Fantasy Golf: The Hero World Challenge Preview

We're back after a nearly two month hiatus during which life unexpectedly devolved into some kind of eclectic mash-up of Succession, Californication and Curb Your Enthusiasm. One day you're just dicking around on the tee sheet looking for a spot to play on Friday afternoon and then someone taps you on the shoulder and tells you the company you work for is being sold. Next thing you know, you're in a hotel conference room surrounded by the entire cast of Suits as they take turns picking through everything you've been doing (or not been doing) at work for the last twenty years. I can't divulge who they worked for but let's just say it rhymes with "old man slacks".  

That process then continues for about six weeks of Zoom calls and Teams meetings where the same questions are repeated over and over and over again until you finally have your Colonel Jessup moment and half-jokingly announce on a call with no less than twelve lawyers on it that, "it doesn't matter how many times you guys ask me this question, the answer ain't changing." For you budding young comics out there, I will warn you that making a joke to a bunch of Wall Street lawyers on a due diligence call is not a momentum builder. Especially when most of them are on mute.

The red wine flowed throughout the process and got me into trouble a couple of times but it looks like everything is going to workout. Not just that, it appears the universe will be handing the FGR a treasure trove of writing material as we go big corporate in 2026. Good thing we don't come with a warning label. 

GOLF ANALYSIS

There's really no point in overthinking this one but we're going to anyway. Scottie Scheffler has played this event four times and his average finish is halfway between first and second place. Last year he won by six beating last place finishers Jason Day and Russell Henley by 26 shots in the process. If you want to see what that would look like as depicted by one of the fastest women of all-time running in a parents' race at her kid's school, click here.    

Scottie's odds to win this week are +140 and, even against this small field, that's no fun so let's look elsewhere for some intrigue. Cameron Young is coming off his first winning season and he was the lone bright spot for the U.S. Ryder Cup debacle. At +1200 against nineteen other players, he looks like a pretty sweet deal but not quite as sweet as Chris Gotterup at +2200. The Maryland Eastern Shore native has proven that, like the true lax bro that he is, he can run with the best after winning the 2025 Scottish Open and finishing 3rd at the British Open. Get him a Maryland flag golf shirt, a sponsorship from STX and a mullet and we're talking multiple majors next season. 

Akshay Bhatia and Sepp Straka round-out our betting favorites as they have shown a fondness for Albany Golf Course and god only knows we put way too much stock in that metric around here. Everything went to hell when we started color-coding the damn chart. 

Place	Player	Odds
Winner	Cameron Young	+1200
Winner	Chris Gotterup	+2200
Top 5	Akshay Bhatia	+260
Top 5	Sepp Straka	+275

DraftKings All Value Team

We did the math and this is one of the few DraftKings teams that works with Scheffler in the line-up. As noted above, we also like Straka, Bhatia and Gotterup so we went with them, a Canadian and a southern guy. Not sure they have much in common but that will just force them to stop fucking around and focus on the golf. 

Looks pretty inviting for a public track. Just need
to plunk down $3,500 for a night in a villa.

Scottie Scheffler	$14,900
Sepp Straka	$7,700
Akshay Bhatia	$7,400
Chris Gotterup	$7,100
Corey Conners	$6,800
Andrew Novak	$6,000

This week's chart honors the devout and prayerful Lane Kiffin who has come a long way since he was briefly head coach #7 in the Raiders' recent run of 17 over 30 years. Clearly God marked a path for him that involved fucking over thousands of people along the way. Thus be the Gospel of Lane.  

                                     THE LANE KIFFIN LEGACY OF FAITH

                                     HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE CHART 

Not a lot of big names making the trip to The Bahamas this year. Instead we have a veritable who's who of one-time major winners from the recent in J.J. Spaun and Wyndham Clark to the past with Keegan Bradley and Justin Rose. Throw-in Hideki Matsuyama and Brian Harman to make a nice little themed DraftKings team that will absolutely lose you five bucks. 

	DK Price	2024	2023	2022	2021	2019
Scottie Scheffler	$14,900	1st	1st	2nd	2nd	DNP
Robert MacIntyre	$9,800	7th	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
J.J. Spaun	$9,500	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Cameron Young	$9,200	13th	15th	3rd	DNP	DNP
Sam Burns	$8,900	T14	16th	12th	T3	DNP
Keegan Bradley	$8,700	5th	T13	DNP	DNP	DNP
Aaron Rai	$8,400	T14	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Hideki Matsuyama	$8,200	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Justin Rose	$8,000	DNP	T8	DNP	T9	T5
Alex Noren	$7,800	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Sepp Straka	$7,700	T9	2nd	T10	DNP	DNP
Jordan Spieth	$7,500	DNP	6th	15th	20th	16th
Akshay Bhatia	$7,400	4th	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Harris English	$7,300	DNP	DNP	DNP	T14	DNP
Chris Gotterup	$7,100	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Corey Conners	$6,800	DNP	DNP	16th	DNP	DNP
Billy Horschel	$6,500	DNP	DNP	T13	DNP	DNP
Brian Harman	$6,400	12th	T8	DNP	DNP	DNP
Wyndham Clark	$6,200	T17	19th	DNP	DNP	DNP
Andrew Novak	$6,000	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP

Email the Fantasy Golf Report here.

Fantasy Golf: The Baycurrent Classic Preview

We decided to take some personal time last week in an effort to stem the tide of a pretty auspicious losing streak that included not only picking the U.S. to win the Ryder Cup and a 1-5 NFL record, but also two real live team golf playoff losses where my partners and I secured 5.5 out of our possible 6 points while our teammates went . . . ahem . . . full Englikawa which is my new name recommendation for the worst Ryder Cup pairing in history (it was either that or Morikish and Englikawa tested better with the 24-35 demographic). To quote the legendary Opal Fleener from Hoosiers, "the sun don't shine on the same dog's ass everyday, but, mister you ain't seen a ray of light since you got here."

Speaking of the Ryder Cup, I started writing a post-mortem but then I got to part 3 of Kevin Van Valkenburg's Three Final Thoughts on the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage and bowed my head because I knew that I'd been beat. Nothing I could produce was going to top this assessment of the crowd:

If you’re a grown man and you spent an afternoon screaming horrible things at a professional athlete, trying to get under his skin by calling his wife a whore and hoping he (and she) will hear you, but you still wanted to be able to slither away before police arrive to kick you out, your parents and grandparents failed you. If Rory McIlroy walked into your living room on Sunday night, I am quite confident you would melt with embarrassment or turtle up in fear. You have become so desensitized by the internet and the fake life you live inside your phone that it would take years of therapy just to reset you to your factory settings. 

I will take a shot at the leadership because it would appear that the "plan" to the extent there was one was to have Bryson blast the opening tee shot to get the crowd fired-up and then just see what happens from there because putting Colin Morikawa who is 141st in strokes gained putting in 2025 and has one top ten over the last six months out for alternate shot made Zach Johnson look like a chess master by comparison. Someone described sending Morikawa and English out again on Saturday morning as "malpractice" which was spot-on because the medical equivalent would be doing a hip replacement on the wrong hip and then correcting it by replacing the wrong hip again.

Enough about all that. Hopefully three days of moderate to heavy drinking, gumbo and singing angsty teen anthems at a Natasha Bedingfield concert has cleansed the gambling palate so we can start fresh. 

GOLF ANALYSIS

This week we head to Japan for the Baycurrent Classic which is a curious name for a golf tournament in its first year with a new sponsor at a course they've never played before but maybe "classic" means something different in Japanese like how "bra" means "good" in Swedish. (That Seinfeld episode must have confused some people in Stockholm). 

We've got a pretty solid field with a few Ryder Cuppers including Xander Schauffele who finally showed some signs of life at Bethpage but this is a home game for Hideki Matsuyama and he takes that shit seriously so he's the pick. The rest are guys who have proven they like to play on the road including Michael Kim who recently won the French Open over a bunch of unsuspecting Euros and has moved-up to 38th in the world. Vive la Resistance!

We desperately looked for a way to recommend Sahith Theegala as the sleeper because we root for the guy and he just finally made a cut at the Procore Championship after missing five in a row. But that recent slump plus no top tens since 2024 means he has to settle for the bottom spot in the DraftKings top ten based on the hope that a change of scenery yields at least a paycheck. 

Place	Player	Odds
Winner	Hideki Matsuyama	+1800
Top 5	Rasmus Hojgaard	+400
Top 10	Michael Kim	+280
Top 10	Tom Kim	+400
Top 20	Matti Schmid	+180

One and Done Pick: Hideki Matsuyama

Nothing runs through Yokohama
without Hideki getting a taste.

Other Guy I'd Pick: Rasmus Hojgaard

Sleeper Pick: Matti Schmid

DraftKings Top Ten Values 

Hideki Matsuyama	$10,400
Alex Noren	$9,800
Michael Kim	$9,300
Rasmus Hojgaard	$9,200
C. Bezuidenhout	$8,400
Sungjae Im	$8,300
Tom Kim	$7,800
Byeong Hun An	$7,400
Matti Schmid	$7,100
Sahith Theegala	$6,800

Email the Fantasy Golf Report here.