Spencer Dinwiddie is rehabbing with NFL Hall of Famer Terrell OwensSpencer Dinwiddie is rehabbing with NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens
Spencer Dinwiddie is rehabbing in Los Angeles with NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens.
Day: May 4, 2021
Three big losers on Dolphins’ offense after 2021 NFL DraftThree big losers on Dolphins’ offense after 2021 NFL Draft
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Why Emoni Bates’ play has NBA evaluators worried, and what’s next for BatesWhy Emoni Bates’ play has NBA evaluators worried, and what’s next for Bates
Bates decommitted from Michigan State, and his recent appearances have been shaky. ESPN separates fact from fiction on the Bates matter.
Expert Picks: Wells Fargo ChampionshipExpert Picks: Wells Fargo Championship
How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf. Each lineup consists of four starters and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three times per each of four Segments. The first fantasy golf game to utilize live ShotLink data, PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf allows you to see scores update live during competition. Aside from the experts below, Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field at this year’s Wells Fargo Championship in this week’s edition of the Power Rankings. For more fantasy, check out Rookie Watch, Qualifiers and Reshuffle. THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OUR EXPERTS? The PGA TOUR Experts league is once again open to the public. You can play our free fantasy game and see how you measure up against our experts below. Joining the league is simple. Just click here to sign up or log in. Once you create your team, click the “Leagues” tab and search for “PGA TOUR Experts.” After that? Pick your players and start talking smack. Want to represent the fans against our experts? SEASON SEGMENT
With the post-Masters lull over, who’s hot and not as the PGA Championship draws near?With the post-Masters lull over, who’s hot and not as the PGA Championship draws near?
There is always a bit of a letdown after the Masters in April. But that is gone. With just two weeks before the year’s next major, we reset things and figure out who’s ready, who has work to do and more.
PGA Championship 2021: News, tee times, schedule, coverage and analysis from the tournamentPGA Championship 2021: News, tee times, schedule, coverage and analysis from the tournament
All you need to know about the 2021 PGA Championship, including day-by-day results and analysis from Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course.
2021 NHL Awards Watch: Who’s leading for Hart, Norris, Vezina, Selke, Calder?2021 NHL Awards Watch: Who’s leading for Hart, Norris, Vezina, Selke, Calder?
Can anyone catch Connor McDavid for the Hart Trophy as league MVP? Here are our early-May projections for all the major awards.
NHL Playoff Watch Daily: Monday’s action yields two clinched spots, three eliminationsNHL Playoff Watch Daily: Monday’s action yields two clinched spots, three eliminations
The 16-team tournament took a big step toward finalizing its shape Monday night. Get caught up on all the races here.
DraftKings preview: Wells Fargo ChampionshipDraftKings preview: Wells Fargo Championship
This week will feature another difficult tournament in the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. The course will play as a par 71, measuring 7,521 yards and be putt on Champion G12 Bermudagrass overseeded with Poa trivialis. The tournament was canceled last year due to COVID-19, making Max Homa (2019 winner) your defending champion this week. There are 156 players in the field at press time, and the top 65 and ties will make the cut. STRATEGY Ten of the top-15 ranked golfers will be playing this week with the PGA Championship just two weeks out. Jon Rahm (+1100, $10,800), Xander Schauffele (+1400, $10,500), Bryson DeChambeau (+1600, $11,000) and Patrick Cantlay (+2800, $9,600) have elected to make a stop in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the first things you notice about Quail Hollow is the length, especially on eight of the par 4s that measure above 450 yards — two of which measure over 500 yards. The average driving distance here is also more than the TOUR average, as are the approach shots from 200-plus yards, coming in at 8% higher (31.1%). This week is one of the few tournaments where Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee is the predominant statistic that leads to success. Winners here are gaining an average of 1.545 strokes Off-the-Tee, which is twice as much as Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green. Focusing on driving this week doesn’t mean approach isn’t essential. Quail Hollow sports four water hazards in play on seven holes and greenside bunkers on every hole. The fairways are tight, and the greens historically play hard and fast, so ball-striking is vital. The course starts with three par 4s over 450 yards and ends with the Green Mile – Nos. 16-18 – which also have two par 4s over 494 yards. The top 10 in DraftKings scoring in 2019 was reasonably balanced, with an average price of just under $8,500. The cheapest golfer was the eventual winner, Max Homa, who was $6,600. The most expensive was Rickie Fowler at $10,600; he finished eighth in DraftKings scoring but fourth in the tournament. In 2018, the average price was about $500 less, averaging just above $8,000. The most expensive golfer was the eventual winner, Jason Day, at $10,200; the cheapest was Johnson Wagner at $6,800. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $750K Flop Shot [$200K to 1st] GOLFERS TO CONSIDER Jon Rahm +1100 to Win ($10,800 on DraftKings) When it’s a long, difficult, traditional American course, Rahm should be at the top of the list. There isn’t a ton we need to say about world No. 3 that you don’t already know. He’s excellent on these courses, ranking 14th in Strokes Gained: Total over the previous 50 rounds in difficult scoring conditions. He also won the Memorial Tournament last season, a comparable test of golf similar to this week. Quail Hollow will demand a robust Off-the-Tee game, and few are better than Rahm, who hasn’t lost strokes in this category since August 2019. Rahm finished fourth here back in 2017, which is his only time teeing it up at Quail Hollow before this week. Will Zalatoris +3000 to Win ($9,400 on DraftKings) A second at Augusta National, a 21st at THE PLAYERS Championship, a 10th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, a 15th at The Genesis Invitational and a sixth place at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot should tell us that when the scoring conditions get challenging, Zalatoris shows up. He lost just under five strokes Off-the-Tee at the RBC Heritage, which could’ve been some post-Masters hangover. His driving becomes much better when we zoom out, gaining Off-the-Tee in nine of his last 11 measured rounds. His ball-striking has been fantastic, and he should be able to score on the par 5s, ranking fifth over his previous 24 rounds. Also, consider Joaquin Niemann (+3000, $9,100) in this range. Like Zalatoris, Niemann’s strength Off-the-Tee gives him a significant advantage over the field, more so than Zalatoris. Over his last 24 rounds, Niemann ranks eighth in Off-the-Tee and 22nd in approach. Erik van Rooyen +16000 to Win ($7,200 on DraftKings) Like Rahm and Zalatoris, we should be looking for players who can take down Quail Hollow with their driver, and van Rooyen has gained strokes Off-the-Tee in three of his last four events. Van Rooyen finished inside the top 15 at the Valero Texas Open last month, where he gained 4.7 strokes driving. Van Rooyen has strong performances on similar courses, finishing 22nd at the Memorial Tournament (Muirfield Village) and 23rd at the U.S. Open (Winged Foot) last season. Another player to consider is Ryan Moore (+12500, $7,100), who has a knack for playing on these longer, American-style courses with his driving and long-iron accuracy. Over his previous 24 rounds, Moore ranks 15th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, and inside the top half of the field in both approach proximity from 175 to 200 yards and 200-plus yards away. If we scale out the timeframe to the last 50 rounds, Moore ranks top three in approach proximity from 175 to 200 yards. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $750K Flop Shot [$200K to 1st] Put your knowledge to the test. Sign up for DraftKings and experience the game inside the game. All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL). Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ/WV/PA/MI), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (NH/CO), 1-800-BETS OFF(IA), 1-888-532-3500 (VA) or call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN). 21+ (18+ NH). 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Sleeper Picks: Wells Fargo ChampionshipSleeper Picks: Wells Fargo Championship
Matt Wallace (+6600) … If you thought that Emiliano Grillo was an easy call as the most valuable Sleeper for the Valspar Championship – raises hand – then try the Englishman on for size. He’s 52nd in the Official World Golf Ranking and he enters with a solo third (Valero Texas Open) and a T18 (RBC Heritage) in his last two individual non-majors, but he’s connected five consecutive paydays for good measure. The 31-year-old also is an intriguing fit for Quail Hollow at 10th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and T19 in par-5 scoring. Matthew NeSmith (+12500) … The fact that this is his fourth appearance as a Sleeper this season is a good test on whether you see the glass half-full or half-empty, but there’s no room for pessimism here. The 27-year-old is in his second season and 74th in the FedExCup with seven top 25s, including a T21 at Valspar on Sunday. He ranks 14th on the PGA TOUR in total driving and leads in greens in regulation. His putting comes and goes, but he was in good form at Copperhead, finishing sixth in conversion percentage inside 10 feet. Seamus Power (+30000) … He and his partner, David Hearn, were positioned No. 10 in the Power Rankings for the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, but that promise was extinguished when the 34-year-old Irishman tested positive for COVID-19. The duo was tracking from multiple angles, including Power’s modest form upon arrival. He had just finished T9 in the Korn Ferry Tour event in Las Vegas. He’s cashed only thrice in eight starts on the PGA TOUR this season, but that includes in each of his last two events. The odds are with him to extend it at Quail Hollow where he’s 2-for-2 with a T13 in 2019, also during a sudden surge of form. Because he’s plowing forward on conditional status, he had been scheduled to compete in this week’s Simmons Bank Open on the KFT, but a bogey-free, 8-under 62 at Monday’s open qualifying for the Wells Fargo Championship at Gaston Country Club punched his ticket into the tournament proper. Vincent Whaley (+25000) … If the old adage is true that it’s easier to stay on the PGA TOUR than it is to get there, then what do you tell a guy who finished 183rd in the FedExCup in his abbreviated rookie season of 2019-20? This was the reality of the Georgia Tech product who managed only 15 starts before eligibility was extended for 2020-21 due to the pandemic. Like many others, he’s making it count as he preps for his debut at Quail Hollow. Currently 137th in the FedExCup with seven consecutive cuts made in tow, the highlight a T15 in Puerto Rico. What he lacks in firepower tee to green, he betters the average in cleaning up around and on greens. Justin Suh (+25000) … Confirmed as the late recipient of a sponsor exemption when Camilo Villegas opted out after gaining entry with one, Suh has lot riding on his first appearance at Quail Hollow. This will be his last start on a sponsor exemption in 2020-21 unless he achieves Special Temporary Membership [STM]. To do that, he needs no worse than a two-way share of eighth place. A top 10 but short of the two-way T8 would yield a start at next week’s AT&T Byron Nelson where he could continue to chase STM. Short of that and his only realistic method of entry into an event would be via open qualifying. There are nine more of those chances beginning with the AT&T Byron Nelson. Worst case, he’s a virtual lock to qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals since his non-member equivalent of FedExCup points would slot him 142nd among members. As it concerns his fit at the Wells Fargo Championship, the 23-year-old is 13th on TOUR in greens hit and T3 in par-5 scoring. Only seven of his 22 rounds in individual competition have been lasered by ShotLink, so there’s not enough of a sample size to buy heavily into it, but it’s still impressive that he’s put himself in this position just nine months after sitting outside the top-1,000 of the Official World Golf Ranking. He’s currently 403rd. Odds were sourced on Tuesday, May 4 at 5 a.m. ET. For live odds visit betmgm. NOTE: Sleeper is a relative term, so Rob uses unofficial criteria to determine who qualifies. Each of the following usually is determined to be ineligible for this weekly staple: Winners of the tournament on the current host course; winners in the same season; recent major champions; top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking; recent participants of team competitions.