Daily Fantasy Golf Early Thoughts - WGC Bridgestone Invitational
Welcome back for another week of daily fantasy golf. The summer grind continues this week as the top players in the world travel to Akron, Ohio for the fourth WGC event of the season, the Bridgestone Invitational. If you are at all interested in seeing how the players got in the field check out the Inside the Field article over on the PGA Tour website.
The field of 76 players will be looking to stop Dustin Johnson who has won back to back WGC's(Match Play & Mexico Championship) and joined Tiger Woods as the only players to accomplish that. On top of that, DJ is also the defending champ here at Firestone CC and has owned the WGC's with five wins and is also the only player to win all four at least once. That is pretty amazing considering Tiger Woods won 18 WGC's but never won the Champions event.
The Course and Key Stats
Firestone CC is a Par 70 beast that stretches 7,400 yards but isn't necessarily a bombers course. It will very much test all facets of a players game starting with the narrow, tree-lined fairways and thick rough that make placing the ball off the tee very important. Breaking down my favorite stats to target this week, Strokes Gained Off the Tee is definitely #1. Once players find the fairway, the challenge will be finding as many greens as possible. They are well protected with not only bunkers but a mix of elevated greens, false fronts, and some greens that slope away from the players. Strokes Gained Approach get the nod in the #2 spot as the players who can hit a few more greens than the field each day will have a shot to pickup more birdies and ultimately more fantasy points. We also gets points for finishing position and the fact that the GIR average should be down will also put emphasis on players who can scramble and gain strokes around the green. Other stats I am weighing this week are Birdie or Better %(correlates closely to fantasy points), Par 4 Scoring(Par 70 with with an extra Par 4 this week), and Bogey Avoidance(especially if course plays hard like last year).
Early Odds to DraftKings and FanDuel Pricing Differential
Instead of going with my top picks per tier, I wanted to do something a little different from my main article over at DFSR. I decided to pick out some early value when comparing Vegas odds and salary ranks on both sites. I am not necessarily going with the top ones ranked on the sheet but rather my favorites of the group. Let's take a look.
Brendan Steele (DK $6,700 / FD $4,900 / Odds 125-1)
Steele comes into this year's Bridgestone Invitational with some poor form missing two cuts in a row but is one of the highest ranked players in differential on both sites. He is currently 40th in odds and 51st and 54th in DK and FD pricing. From a stats standpoint, I love the play as he ranks Top 30 on my sheet in all Strokes Gained stats except putting(33rd), ranks 5th in Total Driving, Top 20 in Par 4 Scoring, BoB%, and Bogey Avoidance. He finished T48 here at Firestone in his only trip back in 2011 and has the upside to do much better this time around. I won't have exposure in cash games but I love it from a GPP standpoint as he is likely under owned.
Russell Henley (DK $7,100 / FD $5,200 / Odds 90-1)
Henley sits at the same +14 as Steele on FanDuel but it's a tick lower on DraftKings at +6. Either way, I think there is value here as Henley ranks 14th on the sheet in SG: OTT, 5th in SG: Putt, 25th in BoB%, 16th in Par 4 scoring, and 8th in Bog Avoidance. The other stat that stands out is his long iron play as he ranks Top 10 in GIR % from 150 yards all the way up to 200+ yards. He finished 17th here in 2015 in his last trip to Firestone CC.
Kevin Chappell (DK $7,500 / FD $5,700 / Odds 66-1)
While the first two picks I mentioned might be nice low-owned GPP plays, Chappell is likely to be quite chalky on both sites at his value price. He is 66-1 in Vegas at the start of the week and is coming off a T8 at the RBC Canadian Open and he finished T3 here at the WGC Bridgestone last year. Using the Fantasy National Golf Club tools I narrowed my search to the last 12 rounds on 7200-7400 yard courses with difficult to hit fairways and Bentgrass greens and Chappell ranks Top 30 in fantasy points and all strokes gained metrics outside of putting. I am expecting him to carry the momentum from last week over to this week.
COPY OF MY DFS PGA CHEATSHEET FOR THE WGC BRIDGESTONE INVITATIONAL AND THE TOURNEY BY TOURNEY TRENDS SHEET.
