Note to Mods: if this post is inappropriate, please delete and I offer my sincere apologies. I've cross-posted this in the Fantasy Forum, but I'd like the views of real golf fans who watch and understand real golfers, which is why I'm here. OTTT.


Hey Everyone,

I'm in a season long pool that starts up January 10th (for the Sony Open and beyond). Last year, I didn't see the entry form until just before it was due. This year, I've been paying better attention to emails and am putting in the work. I usually submit two teams, but the pool cost is increasing. If there are enough golfers I like, I'll do two. I'll cross-post in Golf Forum for greater traffic.


The list of players and costs are below. I already have thoughts. I'd like to hear your thoughts independent of mine.

1. Do you see anyone who is a must own?
2. Do you have any strong suspicions of guys who fit the Target Player Type?
3. Anyone to avoid?

Target Player Types

• Players who will outperform last year's salary.
• Players who did well in the Fall Series who will be in the playoffs.
• Young guys who are on a trajectory for goodness, if not greatness.
• Solid players coming off injury whose cost is depressed due to injury.
• Players whose OWGR is far better than their PGA Tour Salary, so they'll play in all the majors, WGC Events, and other big tournaments.

Salary Cap: 120
Max Golfers: 30

Am I reading it correctly that Spieth is cheaper than Cameron Smith, Kizzire and Na? That's the stupidest of all the mispricings that I see. He is a must pick

You could take Cameron Champ and he is pretty much guaranteed to make the playoff barring injury given the amount of points he already has, and really sky is the limit.

Bill Haas is a guy who should have a bounce back year

I would also go in on Niemann

Chappell is another guy coming off a down year but has talent to be in the 10-20 range

Yes. Spieth is 8. It's based off last season, and Spieth had putting issues (as you know).

Had my eye on Niemann. He put his name on the map last year with that great stretch. I'm hoping he'll still be low owned.

Champ is a big hitter whom I have in my notes after seeing that 400 yard drive. Again, he is a little too hot right now with his Fall Series. I like him, but I worry about his ownership.

Good call on Chaps and Haas.

This looks really weird if you ask me. It's based totally on last year's money list it seems. Hell, Champ costs only $3 and he's got a win meaning he'll go far in the playoffs. Sergio is only $3 after a crappy year. Sangmoon Bae is only $3 because he served his required South Korea military service the last two years.

Am also assuming the last tournament of the year is the Tour Championship? It's also goofy that the contest doesn't start until January when the season started many events ago.

Guys like Bubba are probably overpriced.

Take the proven studs over many years and hunt for the obvious under priced proven players.

what is the scoring?

Scoring system matters, and obviously "Max Golfers: 30" is ... is this you could buy the top 7 guys (well, that's $123 but you get the idea) and that's your 7 person team, or you could buy 30 guys for $4 each and you have a 30 person team?

Some clarity on the rules is needed here. But basically I'd probably just look at the fall series money list and load up.

Matsuyama, Hoffman, Pieters, Kuchar, Fitzpatrick, Aphibarnrat all guys I would say are underpriced relative to their talent, though I agree with others that we can't really advise you who to take without knowing the format.

Can you only play a few guys each event and need some guys who plays in the off weeks? Do the Euros who are really talented but don't play too many events valuable or not valuable in your format?

The pool is divided into two mini pools.

1. Money won on tour. (Consistency matters)
2. FedEx Cup style. Points for weekly finishes. Top 10 earn points (25, 15, 10, ..., 1).



All guys that are on your team that play in PGA tournaments are scored.



Yes. You can theoretically have a team of 8 guys. Some people have tried that, but it didn't pay off.

Point of Clarification
Maximum number of golfers is now 24. Recent change I forgot about.

Well if we are talking strictly value plays (and not who will do the best overall) -

Tway
Howell
Hossler
Uihlein
Champ

I like the Euros also but they don't play a lot of PGA events so you would need big finishes in the few they do play (majors, WGC, etc). Pepperell, Fitzpatrick, Sergio, all in the top 40 OWGR at 3 bucks.

Throughout the last year, I jotted down some thoughts, and I'm glad I've been thinking similarly to y'all.

Grace (coming off an injury season)
Ruffles (just turned pro)
Niemann (just turned pro)
Sharma (Hi OWGR low PGA Tour $)
Keith Mitchell (seems to be a good young player)
Suri (solid Euro)
Grillo (very consistent)
Aaron Wise (good; hope he doesn't cost too much) - Winning that tourney inflated his cost
Uihlein (good young player)
Pat Perez & Rory Sabbatini (old forgotten dudes who still put up good finishes)
Hossler (good young player for whom I found myself rooting)
Charles Howell III (Hi OWGR; seems to underachieve)
TJ Vogel (the Monday finish thing is impressive)
Haotong Li (Good on Euro Tour; boned me on DK in the Mexico Tourney)
Bud Cauley (coming off injury)

Last year, I had some decent Euros who didn't win anything for me.

Stenson
Fleetwood
An
Hatton
Fitzpatrick
Pieters
Noren

Okay, I've been logging data from the 2018 season looking to see what statistics correlate well with "Money Earned", and unsurprisingly the best stat that correlates is Scoring Average. So, I dug deeper and am looking to see what correlates well with Scoring Average.

So far, I've gathered and tested the following:

Money Won
Rounds Played
Scoring Average
Strokes Gained: Total
Driving Average
GIR %
Total Putting
Strokes Gained: Off the Tee
Strokes Gained: Approach to the Green
Strokes Gained: Around the Green
Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green
Strokes Gained: Putting

Any other stats that should be considered?

I kind of like Max Homa as a dark horse, but I totally don't understand the scoring system here and am too lazy to try to figure it out.

I had Max a couple of years ago. He was a dart throw rookie, so that selection was random.

Scoring format is explained in Post #10.

very interesting, thx for posting. why don't we use this as a template for a 2p2 golf pool? i'd be more than willing to kick $20 into a charity or prize pool

very basic question, but does this include money/points already won this season?... sorry, i didn't read.

FIRST RULE (esp. if it was strictly a season $$$$ winning pool) is to take 30 players.

i might relax that moderately as i don't know how WGC or Fed EX points work.. basically i think you have to give thought to players that will be in those big $$$$ tournaments.... but i wouldn't relax it too much.

SECOND RULE... take cam champ........... but there must be other lesser guys in his situation i.e. tore up web.com and did very well in the fall season.

i would look up ncaa careers...

obvious picks beyond champ... nieman, wise, uhlein, sneiderjans, rodgers, cantley, lovemark.

i didn't notice all those guys in the list. i would chase probably any of them above 6 or 7 points. get many of them much lower

RCB, great question. I was very unclear. Money already won DOES NOT count. So, it's Sony Open until Tour Championship.

Here's my 1st run at putting two teams together.

Team 1
Jordan Spieth 8
Alex Noren 8
Henrik Stenson 8
Hideki Matsuyama 7
Byeong Hun An 7
Emiliano Grillo 7
Rafa Cabrera Bello 7
Charles Howell III 6
Peter Uihlein 6
Matt Kuchar 5
Abraham Ancer 5
Keith Mitchell 5
Joel Dahmen 5
Kevin Tway 5
Ollie Schniederjans 4
Joaquin Niemann 4
Rory Sabbatini 4
Bud Cauley 4
Julian Suri 3
HaoTong Li 3
Sam Burns 3
Shubhankar Sharma 3
Cameron Champ* 3

Team 2
Tommy Fleetwood 10
Cameron Smith 10
Hideki Matsuyama 7
Beau Hossler 7
Charles Howell III 6
J.J. Spaun 6
Tyrrell Hatton 6
Peter Uihlein 6
Louis Oosthuizen 5
Daniel Berger 5
Abraham Ancer 5
Branden Grace 5
Ryan Palmer 5
Charley Hoffman 5
Ollie Schniederjans 4
Patrick Rodgers 4
Joaquin Niemann 4
Rory Sabbatini 4
Bud Cauley 4
Corey Conners 3
Julian Suri 3
Shubhankar Sharma 3
Cameron Champ* 3

What do you think? Am I spending too much on some unproven players (eg. Cam Smith)? I wanted Apibarnrat for 4, but I didn't know who to pull. Maybe one of the Sabbatinis.

I did some "Current Season" Stat Crunching. I didn't want to change one of the original teams, so I just created a 3rd team. It's the "Guys I had to have" and the "Guys who popped statistically".

I don't want to submit 3 teams, because it gets expensive.

WHICH 2 TEAMS DO YOU LIKE BEST? WHY?

how many entries in your pool? it would affect how much crazy upside you want in the portfolio. the more people, the more you want massive potential upside (and probably all 30 players)

does fleetwood play on american tour? barn-rat doesn't......... so what is the pool based on? pga tour earnings in america, WGC and majors??......

this is more of a golf season question but are the 3 point players severely constrained as to big $$$ events... otherwise, i would just take 3,4 and 5 point players and take the full 30.

is there a list from last year as to how people did?... you might get a feel as to whether 30 players is the way to go. or if 20 higher quality names is better.

sabattini i would assume has no upside. somehow just still eligible for tour (i've noticed that with acquaintances on pga tour and web.com and smaller..... hard to make it there, not that hard to stay there.

corry connors was in contention a bunch of times last year and collapsed late. exactly the kind of player you want...

can you screen on players with sub-66 rounds last year? something like that

Last year, there were 45 teams, so it's a little smallish.

I was mistaken in the 30 players, it's been changed to 24.

The $3 guys are usually inexperienced on tour, returning to the tour, or conditionally playing on tour.

PGA Tour Money Won is all that matters. WGCs, Majors, and Playoffs count. Tour Championship is the end of the season.

Corey Conners and I have a love hate relationship. I took him as a dart throw last year, and I used him relentlessly on DFS.

Sabbatini was always around last year. It was weird. Also, he's had a good Fall Series, so he should be around come Playoff Time.

I don't understand the sub-66 thing.

the sub-66 round would just point out to someone's ability to go low. looking at eagles and/or birdie percentage would be good too.

corey connors is perfect example of what i'm getting at. was in final groups a bunch of times last year but it didn't end up amounting to much. but he has the basic game to win big.

i didn't give enough mental weight to the fact that you have tourneys played so far to look at how good rookies are (i realize money so far doesn't count, but it shows what young guys are doing well AND any young player doing well so far will get into alot of tourneys

the 24 players definitely makes it so that it's very reasonable to take some more expensive players. but definitely get to 24 (which i'm sure you will)...

i do think the no-name (i.e. not cam champ etc.) players will have issues with getting in enough events, knowing the courses and getting in the bigger money events.

i have to admit i didn't even know rory sab was still around, but i can't see him having any upside and i think you want upside with so many of your players.

I wasn't able to find "sub-66", but I found "rounds in the 60s". Which I don't think was too additive.

Anyway, today is final cut down day. Are there any young guys that jump to mind that I should get some exposure to?

I used this for our small pool, only a handful of entries. A few guys just went all out and picked 8-10 of the top guys.

I used 21 but I did take JT.

I didn't actually check but I assume the costs were properly scaled with 2018 earnings, right? Looks that way. And not just ranked in ascending order with no accurate scale?

In general you don't want to pick players like Li, Sharma, etc. ...no? They play way less PGA tour events.

Those guys will play in fewer events, but they're prize pools are much bigger. 4 WGC events, 4 Majors, plus a half dozen other big tournaments. Not ideal, but decent upside for low priced guys.

Ownership numbers came out yesterday. 41 teams, seven fewer than last year. I will post the numbers when I get a chance. I am the sole owner of a handful of players that make me happy.