After a soggy Zurich Classic in New Orleans, the Tour is on to Quail Hollow for the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina. Rory McIlory is the defending champion after blitzing the field last year with a nuclear 61 in the third round and finishing the tournament at 21 under.
McIlroy is $1,900 more than the second-most expensive golfer (Rickie Fowler), so here is a good spot to remind ourselves of the extent to which high-priced golfers on DraftKings are usually bad bets:
And here is the Plus/Minus distribution for golfers priced between $12,500-13,500 on DraftKings (-1.47 Plus/Minus):
Yikes. Before we get to the recent form section of this piece, I just want to note that if a golfer is by far the highest-priced option on the slate then he essentially needs to win the tournament (or finish in the top five) to meet his salary-based expectations. High-priced golfers might make for decent tournament plays, but I’m not sure that they are ever safe for cash games:
Recent Form for the Wells Fargo Championship: High-Priced Tier
DK’s pricing algorithm seems to catch a bug whenever Hideki Matsuyama is in the field. He has regularly been mispriced all season long for the form that he is in. The Wells Fargo Championship certainly has a strong field (especially at the high-priced end), but Matsuyama offers shining Upside as the ninth-highest-priced golfer on the slate.
Matsuyama nearly won the Masters back in April (finished T7th) and was in fantastic form before golf’s Super Bowl, finishing T6, T35, WD, T11 and 1st in his five prior events. Matsuyama also owns the Wells Fargo Championship field’s second-lowest Recent Adjusted Round score (66.9). His fourth-best Recent Average Adjusted Strokes on Par 5s (-8) sets up beautifully for Quail Hollow’s long Par 5s, three of which are over 560 yards long:
Graham DeLaet’s Beard (and Recent Form) is Strong
As a fellow bearded man with the same name, I can’t help but stand in awe of DeLaet’s “Old Dutch” beard. I have no idea how one keeps up with a beard of such size, but I am not one to hate on eccentric facial hair.
Beard game aside, DeLaet has also rekindled his golf game this season. After a rough start to 2016 — two missed cuts in his first four events — he has turned his form around with a T5, T11 (weak field in Puerto Rico), T27 and T11 in his last four tournaments.
DeLaet has never won on Tour, but given his $7,400 salary DeLaet’s Recent Adjusted Round Score of 68.4 (12th-best in the field) offers a bit of value. Luke Donald ($7,300) is also in fantastic recent form (68.2 Adjusted Round Score) and has four top-25 finishes or better in his last five events, but there might be a decent chance that DeLaet has a lower lineup percentage than Donald at Quail Hollow because of their pricing similarity.
DeLaet’s 16.7 birdies per recent tournament are the seventh-most in the Wells Fargo field, and he is in the top-30 in Long-Term Driving Distance (298.3), which looks like a key statistic for the week:
The Bargain Bin
Using the Trends tool, I have made a simple (but effective) trend that matches for cheap golfers (no higher than $6,500) who are mispriced relative to their recent form (no higher than a Recent Adjusted Round of 70 for the Wells Fargo Championship):
Lucas Glover ($6,300) sticks out. He has three top-35 finishes or better in his last four events and owns the second best Recent Greens in Regulation (72.2%) in the Wells Fargo field. He definitely makes for an intriguing play.
Good luck this week!
