It's that time of year again that DFSx42 isn't swamped with work and can spend it blogging instead of getting paid 🙂
I've crunched my own PGA model for this upcominmog event and came up with a tiered ranking system of the golfers in question.
These rankings come with a caveat though. Many of these golfers in this event are not PGA regulars. This means the more advanced golf statistics have both questions of sample size and reliability. Frankly, I'd rather fade a good player than tout a bad one so when in doubt my model punishes European tour golfers.
As a result, you should feel free to take a big grain of salt with the Euros in this list.
For example, I know a few people are big on Christiaan Bezuidenhout and if you're one of them and know some good info on him then feel free to ignore my poor ranking of him.
2020 WGC-Mexico Championship Tiers
The Double Bogey Tier
Robert MacIntyre
Jazz Janewattananond
Justin Harding
Mike Lorenzo-Vera
Brendon Todd
Shugo Imahira
Jorge Campillo
Christiaan Bezuidenhout
Benjamin Hebert
Marcus Kinhult
Ryan Fox
Ryo Ishikawa
Shaun Norris
Lucas Herbert
Zander Lombard
Pablo Larrazabal
Scott Hend
Tae Hee Lee
Victor Perez
Matthias Schwab
Zach Murray
This is my own personal persona non grata list. I know a few guys here will have some decent ownership but as mentioned in the introduction, I'd rather fade the guy who wins than play the guy who finishes last. But hey, there's no cut this week so downsides are severely limited and this week is as good as any to take a stand on someone who could catch lightning in a bottle.
The Bogey Tier
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Danny Willett
Tyrrell Hatton
Kevin Na
Jason Kokrak
Charles Howell III
Cameron Smith
Kurt Kitayama
Graeme McDowell
Matthew Fitzpatrick
Sung Kang
Shane Lowry
Branden Grace
Lanto Griffin
Matt Wallace
Bernd Wiesberger
Lee Westwood
Erik van Rooyen
Francesco Molinari
I need to spend some time investigating Molinari. I know he hasn't been performing very well lately but the talent should still be there. My model isn't very heavily biased by recency either so I am totally shocked to find it dislikes him so much. I heard how terrible he was and just assumed "oh those guys haven't looked at the underlying numbers and don't understand variance" and instead I just have a lot of egg on my face. Very humbling seeing how wrong I was once I ran the model.
The Par Tier
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Patrick Reed
Chez Reavie
Sebastian Munoz
Louis Oosthuizen
Byeong Hun An
Scottie Scheffler
Brandt Snedeker
Carlos Ortiz
Jordan Spieth
Kevin Kisner
Rafa Cabrera Bello
Billy Horschel
Lucas Glover
Here we're getting into the beginning of the guys the model believes are cash game viable. It doesn't weigh putting very highly so if you value that skill you should be a little higher on some of the putting specialists found here.
The Birdie Tier
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Marc Leishman
Paul Casey
Gary Woodland
Sungjae Im
Sergio Garcia
Corey Conners
Abraham Ancer
Matt Kuchar
Bubba Watson
Tommy Fleetwood
It breaks my heart to find Sungjae "slumming it" down in the birdie tier. If I were a 17th century Dutchman, my heart would pine for Sungjae in the cash line and not for tulip bulbs.
I built the model that created these projections. Yet I'm able to disagree with it so easily so you should too. Don't think of this as anything more than a guideline.
Predicting outcomes is hard, especially in a high variance sport like golf.
The Eagle Tier
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Adam Scott
Jon Rahm
Dustin Johnson
Xander Schauffele
Bryson DeChambeau
Collin Morikawa
I was pretty surprised to see Adam Scott this high and Dustin Johnson this low. I know Scott is a good golfer but he's almost never been this high before. As mentioned earlier, my model isn't that big on recency bias so this is indicative of a long period of improved performance not just a few good rounds.
DJ's presence here does make a bit more sense though because he hasn't been his normal dominating self for a while now. He does, however, have impeccable course history for this event so if you care about that kind of thing feel free to bump him up.
I don't imagine I'll roll out too many DJ lines personally. It's hard to stomach his high price and ownership if you don't project him at least top three.
However, if you value course history, he could make a good case for #1 option in this event.
The Champion Tier
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Rory McIlroy
Justin Thomas
Webb Simpson
Hideki Matsuyama
I love Matsuyama, him and Sungjae are two of my most commonly played guys in cash so it's no surprise to see him here and he'll likely be one of my highest owned golfers.
Simpson may not have quite the name brand recognition of many below him on this list but play has been utterly tremendous as of late.
JT needs no introduction. I refuse to believe the "he missed the cut last week so could be lower owned this week" as it seems every tout says that to the point where you'd almost imagine recent duds will actually increase ownership by too many people trying to outgame each other. It's JT, he's going to be highly owned no matter what. DFS may still be beatable, but people aren't that dumb to think he lost his mojo due to a single poor result.
Rory needs no introduction, he's a beast.
My one major piece of advice is to spread out ownership a bit more than usual this week. Montezuma's revenge has been known to severely impact some golfers each year in this event and you don't want your highest owned guy withdrawing halfway through day one.
Good luck everyone! Feel free to come over to Yahoo and challenge me to a H2H where I can be found in the h2h lobby under the account name "Adam"
P.S. Glad to be back and blogging. Work was crazy last few months and I was often finishing up my lineups minutes before lock and just didn't have enough time to blog.
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