2016 Evian Championship Fantasy Picks and Predictions

The 2016 Evian Championship field is top-heavy – that’s just the nature of major championships. But it makes picking your fantasy team a bit more challenging. Whether you’re playing the Ladies Dream Golf Pick-4 or the LPGA Fantasy game, whether you’re playing for bragging rights or for cash prizes, you have some decisions to make between now and tee time.

In the case of this year’s Evian, the weather – cool, rainy, and windy – is also going to be a complicating factor.  Conditions are going to introduce a greater than usual level of unpredictability into the contest and put a premium on the ability to manage difficult conditions.

That said, let’s take a look at the field and try to narrow down the choices.

Ladies Dream Golf Group 1

 
All the players in this group are top-ranked. Three of them – Lydia Ko, Ariya Jutanugarn, and Brooke Henderson – have already won a 2016 major championship trophy and a number of the others – notably Lexi Thompson, Stacy Lewis, In Gee Chun, and So Yeon Ryu – are past major championship winners.

Even those who haven’t yet won a major have proven track records and are experienced at managing the Evian-les-Bains course. This is the group who knows how to withstand the stress of a major championship and how to close the deal on Sunday.

All of them are likely to make the cut and all of them are commanding the top, 20-coin salary in the LPGA Fantasy game so unless you intend to load up your team with cheap 5-coin players you’ll only be able to afford one. The trick comes in picking the winner because the odds are that the 2016 Evian champion will emerge from this group. I put Ariya Jutanugarn at the top of my Evian power rankings and nothing has changed to alter my rankings.

Ladies Dream Golf Group 2

There are several players in this group who could eclipse the top-ranked players in the Evian field. Olympic bronze medalist Shanshan Feng, 2015 Solheim Cup star Gerina Piller, and one of the emerging stars in women’s golf, Minjee Lee would all make strong additions to your Ladies Dream Golf Pick-4 team. Any of them could end up dominating the Evian leaderboard.

Notably, all are top-priced 20-coin players in the LPGA Fantasy game so unless you’re picking one of them to win the Evian, you may want to look further down the list for a less highly ranked but promising 10-coin players for your LPGA team, starting with 2016 US Women’s Open champion Brittany Lang. I’d also put Haru Nomura, Cristie Kerr, Hyo Joo Kim, Jin Young Ko (the “other Ko”) in this category; and I’d give Charley Hull a very close look.

Even though she’s not appeared to be playing in top form Hull, moreso than the others, has considerable experience managing challenging weather conditions. This could put her at an advantage this week as the field battles the conditions as well as the golf course and each other.

Ladies Dream Golf Group 3

When I scroll down the list of players in Group 3 I’m struck by their collective talent and power. Any number of them would be strong additions to your fantasy team and several of them could emerge at the top of the Sunday leaderboard.

Catriona Matthew probably has more experience than everybody in the Evian field except Laura Davies at managing difficult weather conditions. Matthew may be 47 but in golf, unlike other sports, that’s not necessarily a disadvantage. Hall of Famer Karrie Webb, who’s also in Group 3, also bring deep experience and skill to the tee that could serve her very well as the younger players buckle under the difficult conditions.

The Spaniards, Azahara Munoz and Carlota Ciganda, are talented players who bring deep experience playing golf in the conditions that will prevail this week. They’re both well worth a look, as is 2016 LET Order of Merit leader Beth Allen.

LPGA rookie Megan Khang is also in Group 3 and unlike the others on my list of probable picks she has a 5-coin salary for the LPGA Fantasy game!

Ladies Dream Golf Group 4

All the players in Group 4 are salaried at 5 coins in the LPGA Fantasy game, so in some ways the choices within this group are easier than those you’ll have to make in Groups 2 and 3.

Nontaya Srisiwang has delivered some impressive rounds recently. Her game’s trending in the right direction, even though she’s likely to struggle to make the cut this week. Katie Burnett briefly held the lead last week at the Ladies European Masters. Her game, too, has been trending in the right direction.

Emily Pedersen is an emerging talent on the Ladies European Tour and she, too, is worth a look. Pedersen is particularly attractive to me simply because in addition to being quite an impressive athlete the young Dane will bring experience playing in tough European weather.

All the amateurs in the 2016 field are also in Group 4. Check out my profiles of this talented group. While no amateur has ever won the Evian, we’re not talking about winning. We’re talking about playing the weekend, and if you’d like to put an amateur on your team you might want to tap Albane Valenzuela.

Cover Image via Twitter