Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Fantasy Golf: The Farmers Insurance Open Preview

The Farmers Insurance Open Favorites
Where would this great nation
be without its farmers?

1. Jimmy Walker - 12/1
2. Jordan Spieth - 12/1
3. Jason Day - 12/1
4. Hideki Matsuyama - 18/1
5. Justin Rose - 22/1
6. Rickie Fowler - 22/1
7. Brooks Koepka - 25/1
8. Brandt Snedeker - 25/1
9. Dustin Johnson - 28/1
10. Graham DeLeat - 28/1

The Farmers Insurance Open Picks

1. Hideki Matsuyama
2. Jason Day
3. Brandt Snedeker
4. Jimmy Walker
5. Justin Thomas

The One and Done Pick: Hideki Matsuyama

Sleeper Pick: Justin Thomas*

We all know by now that I am an idiot because that has been proven time and again but every once in a while we get a new piece of evidence that really drives the point home. Take the start of the 2015 fantasy golf season for example. We kicked it off with something called The 2015 Fantasy Golf Preview (seemed logical) in which we predicted what the FedEx Cup top 30 would look like at the end of the regular season. Now I'm not going to say that the same level of research went into that as may have gone into let's say what play the Seahawks might run on second and goal from the one yard line down by four with about thirty seconds left (too soon?), but I will say that I put a lot more time into that list than I put into these weekly blurbs that are usually written with one foot out the office door on Tuesday night. (I have to keep the day job going as the FGR is currently generating only slightly more cash flow than Enron). 


"Hold it . . . Chuck, I got it!!!"
So here we sit every week and in our left hand we have a somewhat thought-out list of thirty golfers whom we expect to win or at least place a few times in 2015 and in our right hand we have the objective of trying to pick one golfer per week over the course of about thirty-six weeks whom we expect to win or at least place. Hmmmmm. If only there was a way to transfer the information from the list in our left hand to the picks we need to be making with our right. (Thinking . . . give me a minute . . . stroking my chin pensively . . . almost there . . .). 

What if we used the list in our left hand to help make the picks with our right? It's a concept so brilliantly and obviously simple that it has all but eluded me until this week as I've only picked two players from the preview (Hunter Mahan and Chris Kirk) while every 2015 winner is right there on that list along with five players who have already finished second this year (Bubba Watson, Ryan Palmer, Hideki Matsuyama, Jimmy Walker and Matt Kuchar). The result of this ill-fated strategy is a total through four tournaments of $149,676 which is so low that you'd almost have to be trying to fail to achieve it. (Trust me, I am not trying fail . . . at least not knowingly). Well that's going to change this week because, for the rest of the year, we're going strictly off the preseason list with the exception of some longer shots for the smaller crapshoot tournaments** (we have more events than available golfers).  

That leads us to this week's pick which is Hideki Matsuyama who was ranked 16th in the season preview, finished a respectable T16th at the Farmers last year and has been on fire lately with a T3rd at the Hyundai and a T2nd last week. We like this new direction already. It's logical, defensible and most importantly, it can't be any worse than what we've been doing. Right?      

Last Week's Report Card: B+
I really like your chicken.


1. Bubba Watson - T2nd
2. Jordan Spieth - T7th
3. Phil Mickelson - M/C
4. Hunter Mahan - T30th
5. Brendan Steele - T26th

One and Done Picks to Date

Hyundai: Kevin Streelman - $70,667
Sony: Chris Kirk - $42,280
Humana: Russell Knox - M/C
Phoenix Open: Hunter Mahan - $36,729

Anemic Season Total - $149,676


Footnotes

* A reader named Buzz from parts unknown proved yet again why it's worth your time to send suggestions as his idea for a weekly sleeper pick was selected from a pool that included literally no other entries and will heretofore be incorporated as part of the weekly tournament previews. Justin Thomas is the pick this week because he's rolling and he finished tied for 10th at the Farmers last year when even fewer people knew who in the hell he was.

** Said crapshoot tournaments would include the Valspar Championship, the Zurich Classic and the FedEx St. Jude because no one has any clue who's winning those. And we're not even counting the Puerto Rico Open, the Barbasol Championship and the Barracuda Championship because tournaments that don't air on network television are like the Unicorn Zone on the Hot-Crazy Matrix. We're pretty sure they don't exist.        

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com

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