Fantasy Insider: OHL Classic at Mayakoba

Chasing a second victory of the season Justin Rose goes low four days in a row to comfortably take care of business in the ball-striking paradise that is historic Colonial Country Club. Welcome to the Monday Finish where the former U.S. Open champion held off the challenge from the current U.S. Open champion to become the fifth multiple winner of the 2017-18 FedExCup season as he cruised to a three-shot win. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Rose – when he’s got his game clicking – is both awesome and annoying to watch. Awesome because the precision and skill with which he strikes the ball just leaves you in awe, and annoying because it just reminds you how your own game will likely never feel that flawless. Of course Rose made mistakes over the four days, but they were few and far between. And when he did he bounced back quickly. A bogey on the third hole on Sunday was followed by four birdies in the next six holes. A short miss for birdie on the 10th was followed with birdie on 11. He just stayed clutch all week long. Now second in the FedExCup, Rose is one of the early favorites to take the season-long race. And his chances for the upcoming U.S. Open look very good indeed. Read more about his win here. 2. Speaking of players rounding into form heading towards the U.S. Open … last year’s winner at Erin Hills is clearly back from his injury concerns. Brooks Koepka did everything he could to make Rose uncomfortable on Sunday but it wasn’t enough. His final-round 63 was his second of the tournament and third in five rounds after he equaled the TPC Sawgrass course-record 63 in the final round at THE PLAYERS. The concerns about his wrist injury, which had him out of action for months after surgery earlier this season, have seemingly completely disappeared. Koepka might be sick of Rose though. He was runner-up to him at the World Golf Championships–HSBC Champions also. 3. What a roller coaster week for Kevin Na. Open with a sublime 62. Finish with a scintillating course-record tying 61. But sadly he was 3 over for the middle rounds (73-70). It shows how hard it is to put four rounds together on the PGA TOUR. You can be untouchable for half a tournament but it won’t cut it against the best. His putting stats from Round 1 to Round 2 were insane. Round 1: Na gained 3.358 strokes on the field but then lost 4.273 strokes on the greens in Round 2. Thursday he had 22 putts, making 126 feet, 7 inches of them. Friday it was 34 putts and just 44 feet, 8 inches. With back-to-back top-10 results in Texas, Na has moved to 46th in the FedExCup and is how we say … trending. 4. Emiliano Grillo is having a sneaky decent season. His rookie season of 2015-16 – where he claimed his lone PGA TOUR win and was Rookie of The Year after finishing 11th in the FedExCup – was backed up with a fair 2017. He finished 67th last season with just two top-10s but yesterday’s third-place finish now gives him five top-10s this season. The Argentinean missed just one cut out of 16 starts this season and sits 29th in the FedExCup standings. He’s one to keep an eye on. 5. It is getting harder to believe Jordan Spieth when it comes to his putting. He says it is coming around. He says he made progress this week. But he ranked 70th of the 78 players to make the cut in Strokes Gained: Putting at Colonial. Now we certainly hold Spieth to a higher standard than others on the greens because we have seen him be incredible with the flat stick in the past but the longer this continues the less likely it won’t grow into a more significant mental road block. He missed seven putts inside 10 feet this week – one of those was inside 3 feet, another one inside 5 feet and two more inside 7 feet. He is now 192nd on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting this season. Yes that’s right. The guy who was ninth on TOUR in 2015, second on TOUR two seasons ago and 42nd on TOUR last year in the stat is now 192nd. While it is certainly a funk, champions always seem to find a way and we remain hopeful an uptick is just around the corner. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Rose opened his final round with a front-nine 30, marking the 20th time he has shot 30 or better for his front or back nine holes in a round on TOUR (fifth time in a final round). Rose finished with a four-round total of 260 coming one shot short of Zach Johnson’s tournament record of 259 (2010) at the Fort Worth Invitational. He has now converted three of 13 career 36-hole leads or co-leads (2010 The National, 2011 BMW Championship, 2018 Fort Worth Invitational) and four of 14 career 54-hole leads or co-leads (2010 The National, 2011 BMW Championship, 2015 Zurich Classic of New Orleans, 2018 Fort Worth Invitational) to victory. 2. Just over half (55%) of Rose’s total strokes gained for the week were a result of his approach shot performance. Of events where ShotLink lasered all four rounds it was a career second best effort in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green for Rose (+2.562). In fact his SG: Approach-the-Green performance was the best by a winner this season and was also the best dating back to last seasons the Memorial Tournament where Jason Dufner recorded a +2.671 per-round average performance. Rose marked the ninth of the last 10 winners of the Fort Worth Invitational to have outperformed the field by over +0.5 strokes per round in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green. 3. Rose is the first winner since Zach Johnson (2010) to lead the field in Greens in Regulation on the way to victory at the Fort Worth Invitational. Rose played the par 4s at Colonial Country Club at a combined 14 under, which tied for the second-best performance on the par 4s by a winner and the tied for third-best since 1983 at the Fort Worth Invitational. 4. Rose tied Nick Faldo for the most PGA TOUR victories by an Englishman since 1983 and moves to second in the FedExCup following his ninth win. He also moves to third in the world rankings. It is his ninth top-10 finish since the start of the 2017 FedExCup Playoffs, the most of any player in that span. 5. Chilean former top amateur Joaquin Niemann – at just 19-years-old – is on track for potential Special Temporary Membership and perhaps a PGA TOUR card. His eighth place finish helped his season tally to 180 non-member FedExCup points, which would rank him 144th in this season’s FedExCup standings. He can earn his card for the 2018-19 season if he finishes in the top 125. Niemann has starts in the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide and the FedEx St. Jude Classic in the next two weeks. He needs just 89 points to earn special temporary membership, which would allow him to accept unlimited sponsor exemptions this season in his quest for the top 125. He has already likely done more than enough to feature in the Web.com Finals.

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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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OnScene: Steph Curry looks to turn things around

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