Sometimes you just need to get out of unproductive relationships. The bestie that just wants to get hammered all the time. The guy or gal that will never commit. The love affair with Mountain Dew. It seems harsh, but to grow and be our best, we eventually have to leave these friendships behind.
That’s why I’m announcing the end of my relationship with the ZOZO Championship. It’s early mornings and late nights researching and setting DFS lineups for me, and the golf tournament gives almost nothing back in return.
I’m not mad. It’s good for everybody if the PGA establishes a fanbase in Asia. More fans of the PGA means more people playing PGA DFS. More people playing PGA DFS gets us more contests and bigger prize pools.
This hasn’t been fun though. The golfers hit the course just as I’m getting the kids down for bed, and coverage doesn’t come on until after I’m in bed. There’s no ShotLink either, so we don’t even get shot-by-shot coverage on the PGA App. My sweat for this tournament amounts to me checking the leaderboard on my phone when I get up in morning. I don’t even get a cut to give me a little anxiety.
And no, I don’t mind the challenge of figuring out a small field, no-cut event with over a dozen golfers I’ve never heard of. I actually find it interesting to dig into golfers with which I’m unfamiliar, and I struggle with the WGCs, but at least I get to watch the fire burn instead of waking up to a smoldering ruin.
As I’ve stated before, I play this game for two reasons; one, because I like it, and two, because I would like to play well enough to make a little extra money. My Minimum Deposit Challenge lineup was profitable and I made a little of my money back in GPPs on DraftKings, but I certainly wouldn’t say I had fun doing it.
So, like that neighbor that always needs a favor, but never seems to be around when you need one in return; I’m cutting the ZOZO out of my life. I’m done putting in all the effort and getting no reciprocation from the golf tournament. The time I get back from dropping this one-sided relationship will be well worth it (don’t worry, I still plan on writing The Fringe for the ZOZO even if I don’t play it).
The Past
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It’s not unusual for golfers to take some time off during the Fall Swing, but when the world #1 golfer says he needs a break, it’s hard not to take notice. After a long stretch of quality play, followed by a couple of less than stellar performances, Jon Rahm told reporters that he needs some rest and will take four weeks off. It’s disappointing that we won’t be able to roster him for a little while, but hopefully he’ll come back with the game we’ve grown accustomed to this past summer.
After getting the golf world cranked up by making an appearance at his son’s golf tournament, Tiger Woods made further news by announcing the return of the Hero World Challenge (December 2-5) and its star-studded field. I won’t be taking part, but after hosting contests for events like the Zurich Classic and the Ryder Cup, I imagine DraftKings will have some offerings to bridge the gap between the RSM and the Tournament of Champions.
Paul Casey’s caddie of six years, John McLaren, has decided to take an indefinite break from the game, citing the anxiety of regular travel during the pandemic. Trying to work my day job under the Covid protocols has been taxing; add flights, Covid tests and quarantines into the mix and I totally get the decision. Every golfer McLaren has worked with has found success; I’ll take a wait-and-see approach on Paul Casey when he hires a new looper.
The Present
The LPGA finished up the BMW Ladies Championship at LPGA International Busan in South Korea a few hours ago. Jin Young Ko (-22) defeated Hee Jeong Lim in a playoff after shooting a final-round 8-under-par. A Lim Kim, Da Yeon Lee, Lydia Ko, and Na Rin An finished five strokes back from the leaders.
The PGA European Tour is in Spain for the Mallorca Golf Open at Golf Santa Ponsa. Jeff Winther and Sebastian Soderberg are tied for the lead at -15 as they make the turn home. Pep Angles is two shots back. Golf Channel should have the coverage on now.
The PGA Tour Champions is at The Country Club of Virginia in Richmond for the Dominion Energy Charity Classic and the first round of their playoffs. Steve Flesch (-13) has a two-shot lead over Bernhard Langer and Steven Alker. Golf Channel will have final round coverage at 2:00 p.m. ET.
The PGA Tour wrapped up the ZOZO Championship at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Chiba, Japan earlier this morning. Hideki Matsyuma (-15) dominated in his home country, beating Brendan Steele and Cameron Tringale by five strokes. The next closest competitors were at -6.
Here is how the chalk performed (listed by ownership): Xander Schauffele (T28, E), Collin Morikawa (T7, -5), Hideki Matsuyama (1,-15), Sung Kang (T48, +4), Jhonattan Vegas (T54, +6), Harry Higgs (T39, +2), C.T. Pan (T57, +7), Will Zalatoris (T54, +6), Takumi Kanaya (T7, -5), Henrik Norlander (T18, -2), Chris Kirk (T48, +4).
The Future
The PGA Tour is off to the Sargasso Sea for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course. Sixteen golfers that played in Japan this week are scheduled to make the trip; pretty impressive considering the islands are on the exact opposite sides of the earth (don’t look it up, just trust me). At my age, a long layover in Atlanta puts me out of commission for a couple of days, so I’m not surprised Brendon Todd has already reconsidered making the trip.
The Bermuda Championship was first played in 2019 as an alternate event to the WGC-HSBC Champions. In 2020, with the cancellation of the HSBC, the tournament was elevated to regular status and the winner now receives 500 FedExCup points, a full 2-year exemption, an invite to The Masters, as well as all the other invites due a PGA Tour winner.
The two editions on record highlight the extremes we can potentially face on a coastal course. In 2019, the winds were down and the course was very scorable; the cutline was -1 and Brendon Todd was the winner at -24. In 2020, the winds picked up and the course was more difficult; the cutline was +2 and Brian Gay picked up the Bermuda Triangle trophy with a score of -15.
Port Royal Golf Course was dreamed up in 1965, but didn’t open until 1970. It was originally designed by Robert Trent Jones. The course was renovated by Roger Rulewich for the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, which it hosted from 2009 to 2014.
The coastal resort-style course is now a 6,828-yard par 71 that is open to the public. It has four par 3s, eleven par 4s, and three par 5s. The three par 5s are the best scoring opportunities on the course; as long as the wind cooperates, they are all reachable in two. Three of the par 3s are over 200 yards, and are the hardest holes on the course. The fourth par 3 is only 148 yards, and is the easiest hole on the course outside of the par 5s. While there isn’t a true drivable par 4 on the course, the par 4s are very manageable; six of them are under 400 yards and only one of them is over 450 yards.
It should be noted that the front nine plays considerably easier than the back nine. Five of the six most-scorable holes are on the front nine (the sixth is the par-5 17th that’s only 501 yards). Five of the six most-difficult holes are on the back nine. The primary reason for the discrepancy is that much of the front nine is away from the coast and gets some protection from the wind, while a good portion of the back nine is close to the coast and is exposed to the coastal winds. If it looks like the wind will be up, it may be worth noting which tee golfers are starting on.
Off of the tee, the fairways appear to be generous, but I’m judging from maps and photos. There were 1,500 invasive trees removed from the course during the 2009 renovation, giving the course an open feel. There are thick stands of trees, however, especially away from the coastline. The rough is Bermudagrass with Zoysiagrass, but it’s kept short. There are bunkers in the landing zones, some cross bunkers, several doglegs and water on five holes. The course has many elevation changes. There is only a 33 m change from top to bottom, but a total ascent of 142 m; that’s a lot of up and down. Ultimately, it’s all about the wind; if the wind is down, golfers should have few issues off the tee, but things get more difficult if the wind is up. Last season, when we did see some wind, Driving Accuracy and Greens in Regulation were below the tour average.
On approach, golfers will see smaller than average Bermudagrass greens. They have played receptive and slow. The greens are generally on the flatter side, but a few greens are noted for their contours and multiple tiers. There are also a few elevated greens. They are protected by bunkers and steep runoff areas. Although GIR is below the tour average, scrambling is above the tour average.
The current forecast is calling for a lot of rain leading up to the tournament, so conditions should be soft. Thankfully, it looks like there won’t be any rain during tournament. There will be wind, however. Thursday looks like it will be relatively calm with 15 mph winds and 20 mph gusts. After that, winds increase to 20 mph with 30 mph gusts. Cue the wind specialists. When the hourly forecasts come out, we’ll also have to look for potential wave stacks.
Throughout its brief history, the Bermuda Championship has had some of the weakest fields on the PGA Tour. This year doesn’t appear to be any different. By my count, there are 43 golfers in the field that finished in the top 150 in FedExCup points last season. Only one of those golfers finished in the top 50, Patrick Reed.
DFS Strategy
The short length of the course opens up all kinds of possibilities when considering golfers for our player pool this week. There is no penalty for being short off the tee, and we’ll likely see a lot of golfers clubbing down anyways. If the bombers prefer to take out the big stick, the rough isn’t long, so there isn’t much of a penalty if they get a little wayward. Anybody should be able to win here. I’m going to start by targeting the accurate, fairways and greens-type golfers in my model, and then take a look at mixing in some bombers. The wildcard is the wind. It’s looking like the wind is going to be up, so we’ll want to start thinking about targeting wind specialists. As we get closer to the tournament, we’ll also want to pay attention for any wave advantages.
As usual, I will start by building my model using current form, course history, and course fit data.
For current form, I will use the last five tournaments for golfers priced 8k and above, and the last three tournaments for golfers in the 7k range and below. We have an exceptionally weak field this week, many of the 7k golfers (heck, maybe even some of the 8k golfers) will be golfers we usually see in the 6k range. These golfers are inconsistent over the long run, so I cut down how many tournaments I look at to get an idea of their current form.
I will use my usual weighting on course history data. We only have two years of data to work with, but I think experience at this course matters. Even a little experience matters since you can only get a real sense of how the wind impacts the course by playing it under different conditions. We can also use success at this course as a proxy for ability in the wind. I’ll also look at course history manually, but I’ll explain more below.
Here are the course fit statistics that I’ll be using:
Good Drives Gained: I would prefer golfers that hit a lot of fairways, but if they’re not going to hit the fairways, I at least want to make sure they can hit the green from the rough.
Top 5 Good Drives Gained (last 100 rounds): Chad Ramey, Mito Pereira, Brian Stuard, Nick Hardy, Hayden Buckley
Strokes Gained: Approach: A staple in my model week after week. I’ll look at this statistic on courses that are under 7,200 yards; narrowing it down further to par-71 courses really cuts down on sample sizes.
Top 5 SG: Approach (last 100 rounds, less than 7,200 yards): Russel Knox, Kevin Stadler, Matthew NeSmith, Lucas Glover, Adam Svensson
Greens in Regulation: I want my model to be all about fairways and greens, but I’m going to really drill down into the approach game since it appears to be possible to score from the rough. I’ll look at this statistic on courses that are under 7,200 yards.
Top 5 GIR (last 100 rounds, less than 7,200 yards): Russell Knox, Matthew NeSmith, Lucas Glover, Adam Svensson, Johnson Wagner
Scrambling: On a coastal course with smaller greens, missing the green is inevitable. I want to make sure to roster golfers that are good at getting up and down from off the green.
Top 5 Scrambling (last 100 rounds): Patrick Reed, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Denny McCarthy, Seung-yul Noh, Adam Hadwin
Bogey Avoidance: If it looked like we were going to get good scoring conditions, I would have Birdies or Better in this spot. It looks like the wind is going to be up though. Golfers will likely find themselves in trouble, and I want golfers that avoid carding big numbers when they do.
Top 5 Bogey Avoidance (last 100 rounds): Chad Ramey, Mito Pereira, Stephan Jaeger, Max McGreevy, Taylor Pendrith
Strokes Gained: Putting: Another staple in my model, I will switch up the surface as needed. This week, I will be looking for Bermudagrass specialists.
Top 5 SG: Putting (last 100 rounds, Bermuda): Denny McCarthy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Vaugh Taylor
After running my model, the statistics that I will be looking at during the sniff test to help make my determinations are course history, Par 4 efficiency 350-400 and 400-450, Strokes Gained in the wind and driving distance.
Even though I’m including course history data in my model, I am going to go back and look at it manually too. I’ll be looking for golfers that have played in both editions of the Bermuda Championship, since they’ll have seen the course in both extremely windy and calm conditions. It will probably be hard, but I’ll also try to avoid golfers that haven’t played in this tournament at all.
There are eleven par-4 holes on the course, ten of them fall between 350 and 450 yards in length, and the eleventh is only 458-yards long. Obviously, playing well on par 4s in this range will be critical to success at Port Royal. I don’t like to bog down my model with too many statistics, I will go back and look at these individually and give preferences to golfers that excel at par 4s of these lengths instead.
I’ve mentioned the wind a few times throughout this edition of The Fringe, I hope you get the idea that it’s going to be important. It’s really the only defense this course has, and it looks like it’s going to blow this week. Based on a quick perusal of my notes, I expect to see elevated ownerships for Ryan Armour and Graeme McDowell based on their prowess on short, windy courses.
I’m also going to take a look at Driving Distance as a way to differentiate my lineups. I got the idea from Ryan Baroff when he went on the Fantasy Golf Degenerates Podcast for the Bermuda last season. His basic argument was that, due to the length of the course, DFS players will target the shorter, more accurate golfers; so, you can target the bombers as a way to get leverage on the field.
Speaking of getting leverage, I will send out my update on getting leverage on Wednesday afternoon. Make sure to subscribe to The Fringe to get it in your inbox as soon as it comes out.
Finally, even though it’s a weak field, we at least have a regular, full field event and I will be back to using 100% of my usual bankroll and my usual 60/40 cash game to GPP split.
On the other ours tours: the PGA European Tour will be in Vilamoura, Portugal for the Portugal Masters at Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course; the LPGA and PGA Tour Champions are off
That’s all I have for now, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@glzisk) for any updates.