It’s so hard… to say goodbye… to PGA.
Up this week: the Tour Championship. East Lake Golf Club, located in Atlanta, GA, is the final stop of the 2014-15 PGA Tour season. It’s a 7,307-yard par 70 designed by Donald Ross. It has hosted the Tour Championship 14 times and every year since 2005. Let’s take a look at the recent winners of this event and see what we can learn.
Previous Champions
Billy Horschel -11 (2014)
Henrik Stenson -13 (2013)
Brandt Snedeker -10 (2012)
Bill Haas -8 (2011)
Jim Furyk -8 (2010)
Snedeker excluded, that’s a list of elite ball strikers. You’re going to want the guys who hit lots of greens in regulation this week. The experts agree, and they think you should also be looking at strokes gained: tee-to-green, strokes gained: putting, and par 4 scoring average.
- Bubba Watson 1.964
- Henrik Stenson 1.807
- Jordan Spieth 1.503
- Jason Day 1.479
- Hideki Matsuyama 1.332
- Jimmy Walker .767
- Jason Day .638
- Brandt Snedeker .590
- Patrick Reed .531
- Harris English .506
- Henrik Stenson 73.61%
- Paul Casey 72.65%
- Jason Day 71.16%
- Justin Rose 70.70%
- Bubba Watson 69.93%
- Jason Day 3.92
- Jordan Spieth 3.93
- Henrik Stenson 3.95
- Hideki Matsuyama 3.96
- Bubba Watson 3.98
*****EXPERT CONSENSUS*****
At the time of this post, 19 experts from our grading pool have made selections for the Tour Championship. The frequency with which each golfer was suggested will be denoted in parenthesis below.
Highly Touted
Jason Day $12,500 (68.42%)
Harris English $7,000 (63.16%)
Hideki Matsuyama $8,000 (57.89%)
Recommended
Paul Casey $7,500 (47.37%)
Rory McIlroy $11,700 (47.37%)
Daniel Berger $7,200 (42.11%)
Dustin Johnson $9,100 (42.11%)
Zach Johnson $8,500 (42.11%)
Scott Piercy $7,100 (42.11%)
Suggested
Rickie Fowler (36.84%)
Kevin Kisner (36.84%)
Henrik Stenson (36.84%)
Bubba Watson (36.84%)
Justin Rose (31.58%)
Robert Streb (31.58%)
Some thoughts on the expert selections…
- It should come as no surprise that Day was the most popular pick. The pricing on DK is softer this week than it was for the BMW Championship (not to mention the field has been cut in half), so we won’t see Day at only 15% again. Jason Sobel of espn.com advocates fading Day in GPPs this week, and I am in total agreement. He’s the favorite to win the tournament, but the potential payoff just isn’t there for fantasy players. When the herd is going one way, it’s often best to go the other.
- Earlier in the week, I liked Harris English a lot. If he’s going to be highly owned, I might have to rethink that position.
- Matsuyama’s name came up a little bit more than I would have liked, but his price is just too good for him to fly under the radar.
- Noticeably absent: Jordan Spieth. Only three of 19 experts were on Spieth. He could be an interesting pivot play.
Programming Note: We will not be grading picks this week. A 29-player field in golf is similar to a single game NBA or NFL slate. A number of experts either made 10+ selections or bypassed making picks in favor of ranking the entire field. The Tour Championship provides a unique set of circumstances that doesn’t lend itself well to what we’re trying to do with the grading system, so we’ll be taking the week off in that regard.
That wraps up our coverage of the 2014-15 PGA Tour season! We hope that you enjoyed our content. If you have any comments on what we’ve done or suggestions for what we should do in the future, don’t hesitate to send them over. The Frys.com Open kicks off the 2015-16 season on October 15th; only three weeks away! Good luck this week, and be sure to check out our NFL and (coming soon) NBA content during the PGA break!
A sincere thank you for reading,
oreo
