Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Fantasy Golf: The Honda Classic Preview

I'm officially slumping and I think I know why. It's gotten way too golfy around here lately and golfyness leads to overthinking which leads to the inevitable week every year when I pick Jon Rahm at precisely the wrong time. In my defense, he is one mercurial dude and I'm not sure I would have been much happier if I had gone with my other pick of Justin Thomas because his 9th place finish was just low enough to feel like it would've been a wasted pick. Now I still have the chance to waste him later.

Seven straight top tens followed
by a tie for 45th? Yeah. WTF?
Before we deal with this week's analysis, I need to scrape-off some angst build-up that I accumulated over the weekend. First, we had the Jon Rahm debacle and the writing was on the wall early for that. Add Dustin Johnson on cruise control and it made the whole tournament pretty much unwatchable for me because I prefer to sulk. I did tune at one point to see him fly a 3-wood right into the middle of a fucking pond at which point Roger Maltbie or Scott Hoch asked incredulously "what was that?!?" Indeed.

When I find myself in such times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me or something and I head to the local YMCA pool to swim laps for an hour or at least until I stop grinding my teeth. Under the water is generally a safe place for me away from work, golf leaderboards and that nagging feeling that I'm wasting a significant chunk of my life writing a fantasy golf website that doles-out bad advice to a smattering of derelict readers. 

As you can imagine, Sunday morning at any YMCA is quite the shit show but this past Sunday at the pool was an especially large assembly of scantily clad humanity. Things got off to a rocky start when I set down my swimming stuff (yes there is swimming stuff) at the end of the only available half a lap lane to reserve my spot and, in the fifteen seconds it took for me to turn around and put my bag on a bench, some dude jumped into it. So first I had to throw that fucker out which generated a bit of angst but that was just a preview.

About a half an hour later I was finally settling into some kind of groove with an elderly gentleman doing the breaststroke version of a casual stroll next to me when I looked to the other end of the pool and saw a woman swimming straight at me like she wanted to play chicken. When she got close enough for me to ask her why she was a stupid person, she suggested that the three of us could swim in a circle pattern which is not uncommon when three share a lane but it's not very efficient when one of the three is floating back and forth like a log. Oh yeah, you also don't propose it by surreptitiously jumping in and swimming directly at someone. 

After explaining to the woman that this was not going to happen, I continued swimming thinking that the matter had been settled only the next time I looked up this vacuous moron was bobbing along two feet behind the sea turtle guy. Jesus Pole Vaulting Christ . . . my next word to this lady was "look" and I have no idea what I said after that but I do know that it was said with some vigor because she left and I spent the next few laps swimming like I was trying to get away from a shark or the sound of an Imagine Dragons song. Other than looking over my shoulder as I left the gym in case there was a pissed-off husband waiting to cold-cock me, that was the end of it. 

The rest of Sunday went by uneventfully unless you count me coaching my son's rec basketball team to a crushing championship game defeat with some help from two refs who were apparently getting paid per whistle blow. That may have something to do with my current mood (you think?). I need some cheering-up.          

@GOLFBABES TWEET OF THE WEEK

In our ongoing mission to further the mission of the Twitter account devoted to furthering the mission of women's golf, I think we're going to make the @golfbabes tweet of the week part of our regularly scheduled programming.

Let;s go ahead and make short work of the golf this week because there really ain't that much to say. If you're picking one guy, it's Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott or Sergio Garcia (because you're not rolling the dice on Brooks Koepka here). Go with your gut and good luck. From there it gets really thin really quickly though it looks like Russell Knox may have rediscovered his game a bit and he is one of the few along with Michael Thompson and Graeme McDowell who really seem to like this track. 

Brace yourself for several hours
of Dan Hicks genuflecting to this.
One and Done Pick: Adam Scott

Other Guy I'd Pick: Sergio Garcia


Sleeper Pick: Patrick Rodgers


DraftKings Top Ten Values


Adam Scott
$10,300
Sergio Garcia
$10,000
Luke List
$9,200
Lucas Glover
$8,800
Scott Piercy
$8,100
Michael Thompson
$8,000
Russell Knox
$7,800
Graeme McDowell
$7,600
Patrick Rodgers
$7,100
Stewart Cink
$6,800

As noted above, our run of elite fields comes to an end this week as we barely go seven deep at the top. When you gotta shell-out $8,400 for J.T. Poston . . . sheesh. 

                                   THE LEVITRA GET BACK IN THE GAME
                                     HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE CHART


DK Price
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
Justin Thomas
$11,900
1st
MC
T3
MC
DNP
Rickie Fowler
$11,200
MC
1st
T6
T41
T24
Brooks Koepka
$10,700
DNP
MC
T26
T51
T33
Adam Scott
$10,300
T13
T14
1st
DNP
T12
Sergio Garcia
$10,000
T33
T14
2nd
T31
T8
Gary Woodland
$9,800
T49
T2
T61
DNP
DNP
Webb Simpson
$9,600
T5
DNP
DNP
DNP
DNP
Cameron Smith
$9,500
DNP
DNP
DNP
DNP
DNP
Daniel Berger
$9,400
T29
MC
MC
2nd
DNP
Billy Horschel
$9,300
MC
T4
T8
MC
MC
Luke List
$9,200
2nd
T52
T10
DNP
DNP
Byeon Hun An
$9,100
T5
DNP
DNP
DNP
DNP
Alex Noren
$9,000
3rd
DNP
DNP
DNP
DNP
Emiliano Grillo
$8,900
T8
T43
T74
DNP
DNP
Lucas Glover
$8,800
T17
T21
MC
MC
MC
Zach Johnson
$8,700
DNP
T27
MC
MC
T33
Russell Henley
$8,600
T24
T43
MC
T44
1st
J.T. Poston
$8,400
DNP
T27
DNP
DNP
DNP
Kiradech Aphibarnrat
$8,200
T68
DNP
DNP
DNP
DNP
Scott Piercy
$8,100
T17
DNP
MC
T31
DNP
Michael Thompson
$8,000
T24
MC
T53
T44
MC
C.T. Pan
$7,800
T17
T37
DNP
DNP
DNP
Russell Knox
$7,800
MC
MC
T26
T3
T2
Chesson Hadley
$7,700
MC
DNP
T21
MC
T24
Graeme McDowell
$7,600
MC
T14
5th
MC
T46
Jimmy Walker
$7,500
T33
T21
T43
DNP
DNP
Kelly Kraft
$7,500
T8
MC
DNP
DNP
DNP
Scott Brown
$7,400
T46
T57
T10
MC
T71
Brian Harman
$7,300
T33
T48
MC
T11
T58
Bud Cauley
$7,200
W/D
T27
DNP
DNP
DNP
Jason Dufner
$7,200
T17
T14
T61
T17
DNP
Ryan Palmer
$7,200
MC
T37
T26
T25
T2
Martin Kaymer
$7,100
W/D
T4
MC
T44
MC
Patrick Rodgers
$7,100
T33
MC
MC
T44
DNP
Brendan Steele
$7,000
DNP
T14
T14
T11
T33
Harris English
$7,000
T33
T60
DNP
MC
DNP
Sung Kang
$7,000
MC
T52
T10
DNP
DNP
Nick Watney
$6,900
T33
T14
DNP
T41
T24
Jhonny Vegas
$6,800
T72
T4
DNP
MC
T12
Stewart Cink
$6,800
T46
T27
T26
T31
T58

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com