Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Fantasy Golf: The Hero World Challenge Preview

What better way to inject meaning into an otherwise meaningless golf tournament than by giving it a big old shot of Tiger Woods? Yes he could return to greatness and make this year's Hero World Challenge a compelling Sunday drama saving us from the droll monotony of second rate football that has become the NFL. But let's be honest, he's kind of like a butt implant performed in the back of a cargo van by a doctor with a suspended Nicaraguan medical license. Sure you could end-up with a butt like Fergie but it's infinitely more likely that you'll end-up on an episode of Botched* with your ass resembling a half-eaten wedding cake crying, "WHY???"

Some people are actually optimistic about Tiger's chances this week and beyond. With all due respect to those people, they've lost their fucking minds. Tiger hasn't made a cut since August of 2015 and he hasn't been competitive in a real tournament since 2013. Not only is he rustier than a Chernobyl swing set and more injury prone than Greg Oden, he will now have to compete against arguably the deepest fields in the history of golf. Back in 2013 he only had to deal with a top tier of Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson and a lesser version of Dustin Johnson who kept injuring himself in bizarre jet ski moving incidents (ahem). 


Now Tiger has to deal with all of those guys plus an often focused D.J. and a few other random upstarts we like to call Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Reed and Rickie Fowler along with a second tier that includes Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Daniel Berger, Kevin Kisner, etc. That's a slight improvement over Keegan Bradley, Graeme McDowell and Jason Dufner a/k/a three guys who never would've been accused of being the best player never to win a major if they hadn't inexplicably won a major. (That sentence was like a Triple Lutz but Scott Hamilton breathlessly says I landed it).  


I hope Tiger finds himself near the top of the leaderboard this weekend and I really hope that he still has at least one meaningful Sunday at Augusta left in him because Tiger drama has always been its own unique top-shelf brand of sports drama. A comeback twist would make it exponentially better, especially if it involved a duel with one or more of the young guns who some now like to describe as "fearless." Would they be that fearless when faced with the opportunity to beat the ghost of a living legend? Would Tiger crack under the weight of potential redemption? Holy shit the sound of Verne Lundquist's rising voice is almost palpable when you really envision it. Almost makes me believe it could happen . . . like Fergie's butt.                  

              
I might risk van surgery to have Fergie's butt. 
One and Done Pick: Rickie Fowler

Where Tiger Will Finish: 17th

The DraftKings Top Ten


Dustin Johnson
$10,700
Jordan Spieth
$10,500
Rickie Fowler
$9,600
Justin Rose
$8,600
Hideki Matsuyama
$8,200
Patrick Reed
$7,500
Kevin Kisner
$7,100
Matt Kuchar
$7,000
Francesco Molinari
$6,600
Charley Hoffman
$6,200

Footnote

* When not watching home improvement shows, the FGW occasionally likes to watch Botched and Hollywood Medium. I think the message is "do some work on the house you lazy shit and don't you dare ever ask me to get plastic surgery or I will kill you and then harass you for eternity from the land of the living through the creepy annoying lovechild of Macaulay Culkin and Paris Hilton."   

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com. 

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Fantasy Golf: The RSM Classic Preview

Because I am a self aggrandizing jackass, I feel compelled to mention that I had Patton Kizzire as one of my top ten value picks last week and the son of a bitch actually won by holding-off Rickie Fowler down the stretch (apparently Rickie is already rounding into Luke Donald semi-contention form for the 2018 majors . . . HEYOOOO!!!). And that's it for golf this week because:

(1) It's the middle of November so nobody is watching golf except your dad and your odd friend Barry who smokes cigars, wears matchy outfits and "doesn't really follow football";


(2) There are plenty of other resources like PGATour.com for learning all about who brings their "A" game around Thanksgiving and has three previous top tens at the RSM Classic (Charles Howell, III) so you don't need me to do that sophisticated data crunching; and 


(3) The end of golf season has collided with daylight savings and the onset of seasonal affective disorder meaning that the FGR is literally one left lane clogging self-involved millennial driver on a cell phone away from serving 30 days for a road rage incident. I shouldn't even be interacting with the outside world right now much less broadcasting my thoughts. With that being said, I'm currently working on a hit piece about "soccer people" based on my experience as a coach and parent. It's proving to be very cathartic. Just need to make sure the references to people I know can't be traced back to me. 


Here are this week's picks. Ironically, despite my petulant apathy, I feel pretty good about them and may actually lay-down $4 of my hard earned cash in pursuit of a better life . . .or at least $6.

One and Done Pick: Chesson Hadley
"TURN-OFF THE STOVE BABY . . . 
WE'RE GOING TO CHIPOTLE!!!"


DraftKings Top Ten Value Picks

Chesson Hadley
$10,200
Webb Simpson
$9,800
Charles Howell, III
$9,500
Patton Kizzire
$8,900
Jamie Lovemark
$8,400
Brian Stuard
$7,600
Patrick Rodgers
$7,500
Si Woo Kim
$7,500
J.T. Poston
$7,200
Jonathan Byrd
$7,100

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com. 

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Fantasy Golf: The OHL Classic Preview

Let's go ahead and get the excuses out of the way for why this week's preview is late and lame:

1. I hate golf right now. Actually "hate" might not be the right word. Loathe, despise and abhor would be more appropriate after I suffered one of the worst beats of my illustrious country club career last Friday. I'm not ready to talk about it in any detail right now but let's just say that I blew the chance to win a tournament that would have made be the envy of like seven people (ok maybe more like three). 

2. I just got a new laptop and there's something weird about the keyboard. It's like the keys are shifted one spot to the left so I'm wearing-out the backspace button making corrections only the backspace button isn't where it's supposed to be so half the time I'm hitting the goddamn number lock button and I'm about to THROW THIS FUCKING THING THROUGH THE WALL!!! (Caps lock is apparently right where it's supposed to be).

3. Tuesday night is when roughly 72% of the FGR writing magic happens and this week I had to spend it drafting my ten year old daughter's rec league basketball team. This is one of those parenting experiences for which nothing prepares you because no matter how mellow you tell yourself you have to be going in, it always gets weird at some point thanks to a combination of three recurring characters: (1) Dad who has actually done advance scouting because winning this league will be the crowning achievement of his adult life; (2) Edgy mom who is convinced that all of the dads in the room are conspiring against her and therefore turns every discussion into a pre-fight trash talk scene from Kill Bill: Vol. 1; and (3) Dad who got talked into doing this because the league needed one more coach and then proceeds to get bitter about being run over by glory dad, tiger mom and frankly the rest of us. You know when I'm one of the calming influences in the room, you've found yourself in a truly toxic environment.

Now let's make some golf picks. As usual with the fall tournaments, these are not guaranteed.

The One and Done Pick: Pat Perez
A search for "Pat Perez wife" makes it
clear that they've got this whole pro
golfer lifestyle pretty well figured-out.


The DraftKings Top Ten Value Picks


Pat Perez
$11,300
Chesson Hadley
$9,900
Charley Hoffman
$9,700
Whee Kim
$8,300
Luke List
$7,900
Kevin Streelman
$7,600
Emiliano Grillo
$7,600
Brian Stuard
$7,400
Patton Kizzire
$7,400
Beau Hossler
$6,900

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com. 

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Fantasy Golf: The Shriners Hospitals Open Preview

Funny story about me and Shriners Hospitals (holy shit what're the odds?). My father in-law belongs to one or more organizations affiliated with the Shriners and that's all I'm going to say about that because I don't want to get on the wrong side of the Illuminati. Anyway, several years ago he invited me to attend a bull roast to benefit the Shriner's Hospitals and who doesn't love a good old fashioned bull roast? (Well, me for one but it was free and going with my father in-law put me in good stead with the FGW for at least five minutes). 

"You guys ever been 
to a steeplechase?"
So I got dressed in the standard FGR uniform for hobnobbing with gritty guys including a pair of jeans that you couldn't buy at Sears or Walmart and a tucked-in checkered button down that almost certainly sported a country club logo of some kind. Suffice it to say I was overdressed and looked like the complete douchebag that I was (and currently am). I then spent three hours trying to get drunk on keg beer and yelling above the din about the Ravens, the Orioles and anything else to keep the subjects away from politics and the fact that I'm a golfing lawyer with a taste for Pinot Grigio who still woefully laments the fact that Downton Abbey is gone and never coming back. 

At the end of the event, there was a 50/50 drawing with a first prize of about $1,600 and everyone was riveted as the master of ceremonies read-off the winning number. And then read it off again . . . and again . . . and again for what was seriously like fifteen minutes as people read and re-read their tickets to make sure they weren't the winner. My father in-law had bought me about a dozen (because God forbid I buy my own) and my numbers weren't even close. After a while, however, I noticed a single unspoken for ticket sitting in the middle of an empty part of the table. I picked it up and it was beer soaked, with a spot of barbecue sauce on it but, most importantly, it was the winner.  

The first thing I tried to do was give the ticket to my father in-law (at least that's how I remember it). He of course refused iso I had to walk to the front of the banquet hall rocking my country club guy trying to fit-in look and claim the prize which was directly funded from the pockets of the roughly one thousand real men glaring at me thinking "who in the fuck brought the florist?" 

Whether it was panic, an impulsive urge to do the right thing or both, when I got to the guy with the microphone I told him that I wanted to donate the money to the hospitals. The son of a bitch then made me repeat it into the microphone at which point the crowd cheered and, for one moment, I was a goddamn hero thanks to my Charlie Bucket stroke of luck and the fact that I had consumed enough fizzy lifting drink to convince me that giving away that chunk of money was a good idea (which it probably wasn't). As I was walking back to our table, I overheard a guy say to no one in particular but intentionally loud enough for me to hear, "must be nice to not need $1,600 . . . fucking idiot." In a rare moment of restraint and awareness for my surroundings, I said nothing and kept walking.

And hey look at that, our story has a something of a relevant point as Charley Hoffman has pledged all of his winnings this week to victims of the Las Vegas shooting. For that, he earns our admiration along with top pick because who else could we root for? As for the rest of the line-up, you may detect some overlap with the PGATour.com Power Rankings but that's completely coincidental. I assure you.  

One and Done Pick: Charley Hoffman
Every nickname Charley Hoffman has
ever had must have started with "Big"
 right? "Big Boy" . . . "Big Dog" . . . etc.


DraftKings Top Ten Value Picks

Webb Simpson
$11,000
Ryan Moore
$9,400
Charley Hoffman
$9,000
Kevin Streelman
$8,400
Luke List
$8,300
Smylie Kaufman
$8,200
Nick Taylor
$7,600
Scott Piercy
$7,400
Patton Kizzire
$7,100
Brian Stuard
$6,900

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com.    

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Fantasy Golf: The HSBC Champions Preview

I have to apologize for the lack of a preview last week but it wasn't my fault (never is). How was I supposed to know that something called The CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges in the middle of October was a real golf tournament? I just assumed that it was a nine hole charity event put-on by some international celebrity who I had never heard of with the initials "CJ." (Seriously, that's what I thought it was until the head pro corrected me on Sunday . . . and I still didn't believe him). The name of the event has a goddamn ampersand in it and they played it in the middle of the night for Chrissakes. Honest. I ran out of gas. I . . . I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake . . . 

. . . A terrible flood. Locusts!
IT WASN'T MY FAULT.
I SWEAR TO GOD!
Anyway, I am fully recharged and refocused this week after spending four hours on Sunday morning putting a golf ball thirty-six times to irrevocably taint what would have been an otherwise very enjoyable round. Then I quietly watched a ten year old girls soccer game while everyone around me reenacted the commodities exchange scene from Trading Places. I then followed that with an hour of wandering around and cutting through the walls of a corn maze (but no fucking hayride for this guy). I chose that last activity over watching football which is probably a bad sign for the NFL but more on that in a later episode of the FGR.

This week it's back to golf as we gear-up for one of the more underrated tournaments of the year and I'm not talking about the Sanderson Farms Championship which sounds like it's sponsored by a chicken factory (because it is). Nope. To earn the FGR's attention in October you need to be a big-time WGC event with a world class international field sponsored by a corrupt bank and played in a country where people get paid $2 an hour to make toys for Happy Meals so little Johnny can fondle a plastic Minion while developing early onset arteriosclerosis. (Steps down from soapbox). 

The last four winners of the HSBC are top notch -  Hideki Matsuyama, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and Russell Knox (three out of four ain't bad) and the final leaderboard regularly includes the likes of Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia. Of course those guys aren't playing this year but the line-up is still solid with Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson, Brooks Koepka and certain 2018 major winner, Jon Rahm (remember that you heard it here 7,681st). Right behind them you have Tyrrell Hatton, Ross Fisher and Marc Leishman who have combined for two wins and three runner-ups over the past three weeks. It should be a real hootenanny. Here is some advice on how to wager it.

What they don't tell you on television is that there are 57 
iPhone technicians living in those little orange pyramids 
and being charged $175 per month for a water view.
The One and Done Pick: Ross Fisher

The DraftKings Top Ten Value Picks

Hideki Matsuyama
$11,400
Justin Rose
$10,600
Marc Leishman
$9,900
Paul Casey
$9,400
Ross Fisher
$8,400
Daniel Berger
$8,300
Tyrrell Hatton
$8,200
Tony Finau
$7,700
Thor Oleson
$7,300
Adam Hadwin
$7,100

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com

     

Friday, October 13, 2017

The Country Club Libtard

We skipped the Safeway Open preview last week because the guy who recently changed his Twitter name to "Country Club Libtard" doesn't cover golf tournaments sponsored by grocery stores that would dare sell Cheese Whiz, Miracle Whip and non-bug friendly bug repellent.* The Trader Joe's Open maybe. The Wholefoods Open yes. The Weird Co-Op Where the FGR Picks-Up Vegetables from a Suspicious Box in a School Parking Lot Open . . . where do I sign? Actually, I avoid kumbaya grocery stores like they're the DMV because the overly friendly employees make me uncomfortable and trying to get a shopping cart through the aisles is like trying to deliver furniture to an apartment in downtown Mumbai. ("Don't write this down by I find Milton as boring as you probably find Milton"). 

In truth, the reasons for the brief sabbatical were many and none of them had to do with last week's tournament sponsor. But you don't care about that. Fuck it. Let's go through them anyway. Story time!

Work


Part of my job (yes I have a job . . . a paying job) requires me on occasion to testify at hearings on behalf of my employer and against our employees. (This means I often leave the office expecting to find a street sign through my windshield a la Dalton in Roadhouse). Last week was one of those occasions and it resulted in the loss of four hours of my life that I will never get back, two of which were spent sitting in a waiting room listening to a secretary play Wack-a-Mole with a stapler every thirty seconds thereby ruining any chance of a late morning nap. Let's just say that someone appeared to be having a bad day and the fucking staples were going to pay for it. 


Once I finally finished testifying, I did get the pleasure of this exchange with the judge:

Me: Am I free to go?
"I'm going to need you to sit
down and shut the fuck up."


Judge: Do you have somewhere urgent to be?


Me: Urgent?


Judge: You might want to hear what I have to say.


Me: (Inner voice - "I doubt it") Ok. Will we be much longer?


Judge: (Visibly irritated) Not much longer.


Hey, I'll probably never see that guy again. The lesson there is that it's better to be the client than the lawyer. 


Soccer


I coach a soccer team of 14 year olds and last weekend we had a tournament which is an unnecessarily taxing administrative exercise because trying to get seventeen kids into a weekend soccer tournament is harder than smuggling American embassy workers out of Tehran in 1979 (the references are going to come fast and furious this week so look sharp). The best part is that the parents reward your volunteerism by being super vigilant about returning the necessary forms and providing pertinent information like whether their kid is actually going to show-up (I think he's being sarcastic again). The good news is that we made it all the way to the finals before losing on a bullshit call that the prick ref clearly made to avoid overtime. At least that's what I told the kids.  


Activism


So about a year ago I decided to insert myself into a local dispute over whether a gas station should be built in a place where a gas station definitely should not be built (if you haven't figured it out yet, the movie scene that best defines me is the one from Ferris Bueller's Day Off when Jennifer Grey's character walks into Mr. Rooney's office with a scowl on her face and the secretary says, "Hello Jeannie. Who's bothering you know?"). By last Thanksgiving, I had fully engaged myself and was holed-up in our dining room like Carrie Mathison off her meds with stacks of papers everywhere, diagrams, flow-charts and more conspiracy theories than Oliver Stone on mushrooms.


"You complete me!"
Fast forward to last week and success is within our reach, however, now a new enemy has emerged in the form of the reactionary mob who want to capitalize on our momentum by demanding that the gas station be replaced with a more Earth friendly concept like say a day spa for turtles or a butterfly ranch. It turns-out that community activist kook might be more overzealous than soccer parent kook. I clearly need to start spending more time around the putting green with the guys who smoke cigars and discuss how few fucks they have to give and less time wearing my Captain Righteous cape. 

Golf

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the lingering effects of the previous weekend's Member-Member tournament performance . . . and what a performance it was. On Day #1 we played two nine-hole matches and, after parring the first three holes, I then proceeded to exceed my handicap by eleven shots or, put another way, multiply my handicap times three and then add it to par and that was my score. We were the suckers at the table and we knew we were the suckers at the table.    

In preparation for a better Day #2 performance, I ate three slices of pizza for dinner, washed it down with some red wine and went to a bar with a Grateful Dead cover band until about midnight. For good measure, somewhere along the way I got a giant coffee to ensure that sleeping on my partner's couch would be as restless as possible. Mission accomplished. 

Day #2 began with me waking-up on said couch, putting my clothes from the night before back on and heading to the club an hour before our tee time. Quick shower and a shave (look good play good . . . or something), bowl of oatmeal, couple of putts and we were off. Boom. Double bogey. Here we go again. Except that was followed by birdie, par, par, par, par, birdie, bogey and a par. Seriously, this fucking game. That, combined with my partner adding a par on top of my double and a birdie on one of my pars, put us right back in contention. For about half an hour.

We played the fourth match with less energy than a kid going to the dentist on the morning of the first day of school after discovering that all five of his goldfish had a suicide pact ("Goodbye cruel bowl!"). The fact that I had no idea how far my irons were going started to become a problem so, on our sixth hole, I decided to redirect my frustration by questioning my partner's club selection (he made par and I of course made bogey). By the time that nine was done, we had mathematically eliminated ourselves with another match yet to play. If there's one thing I love more than playing golf badly, it's playing golf badly with no chance of winning a prize and the temporary admiration of my drunk friends.  

As it turned-out, the last match featured the highlight of the weekend. I was riding shotgun in the cart which, for some reason, our caddie was driving and, at the very moment that I caught sight of my ball and decided to step-out, he jammed on the breaks and took a hard left propelling me into a three step sprint followed by a 3/4 somersault that ended with me staring at the clouds. Oh the grass felt so warm and comforting that all I really wanted to do was stay there . . . forever. Unfortunately, my landing spot was in full view of at least two greens and two tee boxes so the last remnant of my pride forced me to get-up quickly and pretend like nothing happened. Miraculously, no one saw me other than the caddie who was mortified meaning that I then had to spend the rest of the hole telling him it was ok. And that brings us to the moral of our story. If you're going to eject a member from the cart, make sure it's the Country Club Libtard.        

Thank you for listening. This has been very cathartic. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go meet with some people about building a vegan steak house.    

Footnote

* Out of countless the hypocrisies that I represent, the food thing might be the most egregious. I am the first to pass judgment on the guy filling-up his 32 oz Dr. Pepper at 7-11 as I dilute my coffee with chemically engineered faux dairy crap. And don't think I won't consider alerting child protective services if I see you walking into McDonald's with your kids as me and mine exit Five Guys with a five pound paper bag full of fried potatoes and salt. I think this all started when I switched my go-to breakfast from cereal to kale smoothies. Somehow that turned me into a nutrivangelist Joel Osteen flying around in my private jet fueled by Chick-fil-a sauce to preach about the sins of excess as I conclude every order with ". . . and let's put some bacon on that."  

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com.