What’s goin’ on fantasy golf fans?! CANTLAY GETS IT DONE!!! I hope everyone was able to reap the rewards of his first career win – it was easy to pull for him considering the obstacles he has had to overcome. Let’s turn the page and try to make it back-to-back!
The PGA Tour heads south of the border, to Playa Del Carmen Mexico for the OHL Classic at Mayakoba. The event will be played at the El Camaleon Golf Club, which has played host to this event since 2007. It is a short course, extremely short, coming in at just under 7,000 yards. That is tiny for a Par 71. El Camaleon’s main defence is the wind, and gusts this week in Playa Del Carmen are not suppose to be bad. Expect some low scores. Accuracy off the tee will be important, but so will approach shots just like every other week. Par 5 scoring will also be very important as it has made up about half of the winners scoring from the last few years.
Stats for the Week
SG-Approach – 30%
Birdie or Better Gained – 30%
SG-Par 5 – 15%
Good Drives Gained – 15%
Par 4 400-500 – 10%
Alright, let’s get to the picks!
Staples
My favorite golfers for the week – for Cash and GPP contests.
Chesson Hadley – $9,900
Last week, Chesson Hadley tried to ruin my weekend as I had 0% exposure to him. I am not making that mistake again. Hadley is not your typical Web.com Tour grad, as he has been on the PGA Tour before and won the 2014 Puerto Rico Open. In his last six events entering the OHL Classic, Hadley has a win and four top 5s. Three of those top fives were his last three PGA Tour starts. He has the best form entering the event and is due to finally break into the winner’s circle again. It is not even close in terms of key stats over the past 12 rounds, blowing away the rest of the field in all categories. Hadley is my pick to win.
Kevin Chappell – $9,000
Seeing Chappell last week at $10,200 was exciting, but at $9,000….my pants are off. I don’t understand the price drop considering his solid T20 last week at the Shriners. What makes that performance even better was the fact that he LOST 7.1 strokes putting. That put him near the bottom for the week but was able to overcome it by gaining a ridiculous amount of shots tee to green. Chappell is in a tier below Fowler and Reed in this field, but he is definitely one of the 10 best golfers competing this week. At $9,000, I will be well overweight on Chappell like I was last week with Cantlay. His price does not hinder your lineup construction in anyway. All in.
Bryson DeChambeau – $8,700
The scientist put on quite a display last week at the Shriners. Bryson gained six shots on the field in approach shots and was decent off the tee as well leading to his T7 finish. He ranks 4th in my weighted stat model because of his strong approach game recently. So far in his career he has excelled on shorter courses, such as Harbour Town and TPC Deere Run. Bryson made the cut here last year in his first trip to El Camaleon, so the familiarity should help.
Ryan Armour – $7,500
Ryan Armour is keeping the heater going. I fully expected Armour to let off the gas pedal a bit last week after his win at the Sanderson Farms, but he came T20 at the Shriners where his putter let him down. Armour is a poor man’ Hadley in terms of key stats. Over his last 12 rounds, Armour ranks 3rd in the field in SG:APP and Bob Gained. He is also very efficient on Par 4s between 450-500, and this course has five of them.
J.J. Spaun – $7,100
It was tough to watch J.J. Spaun crumble on the weekend and see the win slip out of his hands on the final few holes. Even though he did fall apart, he gained 7.8 strokes on approaches last week which is encouraging and something he should be able to carry into this week. Consider the Shriners a learning experience for Spaun who had never really contended like last week on the PGA Tour. It’s very tough for guys to close their first time holding a lead heading into the weekend. I expect a lot of people will avoid Spaun because of the recency bias, but if he is the competitor he talks himself up to being, he should bounce back nicely in Mexico.
OHL Classic Interactive Data
Note these tools are FREE each week for Pro Members. If you are not a Pro Member, use code “ERIC” for 15% off:
[ess_grid alias=”PGA Packages”]
Perfect Pivots
Identifying the chalk, and going elsewhere.
Patrick Reed – $10,500
Patrick Reed is the second most talented golfer in the field, but according to FanShare Sports, people haven’t even clued in he is playing this week. He has two tags so far, well behind Fowler, Perez and Hadley. Webb Simpson’s withdraw only gives three options above the $10K range so it’s hard to see Reed’s ownership dip below 10%. This is a very weak field that Reed could easily dominate. If building multiple GPP lineups Reed has to be in about 20%.
Charley Hoffman – $9,700
Hoffman had an up and down tournament last week in Las Vegas. He finished strong which is nice to see entering this week. At $9,700, Hoffman seems underpriced for this field. He won the 2014 OHL Classic but somehow followed it up with two missed cuts the last two years. Regardless, his pedigree is superior to over 90% of the field and could very well hoist the trophy again. He only has seven tags on FanShare Sports, and makes for a perfect pivot off of this week’s uber chalk Chesson Hadley.
Ryan Moore – $8,600
Ryan Moore had a rare off week with his approach shots at the Shriners, losing three strokes in SG:APP, his worst performance since the 2016 BMW Championship. I expect him to bounce back this week and not make arrant approaches a trend. Even with last week’s result, over his past 12 rounds Moore ranks 4th in the field in SG:APP and 1st in Good Drives gained. Bryson, Knox and Kokrak are gaining much more attention this week according to FanShare, so this looks like the perfect buy low opportunity.
Emiliano Grillo – $7,600
I expect Emiliano Grillo to have a solid year on tour after his sophomore slump in 2017. Grillo played decent at this year’s Safeway but failed to bring that form overseas to Asia. Grillo came T10 in last year’s OHL Classic so he clearly has the accuracy style game that will fit this course. He only has three tags on FanShare Sports, way less that McDowell and Streelman who are priced in the same range. Don’t be shocked to see Grillo’s name pop up on the leaderboard come Sunday.
Ben Silverman – $7,500
Ben Silverman has to be the least known Canadian on tour, despite his recent run solid form. He has made three straight cuts in his first year on tour, highlighted by a T7 at the Sanderson Farms. Even last week he battled his way back to a T47 after struggling out of the gate. Over his past 12 rounds, Silverman ranks 8th in SG:APP, 7th in BoB Gained and 7th in Par 5 scoring. If these stats continue he will be a phenomenal GPP play as he only has been mentioned twice on FanShare.
Automatic Fades
Bad course fit? Highly owned for the wrong reason? Players I will have no shares of.
Whee Kim – $8,300
We saw Whee Kim contend last week at the Shriners for the first time ever. With the extra TV time, people will be drawn into him knowing he is coming in with some good form. However, it doesn’t take long to find out that he gained 8.6 strokes putting last week, while being slightly above average everywhere else. If his putting regresses just slightly he will come crashing down to earth. At $8,300 that is a huge risk to take.
Anirban Lahiri – $8,100
Fading Anirban last week worked well so let’s double down. As expected, his game took a total nose dive last week and he lost strokes in all categories except putting. He came T51 at the Shriners despite gaining four strokes on the green. If his putter cools off a bit this week and his ball striking remains suspect, a missed cut is well within the cards.
So, you got burned?
Recently got screwed by a missed cut or a poor performance? Looks like a good time to jump back on.
Russell Knox – $8,500
Knox has not been playing well, no question about it. He’s had one top 10 since this exact event last season. Luckily he is returning to course he has had a great deal of success at, a course he leads the field in strokes gained at over the past five years. He has back-to-back top fives at El Camaleon so perhaps all he needs is a familiar setting to get back on track.
Scott Brown – $8,000
After a solid Asian swing, Scott Brown had a disappointing result last week at the Shriners. Like Knox, El Cameleon is a course he has had success at in the past, recording a T5 here in 2015 and making four straight cuts. He has also won the Puerto Rico Open, which is a similar style course to EL Cameleon, both using Paspalum greens. His price jumped up to $8,000 so no one will be tempted to use him even though this is a perfect bounce back spot.
Kevin Streelman – $7,600
It what is almost impossible to do, Kevin Streelman lost nine strokes putting last week. We know how variant putting results can be, so in situations where we are looking for bounce back candidates, looking for a stat like like Streelman’s is ideal. He gained 6.9 strokes T2G last week so if he continues that and puts just average he should have a solid finish. Streelman also came T4 at the OHL Classic last year.
Thanks for reading the OHL Classic preview article! You can follow me on Twitter for more golf and betting talk! Also, make sure you check out @FanShareSports. They track and curate content produced across the DFS Golf industry, and highlight which players are being tagged or talked about the most, translating to an excellent ownership guide.
Good luck this week everybody!!
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