I have to start this article by saying a few words about Tiger Woods.  Personally as a lifelong fan of the sport, I was floored when I saw the news.  We all know he has had his demons, from his father's impact to his philandering to the pill addiction.  Just go watch the new HBO documentary and you'll get a real perspective into what his life was like.  This is just awful, no other way around it.  No one wants to see such a worldwild icon lose his career in this way.  Every golf fan was hoping after his back surgery in December that he'd find a way to tee it up at Augusta in April because they know he is a fighter and has come back from so much in his career already.  I was so glad to hear that he didn't sustain life threatening injuries but the injuries he did sustain sound awful and could be career ending.  We will just have to wait and see, but my thoughts are with him and his family.  

It’s a weird week for DFS Golf as we’ve got two tournaments.  We’ve got the WGC-Workday Championship which is the featured event of the week and the Puerto Rico Open.  The Top 80 players in the world at the time are invited in four WGC events throughout the calendar year.  This is the first one of 2021.  WGC events do not have a cut, every player will play all four rounds which means you can take more risks in your lineups.  Everyone who is not invited to play, they head down to Puerto Rico for that event.  I wanted to make sure there would be no confusion as to the PGA content this week.  There were only odds available for the WGC from what I could see, so I did a Best Bets piece for the WGC.  You will see a full DFS playbook just for the WGC event.  Then you will see a core play article for both the WGC and Puerto Rico tournaments.  If you have any more questions for the WGC or Puerto Rico events that you’d like answered, you could reach out to me in the chat or on twitter @Drew_Phelps83.     

It was a hell of a week at Riviera with good guy Max Homa coming out on top.  He tweeted out after winning the event,”I spent over a dozen years trying to get Tiger to give me a high 5 at Riviera and today he handed me a trophy hahaha what a world!”  Homa had been playing such good golf, he was bound to pick up a victory sooner rather than later.  I do feel a little bad for Tony Finau but he’ll bounce back and it could be as soon as this week at the WGC-Workday Championship.    

I think we all learned this week that course history and recent form both have a place in the Daily Fantasy Golf game.  Ideally you’d like a player who has both but you can’t always find them.  Max Homa was a player that featured both course history and recent form and look what happened.  Then we have Justin Thomas who hadn’t finished above 13th in any event since the BMW and he missed the cut after missing it last year.  Then you have Patrick Rodgers who had missed every cut in 2021 thus far, but had four straight Top 30 finishes at Riviera, did it again last week finishing 12th.  There really is no wrong way to pick these players and that’s why golf is the most variant sport in DFS.

Let’s take a look at this week’s event.  The PGA Tour starts their Florida swing at the WGC-Workday Championship at the Concession.  Typically the players would have been heading to Mexico for the WGC but because of logistical challenges posed by the COVID-19 protocols, we head to Bradenton-Sarasota for this week’s event.  This course has never hosted a PGA Tour event but a few of the players in the field should know it from their amateur days.  Bryson DeChambeau won the 2015 NCAA Championship at The Concussion.  That year he became just the fifth player to win both the NCAA Championship and Amateur Championship in the same year.

This course is no joke and gives these players challenges which will test their decision making.  Concession is a par 72 and gets to nearly 7500 yards.  Jack Nicklaus is one of the designers of this course and when looking for comp courses, Muirfield (Jack’s course), Augusta (Jack won 6 green jackets) and Riviera (played a multitude of times) are all in the conversation.  It is known for the challenging bunker placement especially around the greens.  Once again Strokes Gained: Approach will be the true test of this course with those bunkers and risk/reward opportunities.  Take for example the signature eighth hole which is a short dogleg right par 4 with water in front of the green which will put all the pressure on their approach shot.  These players will also have to deal with four par 5s that are all listed in the Top 5 most difficult on the golf course.  The 13th is the biggest risk/reward test of them all with a forced tee shot over water and then a green that is completely surrounded by bunkers.  The par 5 seventh hole is a monster stretching out 606 yards which makes Strokes Gained: Off the Tee even more important.  I’m also going to focus on par 5 efficiency 550-600 into my key stats as well.  Three of the four par 3s are longer than 200 yards which always poses a unique challenge, I’ll add Par 3 Efficiency 200-225 to the mix as well.  The 18th is quite a finishing hole that reaches 486 yards.  We’ve got a narrow tree lined fairway into an elevated green with bunkers and water in the front and right.  You’ve heard about the challenges that this course features, I’m going to add Scrambling to my list of key stats this week.

Let’s talk about these greens shall we?  They are expected to be very fast with a lot of movement and undulation to them.  This will force me to add Strokes Gained: Around the Green and Strokes Gained: Putting to my list of key stats.  When you’ve got a new course with no course history from these players, we’ve got to take a closer at the stats.

I don’t see an overall advantage to any one type of player this weekend.  The bombers will have their obvious advantages but there is a lot of precision required on approach, and you’re ball strikers will thrive under those conditions. 

The weather looks to be a non-factor this weekend with temps in the low 80s throughout and sunny skies.  The winds may get into the low teens on the weekend but these players have already dealt with a lot of that throughout the start of the season. 

GOOD LUCK!

ONE & DONE PLAY OF THE WEEK: Patrick Cantlay

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