Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2024 Black Desert Championship

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2024 Black Desert Championship

Black Desert Championship Fantasy Preview

There’s just something about the greens at the Country Club of Jackson that turn normally weak putters into giants with the flatstick.

In 2023, Luke List overcame a season-long SG: Putting rank of 158 to win the Sanderson Farms Championship – he was the seventh-best putter on that fateful week.

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And it’s the same route to glory taken by Kevin Yu on Sunday. Regular readers will know that Yu has featured on these pages regularly as a sublime ball-striker, but his putting does leave a little to be desired.

However, in List-esque fashion, the Chinese star laid waste to a season-long SG: Putting rank of 144 to putt the lights out in Jackson – seemingly making everything he looked at on the way to +2.19 on the field.

Incidentally, also in the top five on the leaderboard on Sunday were Keith Mitchell (season-long SG: Putting rank 140, Sanderson Farms rank 11), Lucas Glover (138 vs. 15), and Alex Smalley (158 vs. 22). It’s a truly curious trend at the Country Club of Jackson.

In truth, it was a more familiar skillset than ultimately won Yu the playoff against Beau Hossler. His exceptional ball-striking ensuring he left a five-footer for birdie on the first extra hole; he drained it, Hossler couldn’t match him, and Yu was left to hoist that unusual but fun chicken-shaped trophy that Sanderson Farms winners get to enjoy.

And it was somewhat ironic that Mitchell’s flatstick let him down on the 72nd hole: two putts, one to win outright and one to enter the playoff, both sailed by. 

A strange old week then in Mississippi, and this week the PGA TOUR makes a rare stop-off in Utah for a brand new event: the Black Desert Championship.

Last Week’s Fantasy Results

Last week’s top pick for us was Nick Dunlap who finished T28 on the week.

Overall, 8 of our 12 picks made the weekend with our best finish being both Emiliano Grill and Ryan Fox at T11.

Black Desert Championship Field

A number of the key protagonists at the Sanderson Farms Championship – Yu, Hossler, and Mitchell included – will be heading north-west to Ivins in UT.

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It’s a field largely made up of those players scrambling for FedEx Cup points in a bid to retain their PGA TOUR cards. Daniel Berger, Bud Cauley, Lucas Glover, and Alex Smalley will be looking to back up their top-ten turns in Jackson with another title bid in Utah.

Those with a Utah connection – be it growing up or heading to college there – include Patrick Fishburn and Zac Blair.

Meanwhile, there’s fascinating storylines involving Kihei Akina, an 18-year-old sponsor exemption based locally, and Jay Don Blake; the 65-year-old Utah native who won the Lehman Brothers Open on the PGA TOUR back in 1991….before many in this field were even born.

This Week’s Course Preview

The Black Desert Resort has never hosted a professional golf tournament before, and indeed it only opened its doors for the first time in 2022.

Therefore, we’re taking a true leap into the unknown this week, although we can say that the layout is stunning: an exposed, almost Links-style course with a backdrop of the red rocky cliffs of Greater Zion and similarly rugged terrain.

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Tom Weiskopf was on design duties – sadly, the Black Desert Rock would be his final assignment before he passed away aged 80 in 2022. He was a known Links lover, having won the British Open and designed coastal layouts in the U.K, so it’s no surprise to see that this course shares some of those visual aesthetics.

Weiskopf was also at the tiller in the build of TPC Scottsdale, which visually shares some similar aesthetics to Black Desert, as well as TPC Craig Ranch, which plays host to the snappily-named CJ Cup Byron Nelson.

We’ve seen the scorecard for the week (Par 72, 7,371 yards), and there’s nothing particularly notable to report. There’s four Par 5s, with two of them playing in the 580-600 yard range, but note that Ivins (and much of Utah) is situated much above sea level, and that altitude will typically help the ball to travel further.

Otherwise, there’s a quartet of Par 3s, while the Par 4s play at a variety of distances: one is just 340 yards, while another is closer to 500 yards.

The Black Desert course will likely be exposed to the elements, with few trees (as mentioned, Weiskopf loved Links golf), but the fairways are pretty wide – as you would expect from a resort-style course that is open to members of the public to play. 

The fairways are flanked by native rough grasses that have been left to grow wild, but only the most erratic off the tee will find any strife.

There’s a large lake, but that’s only really in play on two holes, while the bunkers appear to be the shallow, forgiving kind. The Bentgrass greens may run slick given the hot weather and exposed nature of the course, but all told we’re not expecting too much of a tee-to-green challenge….as you would expect from the Fall Swing.

However, this is the first look for all of us at this new layout, so we’ll find out more in the days ahead.

Weather Forecast for Ivins, UT

The organizers of this inaugural edition of the Black Desert Championship will be delighted with the weather forecast this week.

The early predictions suggest that there’s little chance of rainfall in the area, with low humidity indicators aiding in that conclusion.

Instead, it should be wall-to-wall sunshine, and some very pleasant temperatures to boot – around 91 degrees will be the weekly average.

The wind may pick up at the local level, but forecasts of between 8-12mph won’t be enough to have a major impact on the tournament.

IVINS WEATHER

Last Year’s Results from the Black Desert Championship

This is the first ever edition of the Black Desert Championship!

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for this Week’s Black Desert Championship

Discretion might be the best way to play the Black Desert Championship this week; we simply don’t know what to expect from the debut course. So, low risk, high reward has to be the strategy.

• PGA $100k Drive the Green: The quintessential low risk, high reward contest, it costs $5 to enter and with a top prize of $25k, the potential upside is considerable.

• PGA $10k Birdie: At $3 per entry, this is an even lower risk contest, but with fewer teams to beat (just shy of 4,000). The jackpot is a cool $1,000.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the Black Desert Championship

It will be interesting to see which – if any – of Weiskopf’s other key designs end up correlating with the Black Desert Resort.

TPC Scottsdale shares some aesthetics and sits at altitude, so maybe old Phoenix Open leaderboards will provide some clues.

TPC Craig Ranch is a wide-open, generous layout with Bentgrass greens, and the players might just feel like they’re in Texas too this week given the heat and dry, desert air.

We might also throw TPC Summerlin into the mix too. The home of the Shriners Children’s Open is only around 130 miles or so from Black Desert, and also sites at altitude in the Nevada desert. That may, or may not, be something to consider.

Otherwise, we don’t have a great deal to work with at this stage. The feeling is that the layout will prove easy to these top pros – especially given the benign weather forecast – and, like the Sanderson Farms, it may come down to who has a strong week on the greens.

But note: this week, it’s Bentgrass, rather than Bermuda, that the players are tackling.

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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Black Desert Championship   

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the Black Desert Championship  

Top Tier Pick # 1

Keith Mitchell (Odds: 16/1, FPPG: 72.1, Salary: $10,600)

He was the sportsbook favorite at the Sanderson Farms Championship despite missing four consecutive cuts at the Country Club of Jackson – that’s evidence of how well he was fancied to go well.

And he did. In fact, Mitchell had a number of chances to break the back of the event on Sunday, with two putts on the 72nd hole to win and then gatecrash the playoff. 

The key thing is that Mitchell, who’s always been a quality ball-striker, is now putting well enough, for the most part, to win these low-grade PGA TOUR events.

As appetizing is the knowledge that he has thrived at Tom Weiskopf layouts, with a top-20 at TPC Craig Ranch backed by an excellent record at TPC Scottsdale. 

Assuming there’s no hangover from his close call at the Sanderson Farms, there’s no reason why this noted Bentgrass performer can’t go even better in Utah.

Key Stats:

• Birdie Average – 2nd
• SG: Off the Tee – 6th
• SG: Approach – 6th

Top Tier Pick #2

Patrick Fishburn (Odds: 30/1, FPPG: 59.5, Salary: $9,600)

Bombs and birdies is very much the way at ‘easy’ courses, as we suspect Black Desert to be, and so it’s a case of as you were for Patrick Fishburn.

There’s not a great deal of subtlety to his play, but who cares: when the fairways are wide open, Fishburn’s ability off the tee gives him a huge edge on many in the field.

His putting seems to come and go, but when he’s feeling it Fishburn is magnificent – gaining +1.43 and +1.55 on the field in consecutive weeks in solo third and 15th turns at the Barracuda Championship and Isco Championship.

All told, Fishburn has three top-five finishes in his last five starts, so the Utah native – who was runner-up in the 2022 Utah Championship – will surely relish the trip home.

Key Stats:

• Greens in Regulation – 3rd
• SG: Off-the-Tee – 8th
• Par 5 Birdie or Better Leaders – 11th

Mid-Tier Pick #1

Daniel Berger (Odds: 50/1, FPPG: 51.6, Salary: $7,700)

Cast your mind back to January 2022, and you might recall that Daniel Berger was ranked as high as 12th in the OWGR.

Injury problems, surgeries, and a lack of confidence have stalled his career, and at times it’s looked as if he’ll never quite be the same player as he once was.

But his ball-striking was in fine fettle at the Sanderson Farms Championship, and his putting numbers continue to improve – useful, given that Berger is a proven performer on Bentgrass.

With T7 and T11 finishes at the Phoenix Open, and T3 at TPC Craig Ranch, Berger has a strong Weiskopf formline too.

Key Stats:

• Par 5 Birdie or Better Leaders – 24th
• SG: Off-the-Tee – 26th
• Greens in Regulation – 29th

Mid-Tier Pick #2

Patton Kizzire (Odds: 50/1, FPPG: 59.2, Salary: $7,700)

One of the first players we looked for in the betting odds this week was Patton Kizzire, so it’s amazing to find that we can score 50/1 on him.

The Procore Championship winner was very much on the premises at the Sanderson Farms too, doing little wrong on his way to a T11 finish.

Kizzire won the Utah Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2015, has been runner-up at our correlating Shriners Children’s Open, and also has a top-20 to his name at the Phoenix Open. 

As long as he’s got the energy to continue parlaying that form and momentum, Kizzire is surely one of the more likely winners in the field this week.

Key Stats:

• Birdie Average – 4th
• SG: Approach – 11th
• Scrambling – 65th

Low-Tier Pick

Alex Smalley (Odds: 55/1, FPPG: 51.3, Salary: $7,500)

Alex Smalley has declared that he will donate a sizable sum for every birdie and eagle he made at the Sanderson Farms, and that he makes at the Black Desert Championship, to the fund for the Hurricane Helene relief efforts.

That’s certainly one way to motivate yourself, and his outstanding final round of 63 in Jackson suggests that Smalley is very much up to the task.

His generally very good ball-striking was matched on the greens last week, and if Smalley can continue to improve with the flatstick, there’s no doubt that he can contend for titles on the PGA TOUR. 

And T13 at the CJ CUP Byron Nelson in May suggests that Tom Weiskopf designs, with Bentgrass greens, appeal.

Key Stats:

• Greens in Regulation – 29th
• SG: Off-the-Tee – 31st
• Birdie or Better Percentage – 61st

Sleeper Pick for the Black Desert Championship

Pierceson Coody (Odds: 90/1, FPPG: 59.1, Salary: $7,200)

Having been bullish about Coody’s chances last week, it was rather galling for him and for us when he missed the cut in Jackson.

But we’ve been doing this a long time, and history tells you not to just jettison a player after a bad couple of days at the office – particularly as the reasons for picking him last week are still relevant this week.

Ironically, it was an ice cold putter that let Coody down at the Sanderson Farms – strange, given that he’s been one of the best 30 putters on the PGA TOUR this season, so we expect a regression to the mean this week.

Those hopes are reinforced by the switch to Bentgrass, as well as the knowledge that Coody has a fine record in the Utah Championship – suggesting that he enjoys the altitude and conditions in UT.

Key Stats:

• Driving Distance – 17th
• SG: Putting – 20th
• Birdie Average – 26th

Alternative Sleeper Pick for the Black Desert Championship

Matthew NeSmith (Odds: 125/1, FPPG: 51.0, Salary: $6,800)

It must be incredibly frustrating for Matthew NeSmith to be so inconsistent.

His formline on the PGA TOUR reads 48-MC-MC-9-MC-2, which is mind-boggling confirmation that his game comes and goes almost at will.

So why are we chancing NeSmith this week? Well, he routinely plays well at the correlating TPC Summerlin – in fact, it’s one of the few venues that he’s been consistent at, while previously strong form in the Utah Championship suggests he likes his golf in this part of the world.

A noted Bentgrass performer, hopefully the good version of NeSmith will tee it up at Black Desert Resort.

Key Stats:

• Greens in Regulation – 15th
• Proximity to Hole – 30th
• Bogey Avoidance – 46th

This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup

Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only.  Be sure to mix-and-match to best fit individual contests.

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Fantasy Golf Predictions – This Season 

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