Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – THE NORTHERN TRUST

THE NORTHERN TRUST 2020 Fantasy Sleeper Report

If you ever wondered about the logic of backing long-odds golfers, then allow Jim Herman to step forward and remind us all that every dog seems to have his day in this often-perplexing sport.

At 750/1 to win the Wyndham Championship, the sportsbooks – who employ some of the sharpest analytical minds around – rated him as a no-hoper.

But for the second time in nearly a year dating back to the 2019 Barbasol Championship, Herman defied the odds to make his backers (if there were any) thoroughly happy indeed. Those two victories, bizarrely, are also his only two top-25s on the PGA TOUR dating back to 2018!

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Herman banks a very nice paycheck and an invite into The Northern Trust, the first of the three events that will shape the FedExCup playoffs.

The top-125 in the standings will tee it up this week – Herman muscled his way up the standings from 192 to 54 with his win last time out, and then only the top-70 will head on to the BMW Championship next week in the penultimate event of the series.

So there’s plenty at stake when the players head to TPC Boston in Norton, Massachusetts. You may remember this venue from its stint as the host of the Dell Technologies, and it returns to the Tour this week as our host for The Northern Trust.

A Par 71 originally designed by Arnold Palmer and given a facelift by Gil Hanse in 2007, the average winning score was around the -16 mark in the last few editions of the Dell Technologies, and this is certainly one of the easier courses on the rotation.

The tree-lined fairways are pretty much straight across the board, so there’s no huge need to shape tee shots, and with generously proportioned fairways only the most errant of drives will find the rough.

The Bentgrass greens are slick enough at 12 on the stimp and, for the most part, well protected by sand, so really we’re expecting the quality ball-strikers to really have the edge this week – the last five winners at the layout are Bryson, Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson and Chris Kirk, so the idea stands.

We had Patrick Reed at 55/1 on our Northern Trust sleeper shortlist last year and he got the job done, so can we replicate that success in 2020?

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THE NORTHERN TRUST Fantasy Sleeper Report

Adam Scott – 50/1 – The Aussie is a player we generally have in mind for west coast golf, but having won The Masters and also the Barclays it is clear that the former Orlando native can take care of business in the east too.

Indeed, he has won at TPC Boston before in the Deutsche Bank Championship, and so comfort on these Bentgrass greens is clearly a huge edge for Scott no matter where they are located.

He showed his class in the PGA Championship recently, finishing T22 despite months without any competitive action, and now with a bit more tuning to his game we’re expecting Scott to go well once again in comfortable surroundings.

Scottie Scheffler – 60/1 – A fantastic driver of the ball, Scottie Scheffler showed plenty of class with his short game at the recent PGA Championships, and so if we can combine all aspects together he can go well once more this week.

His T4 finish at TPC Harding Park shows that Scheffler can hang in elite company, and helped him shake off the tag that he isn’t a 72 hole guy – often throwing a weak round in to compromise his efforts.

Comfortable on Bentgrass, upon which his best efforts this season (solo third in the American Express, T4 in the PGA, T7 in the Greenbrier) have come, Scheffler should be able to leverage the advantage of his excellent tee game to good use this week.

Sungjae Im – 66/1 – There was a welcome return to form for Sungjae Im last week at the Wyndham Championship, who played his final three rounds in a combined -15 to bag a T9 finish.

Timing is everything in sport, so maybe the Korean has been looking for a solution to his swing problems in time for the business end of the campaign – it was a search that looked to have proven fruitful last week.

A fantastic driver of the ball, Im gained strokes on the field in all departments last week, and with plenty of form to his name on the east coast he will be chomping at the it to put his recent improvements back to work.

Matthew Wolff – 70/1 – It’s hard not to like the chances this week of Matthew Wolff, who looked in outstanding form at the PGA Championship just two weeks ago, and he has plenty going for him this week.

A Californian who has set up home in Florida, there’s the handy combination of Bentgrass comfortability and east coast fondness for Wolff, and a couple of decent efforts at other Arnold Palmer designs – notably TPC Twin Cities – also bodes well.

A quality driver of the ball, Wolff also hit some majestic approach shots in the PGA and if he can replicate that form he will absolutely be a force to be reckoned with this week.

Si-Woo Kim – 90/1 – You never quite know what’s around the corner for Si-Woo Kim, a mercurially talented Korean, but all the signs right now are rather positive.

T13 at the PGA Championship was followed by T3 at the Wyndham Championship, where he looked set to add a third PGA TOUR title to his collection before a final round of 70 ended his hopes.

Both of those efforts were built on an absolute iron game clinic, and with strokes gained on the greens at the Wyndham Kim is certainly trending in the right direction – cue an opening round of 80 this week!

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

Sleeper Report Predictions This Season (2019-2020)

[skill_bar heading=”Total Top 3s” percent=”3.33%” bar_text=”5 out of 150 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 10s” percent= “7.33%” bar_text=”11 out of 150 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 25s” percent=”28.66%” bar_text=”43 out of 150 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Winners Picked” percent=6.67%” bar_text=”2 out of 30 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Runners-Up Picked” percent=”0%” bar_text=”0 out of 30 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)” percent=”61.33%” bar_text=”92 out of 150 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″]

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Cover photo via Instagram