On the first day after a week of vacation I always set my alarm for an unrealistic time like 5:30 a.m. under the absurd notion that I am going to hit the ground running with a renewed sense of purpose. I then proceed to lay there for about three hours in a state of existential crisis debating whether I should even go to work that day . . . or ever. Eventually two things motivate me to fall-out of bed, put on my khakis and get back in the game. The first is the sound of the children in my head crying "daddy daddy we are so hungry and we need bread and shoes and new iPhones and faster WiFi." The second is writing the Fantasy Golf Report and providing unique (if not profitable) insight as an alternative to the often mindless drivel rendered by more established golf websites. Allow me to elaborate.
Yesterday the staff at PGATour.com posted a preview of each group for the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. Their format was was useful as they provided a little background on each player, a match schedule and analysis of the overall group. Then they added an "Expert Pick" where a staff member identified the player who would advance to the Round of 16 and that's where they lost me. Here are the sixteen guys they picked along with their overall seed in the tournament (see if you can detect a trend): Dustin Johnson (1), Justin Rose (2), Brooks Koepka (3), Rory McIlroy (4), Justin Thomas (5), Bryson DeChambeau (6). Francesco Molinari (7), Jon Rahm (8), Xander Schauffele (9), Paul Casey (10), Tommy Fleetwood (11), Jim Furyk (52)(HALLELUJAH!!!), Tiger Woods (13), Ian Poulter (30), Bubba Watson (15) and Shane Lowry (46).
Three upsets. They only picked three upsets and one of them is match-play wizard Ian Poulter over Tony Finau so that doesn't even count. Applying that logic one would be led to believe that last year was some kind of fluke when Justin Thomas, Sergio Garcia, Matt Kuchar, Tyrrell Hatton and Alex Noren were the only favorites to make it out of the group stage. The year before thought also saw only five of the top sixteen survive. If you want an even somewhat chalky year, you have to go back to 2016 when eight of the top sixteen seeds advanced and we actually had a #2 v. #3 semifinal match-up between Rory and Day but that's still only half and it's the outlier.
So if you know that somewhere between five and eight favorites will advance, why would you cop-out and pick thirteen? Because you're scared to be wrong. Well if we've learned nothing else over the past eight years, I have absolutely no fear of being wrong so below is a more realistic projection that may be a complete whiff but at least I'm taking a swing and not just standing there like Rudi Stein hoping I get hit by a pitch. But before we get ahead of ourselves . . .
@GOLFBABES TWEET OF THE WEEK
THE MATCH PLAY ANALYSIS
Here comes a whole boatload of information starting with the one and done pick along with the projected group winners in DraftKings format. I swallowed a bit too much of my own Kool-Aid because I only have five favorites advancing to the Round of 16 when I think it should be more like six or seven. If I was going to back-off of any of them, it would be Matsuyama over D.J. and/or Wallace over Thomas but the fact is that at least two of the top four and probably five of the top eight aren't going to make it past Friday so you gotta make some tough calls. Just seems like Rory and Koepka have the easiest roads to the weekend.
From there here's how I see it shaking-out. Matsuyama hits his match-play ceiling against Sergio and Westwood (who has been playing great) puts on a ball-striking clinic against Kuchar while Phil and Rory overwhelm Wallace and Snedeker with power and charisma. In a test of who hits the fewest unsightly putts inside of five feet, Sergio beats Westwood and Phil finally comes unglued in a 6&5 blowout loss to Rory. Then Rory's putter catches-up to him which paves the way for Sergio into the final.
On the other side of the bracket, Woodland outslugs Watson and Molinari keeps doing his thing to methodically get past Chucky Triple Sticks. DeChambeau takes-out Oosthuizen and Poulter tops Koepka in a pair of matches that are final four worthy which makes you wonder if they need to figure-out a better way to seed this thing. (I have no idea how you would do that but I've always been better at identifying problems than solving them). In the quarters, Molinari grinds down Woodland and DeChambeau drains the life out of Poulter in step one of his plan to avenge his Ryder Cup embarrassment. Step two comes when he beats Molinari in front of a home crowd rooting against him.
That sets-up a Garcia v. DeChambeau final that only Dan Hicks could love (because Dan Hicks loves everything that NBC Sports pays him to love a little too much). The brooding, sulking and utter disbelief over every unlucky bounce is going to be off the charts. In the end, Bryson and his crazy kooky way of playing golf with clubs that are all the same length (THAT IS FUCKING INSANE MAN!!!) are vindicated. None of us want this outcome but you know I'm right and the sooner we all accept it, the sooner the healing can begin. Don't worry. We'll get through this together.
One and Done Pick: Bryson DeChambeau
Other Guy I'd Pick: Sergio Garcia
Sleeper Pick: Lee Westwood
DraftKings Top Sixteen Values
We're only going back three years on the results this week because that is exactly how long they've been playing this event at Austin Country Club. I've only included the fifty players I think have a chance to make any noise past the group stage but if you want to take a flyer on Lucas Bjerregaard or Justin Harding, be my guest. To jazz things up a bit, I've added a column showing the average World Golf Ranking points earned by each player over his past six tournaments (while dropping the lowest score). I'm not sure it really tells us anything useful but it looks cool. Kind of like a racing stripe on an El Camino.
THE DELL STILL WAITING FOR UPDATES TO LOAD
HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE CHART
Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com.
Yesterday the staff at PGATour.com posted a preview of each group for the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. Their format was was useful as they provided a little background on each player, a match schedule and analysis of the overall group. Then they added an "Expert Pick" where a staff member identified the player who would advance to the Round of 16 and that's where they lost me. Here are the sixteen guys they picked along with their overall seed in the tournament (see if you can detect a trend): Dustin Johnson (1), Justin Rose (2), Brooks Koepka (3), Rory McIlroy (4), Justin Thomas (5), Bryson DeChambeau (6). Francesco Molinari (7), Jon Rahm (8), Xander Schauffele (9), Paul Casey (10), Tommy Fleetwood (11), Jim Furyk (52)(HALLELUJAH!!!), Tiger Woods (13), Ian Poulter (30), Bubba Watson (15) and Shane Lowry (46).
Three upsets. They only picked three upsets and one of them is match-play wizard Ian Poulter over Tony Finau so that doesn't even count. Applying that logic one would be led to believe that last year was some kind of fluke when Justin Thomas, Sergio Garcia, Matt Kuchar, Tyrrell Hatton and Alex Noren were the only favorites to make it out of the group stage. The year before thought also saw only five of the top sixteen survive. If you want an even somewhat chalky year, you have to go back to 2016 when eight of the top sixteen seeds advanced and we actually had a #2 v. #3 semifinal match-up between Rory and Day but that's still only half and it's the outlier.
So if you know that somewhere between five and eight favorites will advance, why would you cop-out and pick thirteen? Because you're scared to be wrong. Well if we've learned nothing else over the past eight years, I have absolutely no fear of being wrong so below is a more realistic projection that may be a complete whiff but at least I'm taking a swing and not just standing there like Rudi Stein hoping I get hit by a pitch. But before we get ahead of ourselves . . .
@GOLFBABES TWEET OF THE WEEK
Oh it's just @SydneeMichaels playing around in her backyard while looking like a model. No biggie. https://t.co/HD8MnmHgP7 pic.twitter.com/LTlQarLTkZ— Golf Babes (@golfbabes) March 23, 2019
THE MATCH PLAY ANALYSIS
Here comes a whole boatload of information starting with the one and done pick along with the projected group winners in DraftKings format. I swallowed a bit too much of my own Kool-Aid because I only have five favorites advancing to the Round of 16 when I think it should be more like six or seven. If I was going to back-off of any of them, it would be Matsuyama over D.J. and/or Wallace over Thomas but the fact is that at least two of the top four and probably five of the top eight aren't going to make it past Friday so you gotta make some tough calls. Just seems like Rory and Koepka have the easiest roads to the weekend.
From there here's how I see it shaking-out. Matsuyama hits his match-play ceiling against Sergio and Westwood (who has been playing great) puts on a ball-striking clinic against Kuchar while Phil and Rory overwhelm Wallace and Snedeker with power and charisma. In a test of who hits the fewest unsightly putts inside of five feet, Sergio beats Westwood and Phil finally comes unglued in a 6&5 blowout loss to Rory. Then Rory's putter catches-up to him which paves the way for Sergio into the final.
On the other side of the bracket, Woodland outslugs Watson and Molinari keeps doing his thing to methodically get past Chucky Triple Sticks. DeChambeau takes-out Oosthuizen and Poulter tops Koepka in a pair of matches that are final four worthy which makes you wonder if they need to figure-out a better way to seed this thing. (I have no idea how you would do that but I've always been better at identifying problems than solving them). In the quarters, Molinari grinds down Woodland and DeChambeau drains the life out of Poulter in step one of his plan to avenge his Ryder Cup embarrassment. Step two comes when he beats Molinari in front of a home crowd rooting against him.
That sets-up a Garcia v. DeChambeau final that only Dan Hicks could love (because Dan Hicks loves everything that NBC Sports pays him to love a little too much). The brooding, sulking and utter disbelief over every unlucky bounce is going to be off the charts. In the end, Bryson and his crazy kooky way of playing golf with clubs that are all the same length (THAT IS FUCKING INSANE MAN!!!) are vindicated. None of us want this outcome but you know I'm right and the sooner we all accept it, the sooner the healing can begin. Don't worry. We'll get through this together.
 |
| Who wouldn't want to see this clean-cut seemingly well-adjusted and completely normal young man in a ridiculous hat win another match-play trophy? |
Other Guy I'd Pick: Sergio Garcia
Sleeper Pick: Lee Westwood
DraftKings Top Sixteen Values
|
Rory McIlroy
|
$11,700
|
|
Brooks Koepka
|
$10,300
|
|
Bryson DeChambeau
|
$9,500
|
|
Francesco Molinari
|
$9,300
|
|
Bubba Watson
|
$8,900
|
|
Sergio Garcia
|
$8,500
|
|
Hideki Matsuyama
|
$8,200
|
|
Matt Kuchar
|
$8,100
|
|
Phil Mickelson
|
$8,000
|
|
Brandt Snedeker
|
$7,800
|
|
Gary Woodland
|
$7,800
|
|
Ian Poulter
|
$7,700
|
|
Louis Oosthuizen
|
$7,500
|
|
Charles Howell, III
|
$7,400
|
|
Matt Wallace
|
$7,100
|
|
Lee Westwood
|
$6,600
|
THE DELL STILL WAITING FOR UPDATES TO LOAD
HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE CHART
|
|
DK Price
|
2018
|
2017
|
2016
|
WGR
|
|
Rory McIlroy
|
$11,700
|
T36
|
T30
|
4th
|
33.34
|
|
Dustin Johnson
|
$11,400
|
T59
|
1st
|
T5
|
30.71
|
|
Justin Thomas
|
$11,000
|
4th
|
T39
|
T61
|
15.75
|
|
Jon Rahm
|
$10,600
|
T52
|
2nd
|
DNP
|
8.92
|
|
Brooks Koepka
|
$10,300
|
DNP
|
T9
|
T5
|
7.11
|
|
Justin Rose
|
$10,000
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
T28
|
15.02
|
|
Jason Day
|
$9,800
|
T36
|
T58
|
1st
|
8.52
|
|
Tommy Fleetwood
|
$9,600
|
T17
|
T39
|
DNP
|
4.95
|
|
Bryson DeChambeau
|
$9,500
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
13.17
|
|
Xander Schauffele
|
$9,400
|
T17
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
15.46
|
|
Francesco Molinari
|
$9,300
|
T17
|
T58
|
DNP
|
15.37
|
|
Tiger Woods
|
$9,200
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
2.31
|
|
Paul Casey
|
$9,100
|
T17
|
T9
|
T61
|
23.1
|
|
Tony Finau
|
$9,000
|
T17
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
4.02
|
|
Bubba Watson
|
$8,900
|
1st
|
T9
|
T28
|
7.99
|
|
Marc Leishman
|
$8,800
|
T52
|
T9
|
T51
|
11.05
|
|
Jordan Spieth
|
$8,700
|
T17
|
T30
|
T9
|
1.29
|
|
Patrick Reed
|
$8,600
|
T9
|
T51
|
T9
|
2.56
|
|
Sergio Garcia
|
$8,500
|
T9
|
T30
|
T18
|
5.3
|
|
Patrick Cantlay
|
$8,400
|
T17
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
6.73
|
|
Webb Simpson
|
$8,300
|
T29
|
T58
|
DNP
|
4.47
|
|
Hideki Matsuyama
|
$8,200
|
T36
|
T51
|
T18
|
9.99
|
|
Matt Kuchar
|
$8,100
|
T9
|
T30
|
T9
|
7.32
|
|
Phil Mickelson
|
$8,000
|
T17
|
T5
|
T18
|
10.13
|
|
Cameron Smith
|
$7,900
|
T5
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
5.74
|
|
Brandt Snedeker
|
$7,800
|
DNP
|
T17
|
T9
|
4.03
|
|
Gary Woodland
|
$7,800
|
T29
|
T39
|
DNP
|
5.63
|
|
Ian Poulter
|
$7,700
|
T5
|
DNP
|
T28
|
11.13
|
|
Matthew Fitzpatrick
|
$7,700
|
T36
|
T17
|
T38
|
9.54
|
|
Henrik Stenson
|
$7,600
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
1.73
|
|
Tyrrell Hatton
|
$7,600
|
T9
|
T17
|
DNP
|
2.44
|
|
Louis Oosthuizen
|
$7,500
|
T9
|
T17
|
2nd
|
8.9
|
|
Rafa Cabrera-Bello
|
$7,500
|
T36
|
T17
|
3rd
|
6.53
|
|
Branden Grace
|
$7,400
|
T29
|
T39
|
T18
|
7.7
|
|
Charles Howell, III
|
$7,400
|
T9
|
T9
|
DNP
|
6.45
|
|
Billy Horschel
|
$7,300
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
4.28
|
|
Shane Lowry
|
$7,300
|
DNP
|
T51
|
T51
|
10.58
|
|
Jim Furyk
|
$7,200
|
DNP
|
T30
|
DNP
|
12.91
|
|
Keegan Bradley
|
$7,200
|
T36
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
3.75
|
|
J.B. Holmes
|
$7,100
|
DNP
|
T51
|
T28
|
13.33
|
|
Matt Wallace
|
$7,100
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
14.63
|
|
Alex Noren
|
$7,000
|
3rd
|
T5
|
DNP
|
1.7
|
|
Kevin Kisner
|
$7,000
|
2nd
|
T17
|
T38
|
3.28
|
|
Eddie Pepperell
|
$6,900
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
6.15
|
|
Emiliano Grillo
|
$6,900
|
DNP
|
T51
|
T38
|
2.26
|
|
HaoTong Li
|
$6,800
|
T59
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
7.66
|
|
Kiradech Aphibarnrat
|
$6,700
|
T5
|
DNP
|
T18
|
5.63
|
|
Lee Westwood
|
$6,600
|
DNP
|
T17
|
T38
|
9.67
|
|
Si Woo Kim
|
$6,500
|
T9
|
T30
|
DNP
|
8.38
|
|
Thor Oleson
|
$6,500
|
DNP
|
DNP
|
T38
|
9.58
|
|
Byeon Hun An
|
$6,300
|
DNP
|
T58
|
T9
|
4.38
|
|
Kevin Na
|
$6,300
|
T52
|
T9
|
17th
|
1.06
|
Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com.
