This gig has never been tougher. Consider this. Let's say you had gotten off to a rough start to the one and done season so you might have been inspired to make a bold move at the Genesis Open where you had two of the most stone cold lead pipe locks of the season in Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson who, over the past five years, have combined for four wins, two runner-ups and a 4th place finish. By that math, there was a 70% chance that one of them would finish in the top four and a 60% chance that it would be a win or a runner-up. It was like picking Seabiscuit or War Admiral in a donkey race.
But not this week as D.J. finished tied for 9th and Bubba finished tied for 16th. Not awful but certainly not what you expected when you mortgaged a chunk of your future having lost the chance to use D.J. for the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach or Bubba for the Masters. Hopefully you listened to me and hedged with either Tony Finau or Patrick Cantlay and, if you're one of the jamokes in my league who picked Justin Thomas, I hope you enjoyed those three putts. Suckers. But I digress. My point is that if you picked Bubba or D.J., it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. DON'T FUCK WITH ME SEAN . . . NOT YOU!!!
And we're back. Look, J.B. Holmes is a random lurking threat who can show-up anywhere and at anytime to grind a field into submission* and this just happened to be one of those weeks. The other guys who squeezed D.J. and Bubba off the top of the leaderboard were perennial top five guys Thomas, Rory McIlroy and Marc Leishman along with "remember me?" Si Woo Kim who likes to mix missed cuts with high finishes like they're vodka and Gatorade (mmmm just thinking of that makes me feel like summertime).
So what can we do to combat these forces that conspire against us? More research!!! You ready to geek out? Let's geek out.
I've been tinkering in the RV meth lab of my brain with this idea of combining (1) a player's most recent five finishes in any tournament with (2) his average finish on this week's course to come-up with a single number for ranking purposes and then giving that number a really painful self-aggrandizing name like the "FGR Factor." This week's tournament presents the perfect opportunity to test this out because they've only played Club de Golf Chapultepec twice making the research easy and the field is loaded so we get a preview of how the best players stack-up against each other. This thing is going to blow our minds for the Masters and The Players.
The complete list of every player I considered ranked by DraftKings price is below but here is what the top fifteen looks like when we rank them by the FGR Factor.
Based on this and just about any other metric you want to use this week, Justin Thomas is clearly the man. He is both the hottest player coming in and he has the best track record in Mexico. So of course I'm going to ignore the research and pick someone else and here's why: (a) I think there is going to be a bit of a hangover from the rogering that Riviera gave him on Sunday and (b) I have a gut feeling that Jon Rahm is about to get on the board with his first elite field win (major, WGC, Players, etc.) and no I am not counting the freakin' Hero World Challenge though it doesn't hurt that he won that in the midst of his current seven consecutive top ten run. If he didn't have the tie for 20th at last year's WGC-Mexico, then he would be right there with Thomas in the rankings and that 2018 finish was an anomaly as it came during a rare mediocre run for Rahm. He is on no such run now my friends. No sir.
As for the rest of the top ten, you have to like Sergio Garcia based on the tournaments he's played lately where he hasn't tried to renovate the greens and you also have to take a look at Tyrrell Hatton who has a tie for 3rd and a tie for 10th on his two trips to Mexico. At $7,300, they're begging you to pick him and you should give them what they want. I'm also banking on the fact that a Swedish guy named Alex is going to have a good week.
One and Done Pick: Jon Rahm
Other Guy I'd Pick: Justin Thomas
Sleeper Pick: Tyrrell Hatton
DraftKings Top Ten
And here is every other player I remotely considered. Note that you don't get to have an FGR Factor if you've never played the course. If, however, you played it once we'll let you slide-in with that finish as your average . . . but we're not happy about it. The main players this affects are Tiger and Bryson DeChambeau but I don't like either of them this week and not just because they don't fit into my nifty little rating system. It's because of other reasons that I don't want to get into right now. Sorry. It's not them. It's me.
THE HORMEL VEGETARIAN CHILI
HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE CHART
Footnote
* There was a lot of good Twitter fodder on J.B. "The Putting Sloth" Holmes but holy shit . . . this one takes the cake:
But not this week as D.J. finished tied for 9th and Bubba finished tied for 16th. Not awful but certainly not what you expected when you mortgaged a chunk of your future having lost the chance to use D.J. for the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach or Bubba for the Masters. Hopefully you listened to me and hedged with either Tony Finau or Patrick Cantlay and, if you're one of the jamokes in my league who picked Justin Thomas, I hope you enjoyed those three putts. Suckers. But I digress. My point is that if you picked Bubba or D.J., it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. DON'T FUCK WITH ME SEAN . . . NOT YOU!!!
And we're back. Look, J.B. Holmes is a random lurking threat who can show-up anywhere and at anytime to grind a field into submission* and this just happened to be one of those weeks. The other guys who squeezed D.J. and Bubba off the top of the leaderboard were perennial top five guys Thomas, Rory McIlroy and Marc Leishman along with "remember me?" Si Woo Kim who likes to mix missed cuts with high finishes like they're vodka and Gatorade (mmmm just thinking of that makes me feel like summertime).
So what can we do to combat these forces that conspire against us? More research!!! You ready to geek out? Let's geek out.
 |
| "Stay with me here people!" |
The complete list of every player I considered ranked by DraftKings price is below but here is what the top fifteen looks like when we rank them by the FGR Factor.
DK Price
|
2018
|
2017
|
Last 5
|
FGR
|
|
Justin Thomas
|
$11,800
|
2nd
|
T5
|
5.8
|
9.3
|
Dustin Johnson
|
$11,500
|
T7
|
1st
|
12.0
|
16
|
Rory McIlroy
|
$11,100
|
DNP
|
T7
|
10.8
|
17.8
|
Jon Rahm
|
$10,700
|
T20
|
T3
|
6.4
|
17.9
|
Phil Mickelson
|
$9,300
|
1st
|
T7
|
17.4
|
21.4
|
Sergio Garcia
|
$8,000
|
T7
|
T12
|
12.4
|
21.9
|
Paul Casey
|
$8,600
|
T12
|
T16
|
12.2
|
26.2
|
T. Fleetwood
|
$8,200
|
T14
|
2nd
|
23.2
|
31.2
|
Rickie Fowler
|
$10,300
|
T37
|
T16
|
7.2
|
33.7
|
Rafa Cabrera-Bello
|
$7,800
|
T3
|
T38
|
16.4
|
36.9
|
Patrick Cantlay
|
$8,500
|
T30
|
DNP
|
10.0
|
40
|
Tyrrell Hatton
|
$7,300
|
T3
|
10th
|
35.4
|
41.9
|
Bubba Watson
|
$8,400
|
T9
|
T38
|
19.0
|
42.5
|
Marc Leishman
|
$8,700
|
T37
|
DNP
|
6.2
|
43.2
|
Lee Westwood
|
$7,100
|
DNP
|
T28
|
15.8
|
43.8
|
Based on this and just about any other metric you want to use this week, Justin Thomas is clearly the man. He is both the hottest player coming in and he has the best track record in Mexico. So of course I'm going to ignore the research and pick someone else and here's why: (a) I think there is going to be a bit of a hangover from the rogering that Riviera gave him on Sunday and (b) I have a gut feeling that Jon Rahm is about to get on the board with his first elite field win (major, WGC, Players, etc.) and no I am not counting the freakin' Hero World Challenge though it doesn't hurt that he won that in the midst of his current seven consecutive top ten run. If he didn't have the tie for 20th at last year's WGC-Mexico, then he would be right there with Thomas in the rankings and that 2018 finish was an anomaly as it came during a rare mediocre run for Rahm. He is on no such run now my friends. No sir.
As for the rest of the top ten, you have to like Sergio Garcia based on the tournaments he's played lately where he hasn't tried to renovate the greens and you also have to take a look at Tyrrell Hatton who has a tie for 3rd and a tie for 10th on his two trips to Mexico. At $7,300, they're begging you to pick him and you should give them what they want. I'm also banking on the fact that a Swedish guy named Alex is going to have a good week.
 |
| This is one of my top five favorite partial pictures of a horse statute. |
Other Guy I'd Pick: Justin Thomas
Sleeper Pick: Tyrrell Hatton
DraftKings Top Ten
Justin Thomas
|
$11,800
|
Jon Rahm
|
$10,700
|
Tony Finau
|
$8,900
|
Paul Casey
|
$8,600
|
Sergio Garcia
|
$8,000
|
Rafa Cabrera-Bello
|
$7,800
|
Louis Oosthuizen
|
$7,500
|
Tyrrell Hatton
|
$7,300
|
Alex Noren
|
$7,100
|
Alexander Bjork
|
$6,100
|
And here is every other player I remotely considered. Note that you don't get to have an FGR Factor if you've never played the course. If, however, you played it once we'll let you slide-in with that finish as your average . . . but we're not happy about it. The main players this affects are Tiger and Bryson DeChambeau but I don't like either of them this week and not just because they don't fit into my nifty little rating system. It's because of other reasons that I don't want to get into right now. Sorry. It's not them. It's me.
THE HORMEL VEGETARIAN CHILI
HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE CHART
DK Price
|
2018
|
2017
|
Last 5
|
FGR
|
|
Justin Thomas
|
$11,800
|
2nd
|
T5
|
5.8
|
9.3
|
Dustin Johnson
|
$11,500
|
T7
|
1st
|
12.0
|
16
|
Rory McIlroy
|
$11,100
|
DNP
|
T7
|
10.8
|
17.8
|
Jon Rahm
|
$10,700
|
T20
|
T3
|
6.4
|
17.9
|
Rickie Fowler
|
$10,300
|
T37
|
T16
|
7.2
|
33.7
|
Bryson DeChambeau
|
$10,000
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
7.2
|
N/A
|
Brooks Koepka
|
$9,800
|
DNP
|
T48
|
12.4
|
60.4
|
Tiger Woods
|
$9,500
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
11.8
|
N/A
|
Phil Mickelson
|
$9,300
|
1st
|
T7
|
17.4
|
21.4
|
Hideki Matsuyama
|
$9,000
|
DNP
|
T25
|
23.4
|
48.4
|
Tony Finau
|
$8,900
|
T27
|
DNP
|
23.6
|
50.6
|
Jordan Spieth
|
$8,800
|
T14
|
T12
|
53.2
|
66.2
|
Marc Leishman
|
$8,700
|
T37
|
DNP
|
6.2
|
43.2
|
Paul Casey
|
$8,600
|
T12
|
T16
|
12.2
|
26.2
|
Patrick Cantlay
|
$8,500
|
T30
|
DNP
|
10.0
|
40
|
Bubba Watson
|
$8,400
|
T9
|
T38
|
19.0
|
42.5
|
Webb Simpson
|
$8,300
|
T37
|
DNP
|
7.2
|
44.2
|
T. Fleetwood
|
$8,200
|
T14
|
2nd
|
23.2
|
31.2
|
Sergio Garcia
|
$8,000
|
T7
|
T12
|
12.4
|
21.9
|
Patrick Reed
|
$8,000
|
T37
|
T61
|
23.6
|
72.6
|
Gary Woodland
|
$7,900
|
T50
|
T38
|
13.4
|
57.4
|
Ian Poulter
|
$7,900
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
13.2
|
N/A
|
Rafa Cabrera-Bello
|
$7,800
|
T3
|
T38
|
16.4
|
36.9
|
Charles Howell, III
|
$7,800
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
9.8
|
N/A
|
Matt Kuchar
|
$7,700
|
T58
|
T20
|
13.8
|
52.8
|
Billy Horschel
|
$7,700
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
20.8
|
N/A
|
Louis Oosthuizen
|
$7,500
|
T30
|
T48
|
8.8
|
47.8
|
HaoTong Li
|
$7,400
|
63rd
|
DNP
|
10.8
|
73.8
|
Cameron Smith
|
$7,400
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
11.4
|
N/A
|
Tyrrell Hatton
|
$7,300
|
T3
|
10th
|
35.4
|
41.9
|
Joost Luiten
|
$7,300
|
T37
|
T25
|
16.2
|
47.2
|
Kevin Kisner
|
$7,200
|
29th
|
11th
|
37.4
|
57.4
|
Shane Lowry
|
$7,200
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
18.4
|
N/A
|
Lee Westwood
|
$7,100
|
DNP
|
T28
|
15.8
|
43.8
|
Alex Noren
|
$7,100
|
T14
|
T55
|
22.6
|
57.1
|
Thor Oleson
|
$7,000
|
DNP
|
T63
|
29.2
|
92.2
|
Keegan Bradley
|
$7,000
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
31.8
|
N/A
|
Emiliano Grillo
|
$6,900
|
DNP
|
T52
|
18.4
|
70.4
|
Eddie Pepperell
|
$6,900
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
42.4
|
N/A
|
Branden Grace
|
$6,800
|
T30
|
T32
|
33.2
|
64.2
|
Russell Knox
|
$6,800
|
DNP
|
70th
|
23.8
|
93.8
|
Kiradech Aphibarnrat
|
$6,700
|
T5
|
DNP
|
43.2
|
48.2
|
Danny Willett
|
$6,600
|
DNP
|
69th
|
23.2
|
92.2
|
Kyle Stanley
|
$6,400
|
T25
|
DNP
|
54.0
|
79
|
Alexander Bjork
|
$6,100
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
21.2
|
N/A
|
Footnote
* There was a lot of good Twitter fodder on J.B. "The Putting Sloth" Holmes but holy shit . . . this one takes the cake:
Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com.This is so cool. When JB teed off in the final round, his wife had just told him she was pregnant. Then he holes out on 18 & gets to finally meet his two-year-old. https://t.co/NSq4SCPx4C— Scott Warren (@scott___warren) February 18, 2019
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