Naidoo wins rainy South Africa Open in playoff

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Next up for the PGA TOUR is the John Deere Classic from Silvis, Illinois where opportunity exists for golfers and daily fantasy players alike. TPC Deere Run will play as a par 71, measuring 7,289 yards and be putt on bentgrass greens. The field is 156 players, with the cut coming at the top 65 and ties. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $800K Pitch + Putt [$200K to 1st] STRATEGY Webb Simpson ($10,600), Cam Davis ($8,400), Christiaan Bezuidenhout ($9,100) and Sahith Theegala ($10,100) will be looking to play well at TPC Deere Run, which is one of the lowest scoring courses on TOUR. Nine of the previous 13 winning scores have been more than 20-under par, with an average winning score of 21-22 under par over the past five events. The priority here is to make a ton of birdies and avoid any possibility of dropping strokes. Strokes Gained: Approach the Green is always a priority, but digging deeper, golfers who are strong with their wedges have fared well at this tournament before. Last season’s winner Lucas Glover ($8,300) mentioned, “I wedged it very nice today and putted well, which you have to do here, because you get a lot of opportunities, and distance control is pretty important … .” Other key stats to focus on are driving accuracy, par 4 scoring and par 5 scoring on holes between 550-600 yards, with all three on the scorecard falling in this distance range. Lineup construction can be a little tricky this week. Last season and 2019, the winners used the entire $50,000 salary cap. In 2018, the top lineup used just $49,000, with four golfers under $7,600. Based on the previous three years, there isn’t a daily fantasy lineup build that we should skew towards. Also, we shouldn’t see any outrageously high ownership on golfers this week, but the trends point to some dos and don’ts this week. When we look over the same timeframe as above, only one golfer in the winning lineup was roster over 16% (Patton Kizzire, 17.2%, 2021), but nine (50%) had double-digit roster percentages, meaning you don’t have to stay away from the chalk altogether this week. GOLFERS TO CONSIDER Adam Schenk ($7,700) TPC River Highlands is very similar to this week, and although Schenk missed the cut in Cromwell, Connecticut, he played much better on Friday than Thursday, gaining a stroke off the tee and nearly a stroke on approach. He hit 94% of his greens in regulation and almost 80% of his fairways in the second-round last week. He’s now gained strokes Tee to Green in his three previous starts and has tremendous finishes here of fourth (2021), where he ranked second in putting that week (+7.8), and sixth (2019), finishing second in strokes gained tee to green (+9.9). Schenk’s Midwest ties (born in Indiana) should make him feel comfortable playing in this part of the country, and hopefully, his putting success here last season can help with some of the recent troubles he’s encountered on the greens. John Huh ($7,800) also deserves a ton of consideration given how he’s playing, ranking top five in birdies or better gained and DKFP over the previous 12 rounds. Austin Smotherman ($7,000) Like Schenk, Smotherman could not make the cut last week but has put together an excellent resume in his rookie season, with three top-25 finishes and an 11th-place finish in 18 starts. He’s solid with his wedges, ranking 20th in proximity from 100 to 125 yards over the previous 24 rounds, and is scoring well, ranking 14th in birdies or better gained over the last dozen rounds. Smotherman racked up a win and three top 5s on the Korn Ferry Tour last season, so he’s used to playing in conditions where you need to make birdies in bunches. Some of my other favorite daily fantasy sleepers this week are Robert Streb ($6,600), who’s been inside the top 10 in par 5 scoring for the past 50 rounds, and Chris Stroud ($6,500), who’s only missed the cut once (2016), and has two top-5 finishes (2019, 2015) and a top 20 (2017) in his last five starts here. Stroud hasn’t played on TOUR since February, which is slightly alarming, but you don’t need to be heavily exposed to him at his price or projected roster percentage. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $800K Pitch + Putt [$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. The contents contained in this article do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. 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LAS VEGAS — Patrick Cantlay came within one putt of a 59 on Saturday, instead matching his low score on the PGA TOUR for a share of the lead with 20-year-old Tom Kim going into the final round of the Shriners Children’s Open. If the third round was any indication, anything goes on the TPC Summerlin high above the Las Vegas Strip. Cantlay had five birdies in his opening six holes, and then poured it on again down the stretch with five birdies in a six-hole stretch that put him on the cusp of his first sub-60 round. He had a birdie putt from just inside 25 feet that broke sharply to the right, and Cantlay played it a little too high of the cup. It was his first 60 on TOUR as a pro — his other 60 was at the 2011 Travelers Championship as a 19-year-old amateur after Cantlay finished his freshman year at UCLA. Cantlay has never shot 59 even at his home course of Virginia Country Club in Long Beach, California, and he smiled when asked about the stress of his final putt. “I would have liked to have made it, yeah,” he said. And then his thoughts turned to a final round, which shaped up as a dandy. Kim is a budding star, having won the Wyndham Championship and delivering big moments in his debut at the Presidents Cup. He birdied five of his last six holes, sticking a wedge to 2 feet on the 18th, for a 62 that put him in a tie with Cantlay at 19-under 194. They were three shots clear of a Mito Pereira (67) and Matthew Ne Smith (63), with defending champion Sungjae Im (63) another shot behind. For Cantlay, a good performance in Las Vegas is familiar. He picked up his first PGA TOUR victory in a playoff at the TPC Summerlin in 2017. He twice was a runner-up in Las Vegas. His worst result was a tie for eighth in 2020 when he had a share of the 54-hole lead. “I think I drive the ball in the fairway a lot here, and I’m not afraid of hitting driver on most every hole, so I have a lot of wedge into greens, and I have a lot of looks,” Cantlay said. “If I make a bunch of putts, I can shoot low scores.” He’s been doing that all week, only on Saturday he kept hitting it a little closer and made most of the mid-range putts he had been missing. Cantlay putted for birdie on every hole, and that birdie chance for 59 on the 18th was his second-longest putt of the round. But then, Cantlay also knows what to expect at Las Vegas, and his work is not done. “No lead is safe around here,” he said. Pereira started the day with the lead, shot 67 and wound up three shots behind. Kim played bogey-free and needed a big run at the end to keep pace. “We haven’t run away with it,” Kim said. “I have to play well tomorrow. I’m sure a lot of guys are thinking that.” There were nine scores of 64 or better on a perfect day for scoring. The course average for Saturday was 67.9. Perhaps another example of the low scoring was Cantlay. His group of NeSmith and S.H. Kim played so well that Cantlay never hit first from a tee box on the back nine. NeSmith had a 63 and S.H. Kim had a 64. Cantlay already has won twice this year — one was with Xander Schauffele in the team event in New Orleans — and a victory Sunday would move him to No. 2 in the world.

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