Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – SBS Tournament of Champions

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the 2017 SBS Tournament of Champions

The 2017 SBS Tournament of Champions Sleeper Preview

The PGA TOUR looks to kick of the 2017 year right with their annual Tournament of Champions which gives the winners from the past year a chance to notch an early season victory among some of the best in the game.

The event will feature 32 players this time around and will be once again hosted by the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort in Kapalua, Hawaii.  Kapalua has been the site for the tournament since 1999 and features 7,452 yards of par-73 golf.  The venue can give up tons of scoring if the weather cooperates and that was quite evident in last season’s installment when current Official World Golf Ranked No. 5 golfer Jordan Spieth took home his seventh career victory.

Spieth dominated the strong field last year with a start of 66-64-65 in the first three days and did not allow any other player to get close to him with a closing 67; finishing at a score of 30-under-par and one stroke short of Ernie Els’ 2003 record mark of 31-under.  He was the sixth consecutive American to take home the top spot here and will look to become the first player since Geoff Ogilvy (2009, 2010) to win in back-to-back years.

Large wins here have come often and before Spieth’s big eight shot win last year, Dustin Johnson (2013), Geoff Ogilvy (2009), and Ernie Els (2003) were able to run away with the trophy with at least four shots separating them and the runner-up.  That doesn’t mean this won’t be a close matchup, though, as the last decade has produced five outings with a one shot win or playoff needed.

Once again the field will be stacked with some top talent from around the world as six players from the top-10 in the OWGR earned an invite.  World No. 1 Jason Day will attempt to build on his strong 2016 campaign during which he earned three victories and placed in the top-10 at three majors.

Chasing him will be 2016 U.S. Open winner Dustin Johnson, two-time major winner Jordan Spieth, and the top Japanese player in the world; Hideki Matsuyama.  Some lesser known golfers will also be making their way to Maui including a few first-time winners from the fall portion of the schedule, Mackenzie Hughes and Cody Gribble, along with a pair of veterans who took a while to get their first wins in Greg Chalmers and Brian Stuard.

With most of this week’s players being of the elite variety, it’s hard to pinpoint any of them as sleepers in this small field event, but there are some clear underdogs heading into this week.  That said, below are a few of the champions from the last year who we believe could put up a fight against the likes of Day, Johnson, Spieth, Matsuyama, Reed, and Watson despite possessing Vegas odds of 50/1 or worse.

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The 2017 SBS Tournament of Champions Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The 2017 SBS Tournament of Champions 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.

** Please note that due to the small field we will only be highlighting 3 selections this week instead of 5.

Brendan Steele – Vegas Odds 50/1 – Steele had a solid yet unspectacular 2015-16 season, making the cut in 19-of-25 events (76%) and getting into the top-25 eleven times.  His best outing was a third-place at the CIMB Classic, but he has come out firing on all cylinders for the New Year, and punched his ticket to this tournament thanks to his second career win at the Safeway Open.  In that outing he managed to put together three rounds of 67 or better, gained 1.636 strokes with his putter, and went 10 strokes under par on the par fives.  Steele is one of the longest players off the tee, averaging 302.2 yards per drive last year (20^th on Tour) while also showing incredible skills out of the sand (55.96%, 30^th on Tour).  His distance with the driver and ability to dominate par fives should give him a good chance at the trophy this week.

Pat Perez – Vegas Odds 80/1 – Perez was able to grab his first win since 2009 when he took down the OHL Classic back in October with a score of 21-under-par.  He has been close a few times since that initial win with runner-up performances in 2011 and 2014, but had never done better than 45^th in the FedExCup standings.  Following a 2015-16 season in which Perez spent a majority of the time rehabbing from shoulder surgery, the 40-year-old will attempt to build on the big win with his third top-10 in his first four outings of the new campaign.  He has been on the top of his game thus far thanks to netting 2.329 total strokes on the field (7^th on Tour) leading to a scoring average of 69.217 (8^th on Tour).  Perez is one of the more unconventional players on Tour, but it looks like his recent surgery may have opened up his game for bigger things this year.

Cody Gribble – Vegas Odds 100/1 – Gribble is one of the players to watch out for in the next wave of professionals as he comes off his first victory in just his eighth career start.  The 26-year-old was one of Jordan Spieth’s teammates at Texas University when they won the 2012 NCAA Championship, and although he has not had the same path as his former teammate, he has made his way through the Web.Com Tour and now seems poised to be a mainstay at the highest level thanks to one of the best putters anywhere in the game.  In his starts this year, Gribble has gained 1.506 strokes with his flat iron (5^th on Tour), leading him to having one of the best scoring averages on par-four holes (3.85, 8^th on Tour).  Although he does not have the all-around talent of fellow Longhorn Spieth, Gribble will be able to stay with most out there thanks to his putter and could have a nice coming out party this week.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the 2016 SBS Tournament of Champions here.

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