Welcome to the sixth chapter of Finding Frankenstein, a PGA experimental series on Fantasy Labs.
Finding Frankenstein is where I leave all my opinions and narratives at the door and rely only on what the tools at FantasyLabs tell me. First, I experiment with an unreal amount of data by using our FREE Trends tool to run trends for literally every possible metric specific to rounds played at the week’s course. Next, I use those results to construct a tournament-specific model in our Player Models. Finally, once the model is built, I take my experimentation even further, attempting to create a monster player capable of taking down a tournament.
AT&T Byron Nelson Recap
The last Frankenstein I created, Lucas Glover, was the first ever Frankenstein to miss the cut. He finished the week one under par with 32.5 DraftKings points, obviously not the results I hope for when I fire up my Bunsen burners in the Lab.
The Byron Nelson was the first week I unveiled my new monster-creation process, and despite Glover’s missing the cut by one shot I was quite pleased with the overall results.
Brooks Koepka, the third-highest rated player in the Frankenstein creation, lost in a playoff to Sergio Garcia. Koepka finished at 15 under par with 108.5 DraftKings points. Colt Knost, rated fourth, finished T4 at 13 under par with 98 DraftKings points. Gary Woodland, rated second, finished T12 at 11 under par with 91 DraftKings points.
The process worked. So I’ll continue to trust the process and the data.
Building the Frankenstein Model for the FedEx St. Jude Classic
I’m excited to move on to Memphis, TN, for the 2016 FedEx St. Jude Classic played at TPC Southwind.
Thankfully, TPC Southwind offers some clear value in profitable trends, the overwhelming majority of which come from Long-Term form. Somewhat surprisingly, among recent form only Driving Accuracy (DA) was worth rating in the model. In fact, there’s a whole lot of DA in this beast builder, so it will be unlike any model I’ve constructed before.
Here are a couple of observations I made in the Lab:
- Long-Term Driving Accuracy (LTDA) provides a Plus/Minus of +8.37 with 55.1-percent Consistency, the highest Plus/Minus of the small-sample trends.
- Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) gives the highest return of the large-sample trends, with a Plus/Minus of +5.83 and Consistency of 55.2 percent.
- Recent Driving Accuracy (RDA) is the most consistent small-sample trend, providing a Plus/Minus of +7.42 with 60-percent Consistency.
- Long-Term Missed Cut (LTMC) is the most consistent large-sample trend, producing a Plus/Minus of +4.97 with 59.6-percent Consistency.
Consistency, Plus/Minus, and other premium exclusive metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.
If you want to build your own Frankenstein model this week, these are all the sliders included, in order of weighting: Long-Term Greens in Regulation (LTGIR), LT Adj Rd Score, LTDA & RDA rated equally, LTMC, Odds Score, Long-Term Scrambling, Long-Term Birdie Score, Course Adj Rd Score, Upside, and just a touch of Long-Term Field.
For rounds played this year, the model has produced an average Plus/Minus of +3.36 for golfers in the top quintile:
Creation of the Monster
Per usual, I first eliminated all the top-tier golfers (anybody priced at or above $10,000). Ryan Palmer, Dustin Johnson, Koepka, and Woodland all rated inside the top ten of this week’s model but were all priced out of consideration.
As I did for the Byron Nelson, I am using a formula that I have developed to score each golfer in all of the profitable trends. This week there are twenty-nine trends that have been identified as traditionally valuable and dependable for rounds played at TPC Southwind. These trends have each been assigned a point total, and the Frankenstein-eligible golfer with the highest total score across all of these trends will be crowned Frankenstein.
Here are some of these creation specifics:
- Colin Davy would be happy to know that LT Adj Rd Score was worth the most creation points: 3.73.
- The large-sample LTGIR trend was worth 3.51 creation points.
- Long-Term Bogey Score was the most exclusive piece of creation, awarding only three golfers 1.39 points each.
Frankenstein Scoring Results
Here are some intriguing outcomes from the creation scoring:
- The average creation score for the 25 Frankenstein-eligible golfers was 26.34 points. Wesley Bryan (not a country singer), who’s ranked 1st on the Web.com Money List, scored 6.43. Bryan has already won twice this season on the junior circuit.
- Harris English, the highest-priced golfer in consideration at $9,900, scored 28.72 creation points, good for 11th.
- Marc Turnesa, the lowest-priced golfer in consideration at $5,500, scored the 6th-most points with 30.82.
- Everybody’s favorite DFS homeboy, Will Wilcox, made a valiant run at the title, finishing with 29.66 creation points, ranking 8th.
The following four golfers were the top scorers not crowned as Frankenstein this week (their total creation points are in parentheses):
- Jason Bohn (34.36)
- Francesco Molinari (33.29): The top-rated player in the model
- Colt Knost (32.9)
- Chad Campbell (31.37)
Frankenstein Revealed
David Hearn’s 37.09 creation points place him well ahead of the other contenders. He received points from a field-best twenty of the twenty-nine trends. Hearn is my (gulp!) Frankenstein for the FedEx St. Jude Classic! Just the type of scary monster I was in search of and whom the data has deemed most capable of helping your roster take down a tournament this weekend.
Hearn has made three of four cuts at this event, with 2013’s 18th-place finish being his best result. Hearn’s 70.3 Course Adj Rd Score is tied for 13th in the field. His 68.7 Recent Adj Rd Score is third best this week, so he arrives at the event in excellent form.
If you have any questions about the other results from this week’s Frankenstein model, hit me up on Twitter!
