We’re headed to Jack’s hometown in Dublin Ohio for the first Midwest stop of the tour. The field is smaller than usual and star studded at the top. We have a unique situation in having the 3 top ranked golfers all playing together coming off of wins. Day won The Players, Spieth just won the Dean & Deluca, and Rory won his Irish Open. Muirfield Village was designed to test a player’s overall game. Distance can be useful with fairways that are pretty easy to hit, but if you miss the fairway you find yourself in very deep roughs. The greens are small and fast, so players will be scrambling along the greenside bunkers often this week. Take a good look at sand save % and one of the new Strokes Gained stats the PGA Tour just released- Strokes Gained: Around The Green. Course history appears to be a little more important than usual. There are several course horses and the style of course just seems to be tailored to a certain type of player.
High End Plays
Jason Day $12,400 Jordan Spieth $12,300 Rory McIlroy $12,200
These 3 make up the top 3 in the World Golf Rankings and they’re all fresh off of wins. Rory’s got the best current form going in the short term, but Jason Day has 7 Tour wins in the last year. Day lives in the area, but he’s never had any breakout success here in years past. Spieth has the best tournament history of the bunch and finished 3rd last year. I predict Rory to be the lowest owned of the bunch in tournaments but I don’t think you can go wrong with any three of them. I think Spieth has the best course fit, Day has the best upside, and Rory has lower ownership and has been getting eagles lately at an impressive rate.
Hideki Matsuyama $10,600
Matsuyama started his tournament history here with a win and followed it up with a 5th last year. He’s been in terrific form all season long and has a win already. He is far and away the best in the field at SG:Approach the Green which will be really helpful when it comes to hitting these small greens. He’s second to only Spieth in birdie or better conversion rate, which always boosts fantasy scoring. I expect him to be higher owned than any of the 3 big names and 2nd highest only to…
Matt Kuchar $9,900
As far as course horses go, Kuchar is Secretariat here. Until last year’s T26 Kuchar had never finished worse than 15th in 7 events, which included a win in 2013 and a 2nd in 2011. He’s also riding super hot current form, finishing 3rd, 3rd, and 6th in his last 3 events. He should be the highest owned player easily and a lock in cash games.
Core Plays
Jason Dufner $8,400
Dufner has been on a steady roll of making cuts and hitting greens for a while now, and last week it resulted in a T6 for him. His tee to green game, particularly his proximity/approach shot game is on point. He finished top 25 in his last 2 finishes here, which is enough to make him a cash game play for me.
Charl Schwartzel $8,000
Despite a top 25 finish last week, it seems like Schwartzel has fallen down the salary ranks compared to guys around him. Until last year’s missed cut, he had a spectacular tournament history going here. His game was pretty off last year and he’s definitely improved this year. He’s impressive at everything statistically except putting, and that definitely fits here.
Daniel Berger $7,800
Berger is a super streaky player, but right now he’s on quite the streak going on right now- 6 straight top 20 finishes. I wouldn’t play him in cash quite yet due to him being a bomber, but I’m all over him in GPPs. He’s so cheap for his form right now.
Danny Lee $7,500
Lee is another guy who’s been hot lately in the short term- 6 cuts made in a row within the last 7 weeks. He has a good overall accuracy game, and ranks 5th on Tour in sand save %. At $7,500 he’s a really nice value play for cash games.
Ryan Moore $7,300
Moore is a tricky play this week, because while his course history is insane (9/10 cuts made, 6 top 25s) he’s looked really bad his last 4 times out. Maybe a course he’s super familiar with will help him get back to par.
Sean O’Hair $6,800
O’Hair hasn’t taken a break lately- in the last 6 weeks he’s made 6 cuts and posted 3 top 20s. He’s good looking statistically and ranks 2nd on Tour in sand save %. Get him while he’s still cheap.
K.J. Choi $6,000
Just like Schwartzel, Choi had an amazingly consistent course history snapped last year. He’s won before, has 9 top 25s and has made 14/16 cuts. Choi is a guy who tend to play well at courses he always plays well at and he’s just way too cheap to not use a lot this week.
Cheat Sheet
The cheat sheet contains complete course history, aggregated vegas odds, current form, and stats in one convenient sheet. It’s available to all VIP DFS Army Members HERE.
