Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – The BMW Championship

2019 BMW Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

We are edging ever closer to the end of the 2018/19 PGA TOUR season, which may seem rather premature but that is the re-jigged schedule the organization has served up this term.

And so we enter the penultimate event of the campaign, and get a step closer to finding out the identity of this year’s FedExCup champion, with this week’s BMW Championship.

There are a number of different players that can still take the spoils, and one of those that has crashed into the reckoning is Patrick Reed, who triumphed in the Northern Trust last week.

It had been a season to forget for Captain America, but a moment of reflection and perspective-seeking in the spring has turned his whole campaign – and possibly career – around.

Reed could now walk away from the season as FedExCup champion, gatecrashing the party much like Billy Horschel did late in the day back in 2014.

To do so he will need a positive result at Medinah Country Club, the scene of the famous Team America collapse on the last day of the 2012 Ryder Cup.

That is something that all involved will be looking to eradicate from their minds, but there are gremlins at this layout and it will take a classy performance to get the job done in this corner of Illinois.

Embed from Getty ImagesFedEx Cup

When we say gremlins, we mean trees: lots of them. More than 4,700 in fact, and these line the fairways in a manner which makes this golf course wholly unforgiving off the tee – especially when you factor in the juicy rough as well.

From fairway to green Medinah is straightforward enough, so this is a golf event that can be won or lost off the tee. Given the length – this track can play at between 7,400-7,650 yards depending on which tees are used – we have to favor those who can go long but keep their ball in play at the same time.

Intriguingly, all four of the Par 5s are reachable in two for most in the field, so making red numbers on the long holes is absolutely imperative this week. To do so, you will need to be playing out of the short grass.

So there you have it: Medinah, in a nutshell, is the winding, doglegging, tree-lined track that will deliver the top 25 players to go on to the TOUR Championship next week.

This is a high-quality field of 70, and that means we can back some classy operators at mouth-watering prices. So who has made our shortlist of BMW Championship sleepers?

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BMW Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

Billy Horschel – 55/1 – One player with fond memories of the FedExCup is Billy Horschel, a former winner of the whole shebang.

You might surmise that he’s not a million miles away from something similar either, with a formline of 21-6-9 leading into the trip to Medinah CC.

B-Ho ranked first for SG: Putting at Liberty National last week, and while that is only part of the equation of winning a golf tournament it’s certainly a decent framework on which to build.

If he can make marginal gains from tee-to-green, a player with previous form on Rees Jones golf courses can flourish once more.

Ian Poulter – 60/1 – With five of his last eight rounds played at 68 or better, Poulter is back somewhere near to his best.

His iron play in particular was in great touch at Liberty National, where he ranked fourth for SG: Approach, and when the Englishman is attacking the flag you always expect red numbers to follow.

We’ve written about the need for a bit of length at Medinah, and while it’s true that Poulter isn’t the longest around, he does at least have some positive memories of this layout having banked a top-10 here in the PGA Championship of 2006.

Jason Kokrak – 66/1 – It’s a bit of a headscratcher that Jason Kokrak hasn’t made his breakthrough on the PGA TOUR as yet.

He’s one of the best ball-strikers around – that’s not opinion, it’s fact based upon a Total Driving stat of 11th and an SG: Approach rank of 6th.

Those fundamentals should have landed Kokrak a handful of PGA TOUR titles by now, but like many others its putting that remains a complete mystery.

If he can get the flat stick to behave, the 34-year-old can still fulfill his undoubted ability.

Joaquin Niemann – 80/1 – We’re not giving up on this young talent quite yet!

He closed out his effort at Liberty National with a final round of 66 – only bettered by two players on the day, and that followed T13 at the Wyndham Championship where he carded no worse than 69.

Prior to that the Chilean’s formline read 10-23-5-5, so there’s plenty in the bank.

A lover of Bentgrass, Niemann is sublime from tee-to-green and he can really make his skillset count at Medinah.

Harold Varner III – 125/1 – Followers of such things saw a surprising name at the top of the SG: Approach rankings at Liberty National.

Harold Varner III is not someone that can typically be described as a flusher, but something clearly clicked at the Northern Trust as he looked, at one point on Sunday, very likely to get the job done.

He has appeared near the summit of the leaderboard on a few occasions now, and if he can combine his typical power off the tee with finesse on approach he will create chances at Medinah.

And then….who knows? It would be extraordinary if Varner III’s maiden title came in an event of this magnitude, but stranger things have happened on the golf course.

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

Sleeper Report Predictions This Season (2018-2019)

[skill_bar heading=”Total Top 3s” percent=”6.21%” bar_text=”12 out of 193 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 10s” percent=”15.02%” bar_text=”29 out of 193 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 25s” percent=”33.16%” bar_text=”64 out of 193 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Winners Picked” percent=”7.69%” bar_text=”3 out of 39 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Runners-Up Picked” percent=”17.95%” bar_text=”7 out of 39 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)” percent=”65.80%” bar_text=”127 out of 193 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″]

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Cover photo via Instagram