Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2023 John Deere Classic

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2023 John Deere Classic  

John Deere Classic Fantasy Preview

When the PGA TOUR hands out their annual awards at the end of the 2022-23 term, the Shot of the Season award will surely go to Rickie Fowler.

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His drive on the first playoff hole at the Rocket Mortgage Classic was more likely to endanger the health of the patrons than the fairway grass. But Rickie dug deep and muscled an iron out into the middle of the green, landing about 11ft from the cup. Adam Hadwin and Collin Morikawa, his two playoff combatants, were unable to hit their approaches closer from the fairway.

Fowler, as he had done on the final hole of regulation play to even force his way into the playoff, completed a clutch birdie to end a long four-year wait for a PGA TOUR title. Given how well he has been playing this season – and the confidence that a new Odyssey flat stick, which is clearly working, has brought – it’s been fully deserved.

So much so, you’d do well to name ten players that are playing better golf right now than Fowler, which is a remarkable turnaround in fortunes given the nature of the doldrums he has previously fallen into.

Next week starts the two-week Links golf swing in the UK, which perhaps explains why the field for this week’s event – the John Deere Classic – is sparse to say the least.

Last Event’s Fantasy Results

Big week for us in Detroit with Rickie as our Top Pick (Winner) and Stephen Jaeger as our Top Sleeper (T9). 

It’s a great feeling being back in the winner’s circle again just a couple weeks our from our last Major of the year.

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Last week’s win marks our 7th picked winner so far this season!

2023 John Deere Classic Field

Ordinarily, we might argue that the JDC represents the perfect opportunity for Cameron Young to clinch his maiden PGA TOUR title, but a lack of any form whatsoever of late may scupper those plans.

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Only nine golfers from the top-50 players in the world are making the trip – Russell Henley, Denny McCarthy, Sepp Straka, Tom Hoge, Chris Kirk, Emiliano Grillo, Nick Taylor and Taylor Moore joining Young in Illinois.

Defending champion J.T. Poston and former John Deere Classic victors Lucas Glover and Michael Kim also make the trip, while Hadwin, Adam Schenk, Justin Lower, Stephan Jaeger and Peter Malnati will be looking to build on top-10 finishes at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. 

This Week’s Course Preview

Trying to fashion 100 words or more about a golf course as run-of-the-mill as TPC Deere Run is a challenge.

Measuring 7,268 yards for its Par 71, D.A. Weibring has satisfied the brief in his design if said brief was to draw up blueprints for a layout with so few discernible features that even the PGA TOUR’s description of TPC Deere Run lasts all of fine lines of text.

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Water is in play on seven holes and there’s around 75 bunkers, with some risk-reward holes and notable elevation changes. The fairways are reasonably generous – albeit challenging enough for a low-quality field, while the large Bentgrass greens are receptive enough that Grillo, who finished T2 here last year, found 87.5% GIR.

The three Par 5s are the easiest holes on the layout alongside the Par 4 fourteenth, a 361-yard hole that can be attacked off the tee or laid up – an accurate flick wedge almost guarantees birdie here.

Only six of TPC Deere Run’s 18 holes averaged over par in 2022 – the hardest of them, perhaps pleasingly for TV viewers, was the eighteenth; a well-protected Par 4 where 21 double bogeys or worse were plundered.

Weather Forecast for Silvis, IL.

One of the chief defenses of TPC Deere Run is the potential for foul weather, but for the most part that doesn’t appear to be on the menu this week.

Thursday is set fair with sunshine and cloudy spells and perhaps the stiffest breeze of the week at 11mph.

Friday is more of the same but with a slower wind at 7mph, before things take a turn ahead of the weekend.

Scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms are mentioned here, although the wind won’t whip up to anything more than 9mph according to the early predictions. Indeed, a rain-softened TPC Deere Run could become an even easier nut to crack.

SILVIS WEATHER

Last Year’s Results from the John Deere Classic

Poston created a nice slice of history for himself at the 2022 John Deere Classic when he became the first winner in 30 years here to go wire-to-wire.

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An opening round of 62 will always help, and a second set of 65 helped to consolidate the ‘Postman’s’ cushion at the top of the leaderboard.

Others threw the kitchen sink at catching him – there were eight rounds of 64 or better on the Friday, but as conditions toughened over the weekend nobody was able to make a concerted effort to catch Poston, who slammed the door on the rest with three consecutive birdies to open his final round.

In the end, he would clinch a second PGA TOUR title by three shots from Grillo and Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the John Deere Classic this Week

We cannot, in good conscience, recommend you go big for the John Deere Classic. This is an event where playing a couple of ‘lottery ticket’ contests is the way, with better days to come with the switch to Links golf and its very specific requirements in the weeks ahead.

• PGA $250k Drive the Green: At $5 a go, we can have a couple of entries into this contest and simply hope for the best – with $25k to the winner, you’ll have more fun tracking the leaderboard than you would playing the lottery anyway.

• PGA $40k Albatross: If you want a single bullet approach to the JDC, this $12 contest has only 3,921 teams battling it out for the $4k top prize. Given that it’s single entry only, you won’t be outmuscled by a multi-roster whale either. 

This Week’s Fantasy Notes

When the FBI are hunting a serial killer, they come up with a profile for the archetypal individual that fits the bill. If they had the John Deere Classic as their victim, coming up with a profile of a winner would stump even their sharpest of analytical thinkers.

Poston, Lucas Glover, Dylan Frittelli and Michael Kim; put their mugshots up on a whiteboard and try to connect the dots. You will do well to find any evidence that links the quartet together.

Each simply ‘had a week’, be it on the greens or – in the case of Poston who ranked first for SG: Tee-to-Green – an unexpectedly excellent week of ball striking. 

At least Poston had offered a clue as to what was coming – he had just finished T2 at the Travelers Championship prior to his win in Illinois, so perhaps our profile should focus on exactly that: players heading to the JDC in good form. 

The leaderboards here in recent years haven’t coughed up a series of premium ball-strikers or classy tee-to-green merchants, and instead what you do off the tee is of little relevance – last year, many on the top page of the leaderboard added 20% to their Driving Accuracy ratio to GIR, which shows how important approaching well out of the rough is.

But we can eliminate most of golf’s weapons from our inquiries and instead focus on one tool that our ice-cold killer will utilize: the putter. Yes, the leaderboards at the JDC have been well stocked by reliable putters in years gone by, and that is once again the focus of our investigation in 2023. 

Copycat crimes have been committed at TPC Deere Run and TPC Twin Cities, home of the 3M Open. A number of players – including John Deere champions Poston and Bryson DeChambeau – have finished T11 or better at both venues in a short span of time, while Grillo has been a nearly man at both when finishing T2.

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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the John Deere Classic   

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the John Deere Classic  

Top Tier Pick # 1

Denny McCarthy (Odds: 14/1, FPPG: 68.6, Salary: $10,600)

Fowler’s victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic was proof that perseverance can be the key when claiming a win on the PGA TOUR.

He’d been knocking on the door for a while, and a similar accusation can be charged at Denny McCarthy, who really ought to have won the Memorial Tournament before losing in a playoff to Viktor Hovland.

Since then, McCarthy has bagged a top-20 finish at the U.S. Open and ended up T7 at the Travelers Championship, so his form profile amongst this field really is top-notch. 

T6 here a year ago, TPC Deere Run is a venue that will let the flat stick mastery of McCarthy enjoy its full reward – perhaps a maiden PGA TOUR title, overdue in the same way that Fowler’s return to the winner’s circle was, is in the offing.

Key Stats:

• SG: Putting – 4th 
• Scrambling – 9th
• Total Birdies – 19th

Top Tier Pick #2

Eric Cole (Odds: 33/1, FPPG: 61.5, Salary: $9,700)

A week in which what you do off the tee doesn’t matter but quality on the greens does, Eric Cole has to be of interest.

Ranks of 146 for SG: Off-the-Tee, 47 for Approach, 25 for Around-the-Green and 17 for Putting are indicative of Cole’s strengths and weaknesses, and it’s notable that the areas in which he thrives – he’s also a noted scrambler and birdie merchant – are perfect for TPC Deere Run.

It was back in February that Cole burst onto the scene with a playoff defeat at the Honda Classic, but the good times have continued to roll with two top-10s, a T15 at the PGA Championship, a top-40 at the U.S. Open and three rounds of 65 or better at the Travelers Championship.

The next step? Winning on the PGA TOUR. TPC Deere Run seems as likely a venue as any for that.

Key Stats:

• Total Birdies – 7th
• Scrambling – 12th
• SG: Putting – 17th

Mid-Tier Pick #1

Doug Ghim (Odds: 60/1, FPPG: 55.3, Salary: $8,000)

There’s plenty of momentum behind Doug Ghim right now – a player who followed three consecutive top-20 finishes with a T33 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, where he opened with a round of 66.

Generally more of a ball-striker than a putter, Ghim produced his best performance with the flat stick in quite some time at Detroit GC, where he gained +0.91 strokes on the field – for a player who ranks 121st on TOUR for SG: Putting, that’s a monumental improvement and hopefully a sign of greater confidence with that club in hand.

T18 here in 2021 and T16 at the 3M Open last year, you get an idea of the kind of finish Ghim could post this time around too.

Key Stats:

• Greens in Regulation – 19th
• Scrambling – 31st 
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 66th

Mid-Tier Pick #2

Dylan Wu (Odds: 80/1, FPPG: 62.6, Salary: $7,500)

An incredible opening round of 65 saw Dylan Wu scorch to the top of the leaderboard at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, and while he descended the standings from there it was another notable entry into his impressive young career so far.

In 23 starts this term, Wu has made 16 cuts and recorded six top-25s – if he can make that seven this week, we’d have to be happy with that from a mid-tier pick.

Such consistency has been built on excellent approach play, but the stats suggest that Wu is starting to solve the riddle on the greens too – he gained strokes on the best players in the world while putting at the U.S. Open, while adding a further +0.91 in Detroit last week too.

Who knows how far that hot hand can take him?

Key Stats:

• Greens in Regulation – 7th
• Total Birdies – 18th
• SG: Approach – 51st

Low-Tier Pick

Justin Lower (Odds: 110/1, FPPG: 53.5, Salary: $7,000)

After an excellent start to the season, when he banked a handful of top-20s, the wheels have rather fallen off for Justin Lower.

But improvements of late – T25 at the Canadian Open, T8 last time out at the Rocket Mortgage Classic – have righted the ship, with his approach play in particular enjoying a renaissance.

For a player who ranks 14th on TOUR for SG: Putting, that is noteworthy indeed – in those two outings mentioned, Lower gained a goliath +3.60 strokes on the field with his flat stick.

Key Stats:

• SG: Putting – 14th
• Total Birdies – 30th
• Par 4 Scoring Average – 49th

Sleeper Pick for the John Deere Classic

Peter Malnati (Odds: 150/1, FPPG: 44.1, Salary: $6,900)

Every once in a while, the name of Peter Malnati appears towards the top of the leaderboard. He’s notched five finishes of T22 or better this season, with each coming at a layout that suits his game to a tee.

Generally poor off the tee, Malnati has a majestic short game and can really thrive when conditions allow – they certainly did at Detroit GC last week, where he finished T9 courtesy of more fine form on and around the greens.

Haplessly inconsistent, Malnati is a sleeper pick for that very reason, but T11 at the 3M Open last season plus T30 at TPC Deere Run suggests there’s an opportunity for him to exceed expectations.

Key Stats:

• SG: Putting – 16th
• Sand Save Percentage – 18th
• Scrambling – 62nd

Alternative Sleeper Pick for the John Deere Classic

Harry Higgs (Odds: 200/1, FPPG: 54.3, Salary: $6,900)

Making putts, making birdies – there’s not much science to success at TPC Deere Run, and for Harry Higgs that is undoubtedly a good thing.

His tee-to-green game has been in poor shape for much of the season, but when conditions are simple he can still thrive – T7 at the Puerto Rico Open and T12 at the Canadian Open evidence of that.

Higgs’ game is built around his flat stick, and with little in the way of hazards at TPC Deere Run he should at least get plenty of chances to let that putting pizazz shine.

Key Stats:

• Rough Proximity – 33rd
• SG: Putting – 39th
• Birdie or Better Percentage – 57th

This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup

Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only.  Be sure to mix-and-match players to best fit individual contests.

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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2023-2023)

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