Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – WM Phoenix Open

2024 WM Phoenix Open Fantasy Sleeper Report

Even if it gets forgotten in the annals of time, you’ll never take Wyndham Clark’s round of 60 at Pebble Beach away from him.

It’s the best score ever recorded at one of America’s most storied venues, and it was enough to catapult Clark to victory after tournament officials deemed it too unsafe to finish the event on Sunday or Monday in strong winds and heavy downpours.

It was a bad luck for the PGA TOUR given the fanfare they have made over their Signature Events, and begs the question why they weren’t more agile on Saturday when the weather was fair – given the smaller field, they could have easily played 36 holes with a shotgun start.

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That’s not ideal, by any means, but it’s perhaps better than the alternative of a 54-hole tournament. Clark won’t care, by the way – he’s delighted to get his hands on a third title in less than a year.

Onwards we march. Even though the Waste Management Phoenix Open isn’t a Signature Event, it sure feels like one with a quality field and a host course, TPC Scottsdale, that is the closest golf will ever get (Ryder Cup aside) to a ball game atmosphere.

This is the most attended golf tournament in the world – more than 250,000 patrons pass through the door of the Arizona venue, with 20,000 or so seated in The Coliseum; the infamous stadium that bedecks the sixteenth hole. There is, for better or worse, no ambience quite like it in golf.

The sixteenth is the meat in a tasty sandwich for fans of tough closing stretches. The fifteenth at TPC Scottsdale is a risk-and-reward Par 5, while the seventeenth is golf’s answer to a siren on the rocks – a drivable Par 4, but one where the water hazard is so in-play that it has literally ended the title dreams of a handful of players in the past decade alone.

The eighteenth requires two quality shots to make GIR, and that is the overriding them at TPC Scottsdale: quality.

Five of the last six winners of this event have been major champions, with a healthy smattering of US Open and Masters victors in that group – you might argue that those are the two toughest majors to win.

Many of the past Phoenix Open champions share a similar trait: they are immaculate ball-strikers and metronomic from tee to green, with the Bermuda greens running so smooth as to give everybody a fair shot with the flat stick.

It takes a classy operator to get the job done at TPC Scottsdale, and this is a field packed with them. That’s not usually a recipe for success for longshot backers, although Nick Taylor – the closest to Scottie Scheffler at the top of the leaderboard 12 months ago – was available at 150/1, so there’s hope.

Scheffler will be looking for a three-peat having also prevailed in 2022, so can any of our sleeper plays dethrone the champion? Let’s find out who we’re backing in our 2024 Waste Management Phoenix Open sleeper shortlist.

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Eric Cole – 50/1 – It was quintessential Eric Cole at the AT&T Pebble Beach: elite approach play and solid putting delivering plenty of birdies in another display that reminds us he’s knocking on the door of golf’s top table.

The benign conditions, as per the forecast, this week should play into his hands, with softer greens enabling him to fire at more flags. TPC Scottsdale hasn’t always punished weak drivers, which Cole is, and so his pitch-and-putt style should enjoy plenty of rewards.

A Scottsdale debutant, Cole will experience things he’s never experienced before from a golf crowd, but that’s not to say he won’t enjoy himself nonetheless.

Corey Conners – 60/1 – Given his occasional weakness around the greens, a super-fast and firm TPC Scottsdale would be of little use to Corey Conners.

But the expected rain, joined in the weather forecast by cool temperatures, will be much more up the Canadian’s street – instead, his elite approach work can shine, with fewer greens *likely* to be missed.

Putting woes have derailed Conners’ start to 2024, but if you look he has been getting better with the flat stick, incrementally, week by week. Another improvement this week and we could see Conners somewhere back to his best.

Beau Hossler – 70/1 – Although his ball striking was off in those two measured rounds at Pebble Beach, an assured display around and on the greens propelled Beau Hossler to the fringes of a top-10 place before the premature end was called.

For a player who typically drives the ball well, and whose approach game has been improving over the past six months or so, it feels as if Hossler’s game is coming together towards a concerted title run.

His record at TPC Scottsdale has been poor over the years, but T14 here 12 months ago – and T7 in the Nevada desert at the Shriners in October – at least offers some clues that the penny is starting to drop.

Akshay Bhatia – 80/1 – Another who may enjoy a softer version of Scottsdale is Akshay Bhatia, whose stellar approach play can sometimes be let down by poor form around the green when GIR is occasionally missed.

The most noteworthy aspect of Bhatia’s 2024 so far is the improvement in his putting – he’s gained strokes on the field in this department in all four of his starts, and even when missing the cut at The American Express.

Although he seems to prefer his golf by the seaside judging on past results, there’s so much to admire about Bhatia’s ball-striking and putting improvements that it surely won’t be long before he’s a contender for silverware everywhere he goes.

Kurt Kitayama – 100/1 – For months now, Kurt Kitayama has been besting the field from tee-to-green in high quality PGA TOUR events.

But a rut has set in on the dancefloor, and he’s actually lost strokes to the field putting in each of his last ten measured starts.

He might not sound like someone you’d want to back then, but cast your mind back to February last year and Kitayama was gaining +0.80 on the field here, and a matter of weeks later he rolled the rock for +1.51 on his way to his maiden PGA TOUR title at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

These conditions seem to bring the best out of Kitayama on the greens – he only needs marginal gains to contend once more.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the WM Phoenix Open here.

Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2023-2024)

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