Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Fantasy Golf: WGC-Dell Match Play Preview

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.     

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?
One and Done Pick: Bryson DeChambeau

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

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


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