links course, especially in Scotland. We saw a baked out and super fast opening round, a rainy and wet second round, a low-scoring third round, and a very windy final round. After the first two days, we saw three(Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas) of the World's Top 5 golfers miss the cut along with some other notables in Brandon Grace(#35), Sergio Garcia(#19), Hideki Matsuyama(#16), and Bubba Watson(#13) to name a few. One of the hottest players on the planet, Francesco Molinari, came out on top grabbing his first career Major Championship with an incredible finish posting a 65, 69 on the weekend to win by two strokes.
This week the PGA Tour heads to Canada and the Glen Abbey Golf Club for the 109th RBC Canadian Open. It will be the 30th time Glen Abbey has hosted the National Open and if you are looking at more recent course history be sure to look at only 2017, 2016, 2015, 2013, 2008, and 2009 as the course has rotated in those other years. It is a Par 72 setup that stretches just over 7,200 yards which is on the shorter end of things for a Par 72 but has plenty of defenses. The Jack Nicklaus design has narrow, tree-lined fairways with 80+ bunkers scattered around the course with water coming into play on just less than half the holes. Wind and rain, as always, will play large as well and looking at the winning scores this is clear. The course played soft last year and Vegas won with a -21 winning score while the year before it was more firm and fast and he won with a score of -12. The early forecast is showing a small amount of rain on Thursday afternoon but more importantly, the wind looks to be much greater on Thursday afternoon bringing in a possible AM/PM stack strategy. Stay tuned to my Twitter(@Jager_Bombs9) and the DFSR chat for updated weather leading up to lineup lock.
We have seen a mix of bombers and shorter hitters win here over the years so more important than distance or accuracy this week is overall Stroke Gained: Off the Tee. The first cut of rough is not very penal so I will also be looking at Good Drive % and as always will be looking at Strokes Gained: Approach trends coming into this event. The other big thing I am concentrating on this week is Par 5 Scoring and Par 5 Birdie or Better as all four of the holes are under 560 yards and have also seen a ton of Eagles each year.
Let's now jump in and take a look at some of the course stats, trends, and then my top picks for course history, current form, and the stats model.
Glen Abbey GC - Oakville, Ontario
Par 72 - 7,253 Yards
Greens - Bentgrass
**Click the pic above to see a hole by hole breakdown from PGATour.com**
One little note before jumping into the article. I use multiple sources for my research to help determine key stats starting with Fantasy National Golf Club and their elite set of tools from course history, hole composition, past performance and much, much more. I also combine it with some of the information on Future of Fantasy including correlated courses and most importantly the quotes from players section to help determine what it takes to win here(key stats). When breaking down ownership and trying to come up with popularity, I love the tools over at FanShareSports as they break down every piece of information on articles and social media mentions to provide us with Tag Counts, Sentiment Ratings, Subject Tags, Salary Differential week to week and don't forget to check out the all-new lineup optimizer.
Dustin Johnson
World Golf Ranking (#1)
Vegas Odds (7/1)
Draftkings ($11,700)
FanDuel ($12,500)
He let us down last week missing the cut at the OPEN but the good news is that he should be well rested after a long flight to Canada and possibly already has a few extra practice rounds in. Not that he needs those practice rounds as he has been money here at Glen Abbey over the years with a T8 and two runner-ups in his three trips. Over the course of the last four events here, DJ ranks #1 in Strokes Gained: Total, #1 in Ball Striking, and #1 in DraftKings scoring. It's a place he can use his distance to his advantage unlike last week and I can only hope most people are salty over the MC and fade him this week. I don't think we need to pay up in cash but DJ makes an excellent core play in GPP's this week.
Charley Hoffman
World Golf Ranking (#34)
Vegas Odds (25/1)
Draftkings ($8,700)
FanDuel ($10,800)
Right behind DJ in the course history ranks(players who have played here at least three times in last four trips to Glen Abbey) is Charley Hoffman. He has continued to improve here at Glen Abbey in his four trips with a T28 back in 2008, T16 in 20113, T7 in 2015, and he lost to Vegas in playoff last year as both golfers finished with a -21 score. Looking at those last four events here at Glen Abbey, Hoffman also sits right behind DJ in Strokes Gained: Total and DraftKings scoring and is the only golfer in the field that has ranked Top 5 in both Par 4 and 5 scoring here during those events. Hoffman also comes in with some nice form coming off a T17 at the OPEN which was his third straight Top 20 finish.
Tony Finau
World Golf Ranking (#31)
Vegas Odds (16/1)
Draftkings ($9,800)
FanDuel ($12,100)
Finau is having one heck of a season to this point having made 16 of 19 cuts(84%) with two runner-ups and seven Top 10's but probably most impressive is that he has finished Top 10 in each of the three majors so far after a T9 in the OPEN this past weekend. Looking at the last 24 rounds overall(via FNGC), he ranks 4th in Strokes Gained: Total, 18th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, and 3rd in DraftKings scoring in the field this week. He has played Glen Abbey three times now with finishes of T22 in 2015, T70 in 2016, and a very impressive T5 last year so the upside is most certainly there for another big week.
Joel Dahmen
World Golf Ranking (#223)
Vegas Odds (55/1)
Draftkings ($7,400)
FanDuel ($9,400)
The season didn't start off so hot for Dahmen who missed five of his first 10 cuts with just one finish inside the Top 45 but he has sure started to steer the ship in the right direction since. He has made 11 of his last 13 cuts coming into his first RBC Canadian Open including eight Top 25's after his fourth straight at last week's Barbasol Championship. Looking at the last 24 rounds data overall(via FNGC), Dahmen ranks 6th in Strokes Gained: Total, 1st in Strokes Gained: Tee Green, 1st in Strokes Gained: Approach and 7th in DraftKings scoring.
Joaquin Niemann
World Golf Ranking (#169)
Vegas Odds (25/1)
Draftkings ($9,400)
FanDuel ($11,000)
The 19-year-old is on a quite a run in his first professional season as he comes into this week having made five of his last six cuts three Top 10's and five Top 25 finishes. He hasn't yet qualified for stats ranks but would right near the top in a ton of areas. I inserted his raw stats from PGATour.com into my sheet and in this field he ranks 5th in SG: Off the Tee, 1st in SG: Approach, 2nd in SG: Ball Striking, 3rd in Proximity, 2nd in Par 4 Scoring, 25th in Par 5 BoB%, and 2nd in overall BoB%. From a fantasy scoring standpoint, he is also third to Koepka and DJ in average DK points per event(83) over his last five. Fire up the up and coming star in all formats this week.
Keith Mitchell
World Golf Ranking (#135)
Vegas Odds (75/1)
Draftkings ($7,400)
FanDuel ($9,200)
While Austin Cook, Aaron Wise, and Satoshi Kodaira all have wins so far in their rookie seasons, Mitchell is quietly having a solid rookie campaign himself. He has a runner-up(Corales Puntacana) and is tied for first among rookies with four Top 10's and has made 17 cuts in 24 starts(70.8%). He makes an excellent value play this week for GPP formats as he fits the stats model ranking 4th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 3rd in Par 5 Birdie or Better %, and 5th in overall Birdie or Better %. Looking at the last 50 rounds data(via Fantasy National), he ranks 21st in Strokes Gained: Total, 11th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking and 5th in DraftKings scoring.
**Weather Update(click pic below to link to Windfinder site for Oakville, Ontario**
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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View Comments
Hey Chris, Cheatsheet is pulling up the Northern Trust
How do you get to the cheat sheet?
The link is in the opening paragraph of the article. Here is another link as well:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kxwB4pqIHYFlU6qpNNnkWEMLxMQP15An742_beEiT3s/edit?usp=sharing
Thoughts on Troy Merritt? Coming off a win, good price...