Fantasy Golf: The Tour Championship Preview

This week's late preview excuse is the fact that I attended the Eagles concert last night along with about 20,000 fellow inhabitants of the assisted living on-deck circle. (I'm actually only sitting in the dugout waiting to pinch-hit but the joke worked better with on-deck circle . . . to the extent that it worked at all). Anyway, the place reeked of Aqua Velva, medical marijuana and Grecian Formula 45 and no more than 23% of the crowd was able to stand-up at any one time. Even when they started playing Life in the Fast Lane which made for the most mismatched song/audience combination since the last time Rod Stewart performed Tonight's the Night for a "live" audience.  

I will, however, hand it to the Eagles because once you get past Don Henley's raging ego and their slew of sappy ballads, they put on a great fucking show for a bunch of geezers. Vince Gill (doing his best Higgins from Ted Lasso impression) joined them to effectively create a wall of four to six guitars at the front of the stage and they just churned-out one hit after another that made you smile. Even when Joe Walsh's vocals on Life's Been Good fell about five seconds behind the beat, the crowd picked him up to the point where it didn't matter because everyone there was just so happy to be alive. At least for now.      

TWEET OF THE WEEK

By this logic, I should have more friends. 

GOLF ANALYSIS FROM THE NEW TORNADO ALLEY*

This will be the third year of what I like to call the "Shit Format" (actually I just made that up) and let's be honest, it sucks for wagering. The DraftKings salaries are all out of whack and if you saved a stud like Xander Schauffele or Rory McIlroy, you now have to watch them start 8 shots back. 

I'm down to some serious scraps. Saving Collin Morikawa seemed like a brilliant maneuver a little over a month ago but since the Olympics he's been on a downward spiraling run of T26 - MC - T63. My other options are basically Sam Burns and Jason Kokrak and by basically I mean they are my other options. You can add to my woe the fact that I just dropped-out of first place in this league I am desperate to win thanks to Brooksie's choke job at Caves Valley. Wait, can I get thrown-out of my own blog just for writing that? 

I'm going to say I'm picking Sam Burns and maybe I am but maybe I'm not (wink wink nudge nudge). If I had access to the entire Tour Championship buffet, I'd go with either Jon Rahm or Justin Thomas and Rory would be my darkhorse but 8 shots? Fuck me.

As usual I like Scottie Scheffler to exceed expectations and you know the real Brooksie would like nothing more than to make-up those five shots on his wannabe nemesis so he's a solid bet. Daniel Berger and Billy Horschel as deep sleepers are total flyers but, if this tournament got what it actually deserved, Stewart Cink would have an out of potato body experience and walk away with the $15M.

One and Done Pick: Sam Burns

Am I actually picking
this guy? Supposebly . . .

Other Guy I'd Pick: Jon Rahm

Sleeper Pick: Scottie Scheffler 

DraftKings Top Ten Values

Jon Rahm	$13,000
Justin Thomas	$11,000
Rory McIlroy	$9,300
Xander Schauffele	$8,900
Sam Burns	$8,500
Brooks Koepka	$7,800
Sungjae Im	$7,300
Scottie Scheffler	$6,800
Daniel Berger	$5,500
Billy Horschel	$5,100

I'm not sure how much value you can derive from 2019 and 2020 because they were both played using the Shit Format but hey, I'm just here to provide the information so you can do you.

                               HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE CHART

                           FOR THOSE WHO TRIED TO HIT THE HIGH 

                        NOTE ON "TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT" LAST NIGHT

	DK Price	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016
Patrick Cantlay	$13,400	DNP	T21	T21	T20	DNP
Jon Rahm	$13,000	4th	T12	T11	T7	DNP
Bryson DeChambeau	$12,300	22nd	T12	19th	DNP	DNP
Tony Finau	$11,800	17th	7th	T15	T7	DNP
Justin Thomas	$11,000	T2	T3	T7	2nd	T6
Dustin Johnson	$10,700	1st	T29	3rd	T17	T6
Jordan Spieth	$10,400	DNP	DNP	DNP	T7	T17
Cameron Smith	$10,100	T24	DNP	20th	DNP	DNP
Abraham Ancer	$9,600	T18	T21	DNP	DNP	DNP
Rory McIlroy	$9,300	T8	1st	T7	DNP	1st
Xander Schauffele	$8,900	T2	2nd	T7	1st	DNP
Harris English	$8,700	T12	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Sam Burns	$8,500	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Collin Morikawa	$8,300	6th	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Viktor Hovland	$8,000	T20	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Brooks Koepka	$7,800	DNP	T3	26th	6th	DNP
Louis Oosthuizen	$7,600	DNP	T21	DNP	DNP	DNP
Sunjae Im	$7,300	T11	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Scottie Scheffler	$6,800	5th	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Jason Kokrak	$6,600	DNP	14th	DNP	DNP	DNP
Hideki Matsuyama	$6,400	T15	T9	T4	T26	5th
Corey Conners	$6,200	DNP	T26	DNP	DNP	DNP
Kevin Na	$6,000	T27	DNP	25th	DNP	29th
Daniel Berger	$5,800	T15	DNP	DNP	DNP	T15
Patrick Reed	$5,700	T8	T9	28th	T13	T24
Joaquin Niemann	$5,600	T27	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Sergio Garcia	$5,400	DNP	DNP	DNP	T10	DNP
Stewart Cink	$5,200	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
Billy Horschel	$5,100	30th	DNP	2nd	DNP	DNP
Erik van Rooyen	$5,000	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP

Footnote

* I'm writing this under a tornado watch. Just outside of Baltimore. I thought when I agreed to live in this hellhole that there were to be no tornadoes, earthquakes or plagues. None of this was covered in the fucking brochure. 

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com. 

Fantasy Golf: The BMW Championship Preview

The angry man's travel diary theme continues this week as I begin writing this preview after a typically harrowing drive to some godforsaken part of Long Island, a place I visit periodically when I feel my bitterness and sarcasm beginning to wane. Right off the bat, Waze can fuck all the way off for guiding me to an exit off the New Jersey Turnpike that was closed for construction and then rerouting me to the Cross Bronx Expressway which is basically 30 minutes of Grand Theft Auto come to life but you get no weapons unless you brought your own. Which I didn't.

I finally arrived to discover I had booked a room at the only chain hotel in America that will not be serving a free breakfast tomorrow. I was reminded, however, that there is a coffee maker ("cool . . . is there also a toilet?). Oh yeah, my room has a window with a view of the hallway* and the ceiling in the bathroom is only 6 feet high so you feel like you're on the set of Being John Malkovich. (Nice recommendation Rock). At least the pool is open and there are no bodies floating in it. Yet. 

 
TWEET OF THE WEEK

My god we're just going to keep digging the pit of stupidity deeper and deeper until we run out of new bottoms aren't we?

GOLF ANALYSIS THAT CAN CURE COVID AND DEWORM A GOAT

Bad news - good news last week in my ongoing pursuit of my first one and done fantasy golf title. The bad news was that I switched my pick from Cameron Smith to Adam Scott who opened with a 67 that put him in the top ten and then shot 75 on Friday as about sixty-five players passed him on his way to missing the cut. Then Smith shot 60 on Saturday. Suffice it to say, I couldn't watch. The good news was that the only successful pick of the week was by some guy named Larry who I'm crushing by $3M so no ground was lost. I know you are all quite relieved.  

On to this week. The feeling around these parts is that the pros are going to absolutely shred Caves Valley. At least that was the feeling shared with me by some clowns I ate lunch with a few weeks ago who were all wearing matching Caves Valley shirts at a father-son tournament that was not being held at Caves Valley. "Hey I have a question . . . do you guys belong to Caves Valley?"

I've played Caves a handful of times (oh who's the douche now?) and it's a really really nice golf course set on a lovely piece of property north of the Baltimore that most people know and love from The Wire and the movie version of Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears where they decided to just blow the city the fuck up even though it's Denver that gets bombed in the book. Baltimore . . . the city you blow-up in a movie when you want the audience to go "eh." (Is he actually going to start writing about golf at some point?)  

This is the PGA Tour's first trip to Caves so we have no history on which to rely and you know what that means. Hunches. Let's get the easy one out of the way first. Cam Smith is the best player I have left (I think) so he's my pick over the likes of Sam Burns, Billy Horschel and Sugar Shane Lowry. As a consolation prize, however, I'm putting all of those guys in my top ten. They're welcome.

There is a lot of temptation to stay on the Jon Rahm train but it feels like Justin Thomas is due so I'm changing it up. Louis Oosthuizen should be well rested after his week off and he's arguably the second best player in the world right now. As for Scottie Scheffler, I'm just picking him from now until he wins.

The sleeper field is deep with the likes of Si Woo Kim, Mackenzie Hughes and Marc Leishman but I'm going with Branden Grace because he's the kind of guy you pick the week after he misses the cut the week following the week he finishes tied for 2nd. If that makes sense. 

One and Done Pick: Cameron Smith

There a few courses northeast
of the city where this look would
be just another face in the crowd.

Other Guy I'd Pick: Justin Thomas

Sleeper Pick: Branden Grace

DraftKings Top Ten Values

Justin Thomas	$10,600
Louis Oosthuizen	$9,600
Cameron Smith	$9,500
Scottie Scheffler	$8,900
Corey Conners	$8,600
Sam Burns	$8,300
Shane Lowry	$7,900
Billy Horschel	$7,400
Charley Hoffman	$7,000
Branden Grace	$6,800

Footnote

* I stared at that window to the hallway for a longtime before realizing that it used to be a window to the outside overlooking the pool until they just went and built an interior hallway over it. It's like how in Poltergeist . . .  "YOU SON OF A BITCH YOU LEFT THE BODIES AND YOU ONLY MOVED THE HEADSTONES!!!"

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com. 

Fantasy Golf: The Northern Trust Preview

I received a lot of positive feedback about my recent descriptions of flying in an airplane for the first time in a year and a half. The validation is always much appreciated and I am glad you all enjoyed it because I AM NEVER FLYING ON A FUCKING PLANE AGAIN! Seriously (not really). I think I'm still suffering PTSD as evidenced by my recurring dream that the exposed belly of the guy in the window seat keeps talking to me and reminding me that "they don't serve alcohol on this flight" before laughing maniacally and watching seventeen Instagram videos with the volume on. 

Besides, I have a new inspiration this week as I'm currently writing at 5:00 a.m. after having to rise early to drink something called "contrast" before I go get a CT scan to determine if I need to get my appendix removed. This all comes as a result of something my doctor noticed during a routine colonoscopy when I guess he got bored and decided to go spelunking through the rest of my organs. I guess he missed the "S.O.S." my liver had spelled-out with undigested peanuts. 

(Real Time Update: In addition to drinking the contrast, I then had dye injected into my body through an IV so now my innards probably look like a composite of every piece of shitty "art" that hung on my fridge from 2004 through 2013). 

TWEET OF THE WEEK

This tweet is actually a brilliant idea from a COVID management standpoint and doesn't even factor-in all of the extra space patients will have in their rooms to do activities. 

GOLF ANALYSIS TARTAR 

For the second week in a row my pick finished one shot out of a playoff so I guess that's something. I can build on this. Or I just peaked within reach of the summit and now there's nothing to do but fall off the mountain. I guess we're about to find out.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm down to just one top twenty ranked player and I'm not using him here. Fortunately, we have some other viable options starting with Adam Scott who won here in 2013, finished T5 in 2019 and also beat Brooks Koepka head-to-head in their 2017 President's Cup match (also played on this course but I think that was implied). And he would've won last week if he had just walked-up and knocked the winning putt in the hole on the line that Si Woo Kim just showed him instead of doing that stupid one-eyed straddle technique that makes him look like he's trying to decide whether to buy a donkey.

Cameron Smith is another solid option. Patrick Reed won here in 2019 and Smith is kind of the cooler more likeable version of him - great short game and consistently solid putter. I hope he takes that as the compliment that it's meant to be despite the initial urge to gag. 

If you have some favorites available and one of them is named Jon Rahm, pick him and don't think twice. And I've abandoned the "Talor Gooch is going to win this year" ship for the "Scottie Scheffler is going to win this year" ship so that's my second tier pick. And hey, don't ever say I'm afraid to make the gutsy move. 

Jason Kokrak, Shane Lowry and Cameron Tringale all feel like solid options to balance-out a roll of the dice on Phil Mickelson based somewhat on the fact that he and Joel Dahmen took down Harry Higgs and Keith Mitchell in a practice round Nassau yesterday. I leave no stone unturned when searching for ways to rationalize ill-fated picks.

The sleepers are Roger Sloan and Matthew Wallace both of whom sound more likely to show-up at a James Bond audition than win a golf tournament in New Jersey. Sloan is coming off a stretch of T16-6th-T2 and Wallace recently finished T7th at the Cazoo* Open just seven shots behind the winner Nacho Elvira (the only part of that sentence I made-up was that Wallace actually finished T8th).   

One and Done Pick: Adam Scott

Hey we stumbled into a theme
this week. Do you see it?

Other Guy I'd Pick: Cameron Smith

Sleeper Pick: Matthew Wallace 

DraftKings Top Ten Values

Jon Rahm	$11,500
Scottie Scheffler	$9,300
Cameron Smith	$8,500
Adam Scott	$8,400
Jason Kokrak	$7,700
Shane Lowry	$7,500
Phil Mickelson	$7,300
Cameron Tringale	$7,300
Roger Sloan	$6,800
Matt Wallace	$6,500

                            THE GEOPOLITICAL EXPERT FRIENDS YOU 

                              DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD ON FACEBOOK

                                HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE CHART 

There isn't actually a historical performance chart because they've only played this course twice in the last 8 years (not including the President's Cup). But I really liked the topical name I came up with and didn't want to waste it. You're welcome.

Footnote

* Cazoo is Britain's online used car company that delivers right to your door. Apparently someone raised their hand in a meeting over there and asked, "hey what if we recreated Carvana?" And then someone else added, "that will only work in England if we make the name twice as stupid."   

Email the Fantasy Golf Report at fgr@fantasygolfreport.com.