Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Fantasy Golf: The Byron Nelson Preview

Thin preview this week as we recover from the cheap wine hangover brought on by a Players Championship which shattered the record for differential between hype and entertainment or, as Dan Hicks will ultimately refer to it, "A TOURNAMENT FOR THE AGES!!!" I don't want to brag that I saw this coming but on Saturday I wrote, "let's just pray that this doesn't devolve into a late Sunday duel between Kyle Stanley, Patrick Cantlay and Si Woo Kim." So I kind of called it . . . if you leave out the part about it being a "duel." 

Late in the broadcast when it became clear that no player of current consequence was going to contend and shortly after defending champion Jason Day rinsed three balls on 16 and 17, Hicks made an asinine comment about how challenging the course was as evidenced by the fact that no players ranked in the top ten were going to finish top ten on Sunday and two of them (Day and Justin Rose) just shot 80. Hate to break it to you Dan but when your winner was ranked 75th in the world and the average ranking of your top five was 103rd, it doesn't mean the course was tough. It means the course sucks.

The whole Players shit show can basically be summed-up with one shot and that was Rafa Cabrera Bello's second on Sunday at the par five 16th. He hit what he probably thought was an okay 8-iron a little short and left that kicked-off a mound to the right and went into the hole for a double eagle. An "A+" result for a "B-" shot. For every one of those there was also an "A+" shot that yielded a "B-" result and a lot of "B-" shots that produced "F" results. That's TPC Sawgrass in a nutshell. They should change the name to "TPC Blind Squirrel" or  "Lucky Bounce National" (I also like "Dump National" but Brandt Snedeker's caddie already bestowed that on the dog track at Doral in honor of its figurehead). 

Let's move on because this week we head back to Texas and we all know that that means . . .  smokin' hot cowgirls! You gotta like Brooks Koepka considering he's playing fairly well and he had this tournament in the bag last year before going full head case and handing it to Sergio Garcia. Dustin Johnson is the favorite at a ridiculous 4/1 to win so, if you haven't pulled the trigger on him yet, this could be the spot though the field includes Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and a handful of others who could get in his way and slow him down. I think that's where we are with D.J. right now. Full freight train waiting for someone like Jon Rahm or Rory McIlroy to find the emergency brake. Either them or a cheesy Pete Dye golf course (I know . . . I need to let it go).

Forgive me if this is an FGR
repeat. I figured you'd understand.
The One and Done Pick: Brooks Koepka

The DraftKings Top Ten Values

Dustin Johnson
$12,500
Brooks Koepka
$10,200
Jason Dufner
$8,800
Matt Kuchar
$8,700
Charley Hoffman
$8,500
Byeong-Hun An
$8,000
Bud Cauley
$7,800
Kevin Tway
$7,700
Smylie Kaufman
$7,100
Keegan Bradley
$6,900

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com        

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