Mawhee’s Fantasy Golf Breakdown- Wyndham Championship
@dfsarmy_Matt
The final week of the regular PGA Tour season is finally here. After this week it’s on to FedEx Cup Playoffs, but lets not get to ahead of ourselves. The PGA tour heads to Greensboro, NC to compete in the Wyndham Championship at the Sedgefield Country Club. This is a course that has yielded winning scores of -17 or better 5 of the last six years. The exception being in 2013 when Patrick Reed defeated Jordan Spieth in a playoff after they finished tied at -14. Sedgefield Country Club is a par 70 course playing at 7,127 yards of scoring heaven. I don’t expect to see another Furyk 58 this week but guys will be throwing out 65s all day.
I’ll be looking at scoring, scoring, and more scoring statistics this week as my key statistics. We’ll focus on Par 4 and Par 5 scoring along with Birdies per tourny and Greens in Regulation (GIR). These key stats are going to give us guys that have the ability to and hopefully will go low and be in contention come the weekend.
You’ll notice I didn’t mention course history as one of my key statistics. I will review course history and use it as a way to see which type of golfers excel on a course. The dfs community as a whole tends to overvalue course history. What you want is to learn how to use it properly and not disregard everything else. Recent form matters more in golf than any other dfs sport. If someone won here last year but coming in has missed three cuts in a row he probably isn’t playing close to the way he did a year ago. So use course history as a way further rank your player pool not determine who’s in it.
With that in mind lets jump right into player breakdown and my top plays of the week. I also added the link below for Taco’s PGA Cheat Sheets.
Top Tier ($9,000+)
Jon Rham- I expect Rham to be one of the higher owned players this week and for good reason. In his last four starts hes avg 17 birdies a tournament and finished in the top 25 three straight weeks. Throw in his 67.7% GIR and he looks to be in good form and set to contend. He has been the hot ticket lately so he’ll be a chalky play this week. If he doesn’t win this week, which he may do, he makes for a good gpp fade. That will be for you to decide.
Wesley Bryan- This guy is my favorite play of the week. Bryan spent most of the year on the Web.com Tour where he had multiple victories. Then last week he finished 8th at the John Deere and had a great week overall. In his last four events he’s avg a staggering 19.8 birdies for the week, remember birdies score points, the most of any golfer playing this week. Bryan has also hit 76.4% of GIR. If that’s not enough he’s avg under par scoring on both par 4s and 5s in that same stretch. He checks all the boxes and may come in under the radar to some as a newer name.
Brandt Snedeker- Coming into this week he ranks T1 in Par 4 scoring on tour. Don’t forget when setting your LU this week there playing another par 70 so there are less par 5s and more par 4s a good thing for Snedeker. In his last three starts Snedeker has avg 15.3 birdies a week and finished among the top 25 in three of his previous four tournaments. His 6 starts here is tied for most in the field so he’s very familiar with the course.
Notable Mentions- Kevin Na, Ryan Moore, and Jim Furyk
Mid Tier ($7,000 – $9,000)
Rafael Cabrera Bello- This guy priced under 9k is a steal. He’s made nine straight cuts and even though the Olympics was a no cut tourney I included that, he finished T5 so I’d say he’d been fine. There were two other top tens in that stretch as well, so he travels here this week in great form. This year Cabrera Bello has hit 74.3 of GIR which ranks first out of our field this week. If he can continue to play tee to green the way he has all year and get hot with the flat stick watch out. The only concern I have for him and really any golfer that played the Olympic tourney last week would be fatigue from travel, or even a possible let down week after all the emotion and excitement they had in Rio.
Robert Garrigus- In his last two starts he’s hit 76% of GIR and avg less than 30 puts per round. That recipe has yielded a avg of 16.8 birdies per tourney. Compared to his long term form he’s recently improved on his accuracy and par 4 scoring which are great indicators his game is on point. In his last 8 starts he has five top 25 finishes which include two top 5s.
Keegan Bradley- Bradley has made the cut in each of his last 5 starts and hit 65% of GIR or better in each of those. He hasn’t done anything spectacular in regards to where he’s finished each week but that may help us out with his ownership. The 14.8 birdies per week he’s recently avg goes right along with this next bit of information. Compared to his season long stats Bradley has improved upon his averages for GIR, driving distance, accuracy, puts per round and scrambling in the short term. When I see a player trending in the right direction I like to jump on that train and see where it ends up. I’m not saying I think he’ll win, but with this weeks field strength being down I like him to finish top 25.
Notable Mentions- Justin Thomas, Bud Cauley
Low Tier (Less than $7,000)
Henrick Norlander- Comes in this week riding nine straight made cuts. In his last four starts he’s done exactly what it will take to succeed this week, lets hope it continues. He’s found the fairway off the tee 73.2% of the time, and converted on those straight drives, hitting 73.6% of GIR and avg. 16.5 birdies a week over that four start stretch.
Chad Campbell- Man oh man did Campbell burn me his last start at the Travelers Championship. The good news is he burned a lot of people who will more than likely fade him for that reason alone. I chalk up that bad week for Campbell as just that, a bad week. He avg more puts per round, 32, than he had all year for the week. More good news is his game sets up well this week he has above avg scoring ability on par 4s and hits 68% of GIR. Any time I can get a guy who looks to be in a good spot and has recently flopped while being highly owned I take advantage.
Notable Mentions- Graham DeLaet, Steve Wheatcroft, and Johnson Wagner.
Fades of the week- In case you were wondering I didn’t forget about P. Reed or R. Fowler I just plan on fading them. Fowler just hasn’t played well for the majority of the year and I see Reed’s ownership to high for what I’m looking for in a gpp. For cash I would defiantly roll with Patrick Reed over Fowler. Be mindful of all the guys that competed at the Olympics and watch out for last min withdraws from them. Good luck.