PGA DFS: Horse For The Course - WGC Dell Match Play

Welcome back golf fans! Paul Casey successfully defended his Valspar title over the weekend to log his second straight win at the Copperhead Course. The Englishman headed into the Valspar fresh off a disastrous outing at The Players Championship and reminded us that it is often a viable DFS strategy to target good players in solid bounce-back spots.

Casey outlasted two players that were highlighted in last week's edition of HFTC, Jason Kokrak and Dustin Johnson. While it's never great when our Horse completely strikes out like Patrick Reed did, the strong performances from Kokrak and DJ coupled with T18's from both Jim Furyk and Sung Kang, helped to soften the blow of Reed's train wreck of an outing.

This week is going to be a little weird. We head to Austin for the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event, where 62 of the world's top 64 players will be in action. This isn't a regular stroke play event AND it gets kicked off on Wednesday morning AND the player 'brackets' weren't announced until Monday evening. So...we have a lot of foreign information to process and we have to do it in a shorter time span than we're used to. You will hear a lot about 'pods' and 'groups' in this event and will need to employ a bit of 'bracketology' when building DFS lineups. Personally, I will be scaling back the amount of money I invest in DFS this week.

I will do my best to be as helpful as possible this week, though at the time of this writing I don't yet have the player brackets available to me, so make sure and review the Dell brackets before rostering the players in this article together. If you take away anything from this week's article, let it be this: DON'T SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FOOT WITH LINEUP CONSTRUCTION. With this event using an NCAA tourney style bracket system, you want to make sure you give yourself a chance to have players from each side of the draw in the 'Final Four'. In other words, if your roster is made up of players that will be facing each other early in the event, you will effectively be eliminating yourself. I know it's a little confusing, just make sure to keep one eye on the player bracket when constructing your lineups this week and try to avoid rostering players that might have to face each other early in this event.

I try to make HFTC more than just a "picks" column (though you can certainly use it that way if you are in a hurry) by digging deep into each highlighted player. Obviously, our weekly jumping off point is a player's course history, but there isn't a firm set of rules when it comes to who is featured in this article. My goal is to help you succeed as a PGA DFS player. Period. I will touch on different GPP and cash-game strategies throughout the column each week and hopefully have some useful info for both beginners and experienced DFS players. Thanks for joining me here at RotoBaller, let's tee it up!

You can also find out who the smart money is on by checking out Spencer Aguiar's PGA DFS: Vegas Report every week.

Editor's Note: Our friends at Fantasy National have built some incredible DFS Golf lineup tools including a Lineup Optimizer, Stat Engine, Ownership Projections and Course Breakdowns. They are by far the best daily fantasy Golf tools in the industry. Seriously. You can read all about them here and see screenshots. 

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The Course: Austin Country Club

Par 71 - 7,108 Yards, Greens: Bermuda

For the second time in three weeks we head to a Pete Dye-designed course. Austin Country Club has settled in nicely as the home of the only match play event on the PGA Tour schedule. It has all the usual trappings of a Dye track with emphasis placed on approach shots, water heavily in play on the back nine, and plenty of holes with great risk/reward options. The front and back nines are rather different, with the front focusing on natural elevations and the back bringing Lake Austin into play. Despite this being a Dye track, long hitters have fared well here. The Par-5's are gettable and a driveable Par-4 offers some juicy, late-match drama.

The Horse

Bubba Watson (DK - $8,900 & FD -)

Notable Course History: Win (2018), T28 ('17), T17 ('16)
Recent Form: T4 (Valspar), T56 (The Players), T17 (API), T27 (WGC-Mexico), T15 (Genesis)

As I mentioned in the intro, I'm kind of flying blind this week with the timing of the WGC player draw and the writing of this article, so I appreciate you toughing things out with me for this out-of-the-ordinary match play event! I tend to avoid naming defending champions of an event as the Horse in this article, because it's usually a little too obvious. But...there's something brewing with Bubba Watson this season that makes him very intriguing to me. I'm not sure if it will be this event or in a few weeks at Augusta, but it feels like a Bubba win is coming.

If you've read this article much in the past, you probably know one of our 'HFTC Golden Rules' is: Thou shall only playeth Bubba on 'Bubba courses'. Perhaps more than any player on the PGA Tour, Watson is an extremely course-specific player. He repeatedly performs well on the same layouts, while routinely struggling on courses that don't suit him. Austin Country Club would definitely qualify as one of the former. Watson took down this event last year, has regularly made deep runs on this course, and has multiple wins at other Pete Dye tracks like TPC River Highlands and TPC Louisiana throughout his career.

Bubba's stats often get skewed by his play in the events that he doesn't like, but we find some excellent current form when looking at his last 24 rounds with Fantasy National. It comes as no surprise that he ranks second in the field in Strokes Gained: Off The Tee, but he also stands 11th in SG: Tee to Green and 10th in SG: Ball Striking. Watson's putting has slowly, but surely, been coming around since he went to a longer putter that he braces against his forearm and he ranks-out in the middle of the pack in SG: Putting over his last 24 rounds. Bubba comes in at an affordable $8,900 this week. His reasonable price tag and history in this event should make him a popular option.

The Ponies

Rory McIlroy (DK - $11,700 & FD -)

Notable Course History: T36 ('18), T30 ('17), T4 ('16), Win *Harding Park ('15)
Recent Form: Win (The Players), T6 (API), 2nd (WGC-Mexico), T4 (Genesis), T5 (Farmers)

Rory McIlroy stock is nearing an all-time high right now, but I'm still a buyer. The one time 'next big thing' is once again fulfilling his promise after a couple of 'lost years'. Rory has entered 2019 focused and motivated. It's paid huge dividends, as he logged a monster victory at The Players two weeks ago and hasn't finished outside of the top-six in any tournament he's played this year.

Rory is one of two golfers (Dustin Johnson being the other) that I put in a special little category I call "Unbeatable, If...". Meaning, McIlroy is damn-near unbeatable, if he's playing his best. He drives the ball perhaps as well as anyone in the history of the game. He's sharpened his approach game over the past year and he needs just a mediocre putting week to win any tournament.

McIlroy has been statistically ridiculous this season. He ranks first in this elite field in a sicko four Strokes Gained categories over his last 24 rounds: SG: Total, T2G, Ball Striking, and OTT.

While we don't get to see these guys in match play settings too often, Rory has shown that he can handle it. He won this event (at Harding Park GC) in 2015 and followed it with a strong run in 2016. Along with Dustin Johnson he's the Las Vegas favorite to win this event. It's probably asking to much to see those two square off in the final of this event, but we can dream...If you want to get Rory on your DFS rosters this week, it's doable...just be mindful of the players you roster with him.

Paul Casey (DK - $9,100 & FD -)

Notable Course History: T17 ('18), T9 ('17), T51 ('16), T5 ('15)
Recent Form: Win (Valspar), M/C (The Players), T3 (WGC-Mexico), T25 (Genesis), 2nd (AT&T)

A confident Paul Casey heads to Austin this week. The Englishman just picked up his second straight Valspar win a few days ago, adding to an already-impressive 2019 resume that includes two other top-three finishes. Casey logs the occasional nightmare outing (the less said about The Players, the better), but has shown himself to be comfortable with this match play format.

Casey as been rock-solid tee to green and ranks 10th in this field in SG: T2G over his last 24 rounds. His kryptonite is, and has always been, his putting. He ranks an abysmal 53rd in the field in SG: Putting over his last 24 rounds, which really makes his finishes all the more impressive. While clutch putting is obviously needed in match play, we don't see as much of the cumulative ill-effect as we do in a 72-hole stroke play event.

If we can't get my dream Rory vs DJ final, maybe we can get Paul Casey vs Phil Mickelson Part II: Mic'd Up, as that pair provided some of the most riveting TV of the year over the final few holes of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Ian Poulter (DK - $7,700 & FD -)

Notable Course History: T5 ('18), 4th ('13), Win *Dove Mountain ('10)
Recent Form: T56 (The Players) T23 (API), T3 (WGC-Mexico)

There was absolutely no way I was writing this week's article without including the greatest match-play golfer of our generation, Ian Poulter. His record speaks for itself. He has two career wins in match play events, the 2010 WGC-Accenture Match Play and the 2011 Volvo World Match Play Championship. He is undefeated in singles matches over six Ryder Cup appearances. Yeah, you read that right, Poulter has never lost a singles match in the Ryder Cup!

Poulter would be worthy of a mention here on the merit of his match-play record alone, but it is comforting to know that he's having a tremendous season. It was actually a deep run in this event last year that kickstarted a Poulter renaissance. He went on to win the Houston Open to qualify for The Masters and make his sixth Ryder Cup team last fall. He's kept things going nicely in 2019 with a month-long string of top-six finishes on the Euro Tour and a T3 at the WGC-Mexico already this year. He also popped at The Players before a disastrous weekend sent him tumbling down the leaderboard. I could give you a bunch of Poulter's stats (which are solid), but I think this dude could be dead last in every metric and still be a threat to win this thing.

Poulter's elite match play record will probably garner a lot of buzz around the DFS industry this week, and thus, a lot of ownership. He will definitely be the DK chalk this week, but it's hard not to love the cagey veteran's prospects in this type of event.

Louis Oosthuizen (DK - $7,500 & FD -)

Notable Course History: T9 ('18), T17 ('17), 2nd ('16), T5 ('15), T5 ('14)
Recent Form: T2 (Valspar), T56 (The Players), M/C (API), T25 (WGC-Mexico), M/C (Genesis)

It's been a rocky road for Louis Oosthuizen over the past year. The South African has battled nagging back and neck injuries which have forced him to withdraw from a few events. He's been inconsistent in 2019, seemingly alternating missed cuts with mediocre outings. However, things might finally be coming together at the right time for Oostie. He logged a very impressive runner-up finish at the Valspar last week, he heads to Austin for a match play format that he has thrived in, and we have The Masters on the horizon.

Despite his erratic form over the past year, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Louis play well this week. He seems to always be a factor in this event and his beautiful 66-69 weekend on a tough Copperhead Course just a few days ago has to give him some positive momentum. His form and statistical prowess isn't equal to the players listed above him in this article and he leaned heavily on his short game at Valspar, but Oosthuizen seems to find ways to get it done in match play and I like the glimpses we saw last week.

Kiradech Aphibarnrat (DK - $7,200 & FD -)

Notable Course History: T5 ('18), T18 ('16), T33 ('14)
Recent Form: M/C (The Players), T23 (API), M/C (Honda), T3 (WGC-Mexico)

We're gonna wrap things up this week with the 'Asian John Daly', Kiradech Aphibarnrat. 'The Barn Rat' likes to burn heaters and drive Lambos, but outside of his colorful personality, he's proven himself to be a legitimate, world-class golfer. The native of Thailand made a run in this event last year and it was no fluke, as Aphibarnrat has a very strong track record in match play events. He has two victories on the European Tour in match play events, the stroke-play/match-play hybrid Perth World Super 6 event which he won last year and the Paul Lawrie Match Play in Scotland in 2015.

Aphibarnrat's ball striking has left a lot to be desired this season and he ranks near the bottom of the Dell field in SG: Approach. This stat would be enough for me to toss him out of consideration most weeks, but match play is just different. Aphibarnrat is a grinder that's accurate off the tee and has a knack for making clutch putts in critical situations. He's an intriguing salary-saving option this week.

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