Every week of the year the PGA Tour plays on a new course. There are some examples in other DFS Sports of environments impacting performance, such as Coors Field in Baseball; Golf, however, offers an entirely unique environment each and every week. This article will break down the week’s PGA course and attempt to find what skill sets are needed for success. This article will then combine the course breakdown with the DFS Army Domination Station & VIP Research Station and give a few players to target on DraftKings and FanDuel in both Cash Game and GPP formats. For more updates throughout the week follow me on twitter @_bschnarr
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Course Preview
After skipping last week we are back with a preview for the Shell Houston Open. This event features a mixture of top-end players and a whole lot of scrubs. Many of the top players in the world avoid this event while others use it as a competitive challenge leading into the masters. As a result, we have six players inside of the top twenty of the official world golf rankings teeing it up this week (Spieth, Rose, Fowler, Stenson, Mickelson, Kuchar).
The Golf Club of Houston is a 7,422 yard par 72. The course is often compared to Augusta because of a few similarities, including the yardage, the greens and the set-up surrounding the greens. However, many parts of the course are entirely different, including hazards on half of the holes and the general setup of the holes. Overall, some of the pros have mentioned over the years the similarities do make it a good warm-up for Augusta which is something to remember when constructing line-ups for the week.
With four par fives and four par fours less than 400 yards The Golf Club of Houston provides players with plenty of opportunities to score. Targeting Birdie or Better % will be key for me this week, specifically on par fives and par fours under 400 yards. Using our DFS Golf Research Station to get accurate, field adjusted statistics will be another key for me to ensure the statistics I am getting are correct.
Course history will also play a big factor in my roster construction this week. As we have seen in this event, players who have done well have generally continued to do so. With the specific style of the course it makes sense that course history would correlate more so at The Golf Club of Houston then at a general event. Shots Gained Approach is another key statistic that you should always be looking at regardless of the golf course. Specifically, I will be using our Research Station to pinpoint players that have been gaining strokes in this category recently. Statistics can be distorted from players that had a few good tournaments early on in the year so finding players who have been gaining strokes in recent events will be big for me this week.
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Picks
Jordan Spieth – Top End GPP – DK: $11100 FD: 12100
Spieth has struggled this year in comparison to what we are used to seeing from the former world number one. However, Spieth is also part of the elite group of golfers that can win any given week and surprise no one. This pick is dependent upon ownership projections (we have those too for members) but if Spieth is expected to be the lower owned than Fowler or Rose (which he could be given recent form/course history) I have no problem going overweight on him this week.
Russell Henley – Cash Games – DK: $9200 FD: $10200
Henley seems to be one of the golfers I can never get right for DFS purposes, except at the Shell Houston Open. In his last four appearances Henley has not finished worse than T7 at this event and has three straight top fives with a win last season. Whatever the reason Henley seems to find his game at this event. Recently, Henley has made his last two cuts and although he has somewhat struggled at recent no-cut WGC events I still love picking him in cash game formats this week.
Thomas Pieters – DraftKings Value – DK: $7500 FD: $10100
Although he has not had the breakthrough result in 2018, Pieters has steadily been steadily making cuts this year and has the upside to easily make value on his $7500 price tag. Last season Pieters decided to skip this event and enjoy the off week between the WGC event and the Masters. Despite making his first appearance I have little worry about his ability and think given the field Pieters is extremely underpriced.
Luke List – FanDuel Value – DK: $9600 FD: $9900
Despite List having the 6th best outright odds to win the event he is the 16th priced golfer on FanDuel this week. List finished tied for third at this event last season and has been impressive recently with six straight made cuts and no finish worse than T26 during that stretch. Because of this and his salary List will be extremely popular on FanDuel this week but given his value he still may be worth it in a field that is not necessarily loaded with talent.
*As always, this article is published as a first look, things change leading up to lock and SlackChat should be checked as thoughts are changed when new information arises.*
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