Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – The Deutsche Bank Championship

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the Deutsche Bank Championship

The Deutsche Bank Championship 2016 Fantasy Sleeper Preview

An impressive outing by Patrick Reed was enough to top the leaderboard in the first FedExCup event last week, winning with a score of nine-under as he took over the top spot in the standings. The diminished field of 100 players will now set their sights on TPC Boston for the Deutsche Bank Championship in Nortan, Massachusetts. The par-71, 7,297-yard course has been the host for this event since 2003 and has always given up some big scores to the winners. It is also important to note that if you are looking for any golf on Thursday afternoon, you won’t find any on the PGA TOUR as this tournament chooses to start on Friday and finish on Labor Day Monday. Players here will be keeping an eye on the FedExCup standings as they move towards next week where the top-70 head to the BMW Championship.

The field will feature the usual top names with Patrick Reed leading the FedEx after the Barclays followed by Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott and Jordan Spieth. Of that group, Day is getting the nod by Vegas as he looks to grab his ninth victory since the start of 2015. Plenty of golfers were able to make the move from outside the top-100 into this week’s event with their outings at Bethpage, most notably being Sean O’Hair who moved all the way to 15^th from 108^th thanks to his runner-up performance. Others that moved into the cut line after their visit to New York include Sung Kang, John Huh, Derek Fathauer, and Tyron Van Aswegen. At the moment the field is set at 99 with Masters Champion Danny Willett playing the Omega European Masters overseas instead. The only other name to watch here is Henrik Stenson who withdrew from the first round of the Barclays and is currently waiting on MRI results on his knee. The playoffs always bring some fun in watching who makes the cut to the next round and this week will be no different with some solid names in No. 74 Webb Simpson, No. 84 Jim Furyk, and No. 85 Danny Lee needing to do some work in order to keep their respective seasons alive.

As I mentioned before, this course is susceptible to some big scoring and that is evident by four different winners taking home the trophy with a score of 20-under or better. Three golfers, Vijay Singh (2008), Charley Hoffman (2010), and Henrik Stenson (2013), own the tournament record with victories after four rounds of 22-under golf. Last year, it was Rickie Fowler who was able to keep Stenson from winning here twice in three years, defeating him by a single stroke at 15-under-par. He was able to make up a three-shot deficit on the final nine holes to grab his third career victory. Fowler will attempt to join Singh (2004, 2008) as the only multiple winner here while currently sitting in 16^th in the FedExCup standings.

With the fields diminishing each week, it is more difficult to find true sleepers out there, but with 100 golfers hitting the links, there are still plenty of options to choose from. Last week, the duo of Sean O’Hair and Emiliano Grillo came within just one shot of winning at Bethpage despite their less than stellar odds. Below are a few of the men going out there Friday who could show up big and surprise most.

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The Deutsche Bank Championship 2016 Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The Deutsche Bank Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

Mix and match these players with your usual rosters (or play them separately) to get the most out of your picks this week.

Ryan Moore – Vegas Odds 55/1 – Moore has always been one of the better golfers on TOUR from year-to-year, placing in the top-50 of the FedExCup standings six times since 2007. He will be looking to improve on his best finish of 11^th in 2012 as he currently sits in that same spot heading into this week following a 2016 in which he won his fifth career PGA TOUR event at the John Deere Classic and added another six top-10s over a mere 20 events. Moore played great last week at the Barclays, posting a score of six-under and coming in a tie for seventh after hitting 71.43% of fairways and gaining 0.545 strokes putting on the field. Those skills have been prevalent all season long as he ranks 12^th in driving accuracy (67.95%) and 34^th in strokes-gained putting (0.373). Moore was able to get consecutive tenth-place finishes here in 2011 and 2012, and while he has really struggled to get much done since, he is in great form and should push for the win.

Paul Casey – Vegas Odds 80/1 – Casey has been a little bit of a risk lately, making the cut in just six of his last 10 events, but getting into the top-17 at three of his last five. He is not having as great of a year as he did in 2015 when he finished 13^th in the FedExCup final standings, but he has been able to make 14-of-19 cuts (74%) and has done a great job against the toughest of fields at the Cadillac Championship (7^th), Masters (4^th), and most recently at the PGA Championship (10^th). His ticket to another big week here will be converting his birdie chances since he is ranked eighth on TOUR in GIR (69.89%) while being only slightly above average in putting (0.048 strokes-gained putting, 86^th on TOUR). Casey seems to get better with each round played at a course and ranks ninth in final round scoring (69.46) which should help him improve on the 25^th he earned here back in 2010.

Jhonattan Vegas – Vegas Odds 100/1 – It’s been awhile since Vegas has played here professionally with the first coming in 2011 when he posted a career-best finish of 54^th in the FedExCup. He is in line to improve on that number by quite a bit in 2016, currently coming in at 29^th thanks to a victory at the RBC Canadian Open and a recent stretch of six consecutive cuts made. Besides his win, he has some impressive showings of late with a fourth at the Barbasol Championships and a pair of 22nds amongst tough fields at the PGA Championship and last week in the Barclays. Vegas’ length off the tee (304.8, 11^th on TOUR) always has him in a great position to hit greens in regulation (69.96%, 5^th on TOUR) and this will allow him to continue keeping up with some of the best the golf world has to offer.

Ryan Palmer – Vegas Odds 125/1 – The three-time PGA TOUR winner is not getting much respect here at TPC Boston, a place where he has two top-16 finishes. Palmer has been one of the more consistent golfers this year, making it to the weekend in 18-of-21 chances (86%) while converting eight of those into a top-25. His consistency stems from a big drive (304.4 yards per, 12^th on TOUR) which has helped him gain 0.631 strokes on the field off the tee. This has led to the fifth-best scoring average on par fives (4.54) and will help him get around this rather long golf course. I’m not too sure that Palmer has the rest of the game in order to get a win amongst this strong field, but he will be around on Sunday making some noise nonetheless.

Brendan Steele – Vegas Odds 150/1 – Steele has managed to make his way to the Deutsche Bank Championship each of the past four seasons, doing well with two top-20s in that stretch. He comes into this installment of the tourney ranked 46^th in the standings and has moved up plenty recently with nine made cuts in his last 11 outings; including seven of those ending in a top-22. He is yet another big bopper on this list, crushing the driver for an average of 302.1 yards (20^th on TOUR), and can back that up with 68.86% of greens hit in regulation (21^st on TOUR). He will put himself in position to score on this course which gives up a ton and should continue to build on what is looking like a career year for the 33-year-old American.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the Deutsche Bank Championship here.

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