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Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, & Predictions – 2016 Hero World Challenge

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Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the Hero World Challenge

2016 Hero World Challenge Fantasy Preview

It seems like an eternity ago that Mackenzie Hughes triumphed in a five-man playoff at the RSM Classic to become the second Web.com Tour graduate to triumph in the fall season, but remarkably that victory was only two short weeks ago.

In the meantime, Denmark have been crowned ‘champions of the world,’ pardon our cynicism, after the pair of Thorbjorn Olesen and Soren Kjeldsen triumphed over the French duo of Victor Dubuisson and Roman Langasque in the World Cup of Golf at the Kingston Heath club in Melbourne, Australia.

Trend followers, lend us your ears: this week’s host venue for the Hero World Challenge, the Albany Club in the Bahamas, is said to be a ‘classic, Australian sandbelt’ style course; so perhaps the World Cup does offer us more of a performance insight than we might first have thought.

This is the final ‘quality field’ event of 2016, so DFS managers should be looking to sign the calendar year off in style with this tricky but still workable tournament.

Last Week’s Fantasy Results from the RSM Classic

The best overall performer that came out of the RSM Classic was our sleeper pick Russell Henley who finished with a strong T10.  Our Tuesday Sleeper Report continued to have success with four of the five players selected making the cut including Lovemark who outperformed his salary to finish T6 and Campbell who came in with a solid T13 finish.

As a matter of note, we will not be publishing a Tuesday Sleeper Report for this week’s Hero World Challenge because the greatly limited field does not lend itself to producing the usual number of “sleepers.”  Our top two sleeper selections will instead be highlighted in our picks segment below.

Last Week’s Fantasy Results from the DP World Tour Championship

We fared much better overseas last week with in the final stretch of the Race to Dubai as three of our top six picks finished in the Top 4 including Schwartzal (3rd), Molinari (T4), and Weisberger (T4).

In total, our six picks banked a combined purse winnings in excess of $1 million and only two of our six picks (across multiple salary tiers) placed outside the Top 19.

The 2016 Hero World Challenge Field

Perhaps the most dominant story from this week’s field is, quite simply, the return of Tiger Woods.

The 14-time major winner takes his bow after recovering from back surgery, but what state is his swing in?  You may remember he withdrew from the Safeway Open earlier in the Fall campaign, and here’s a snippet of the statement he released immediately after:

“I knew I wasn’t ready to compete against the best golfers in the world. I will continue to work hard, and plan to play at my Foundation’s event, the Hero World Challenge, in Albany.”

The assumption is that he is only playing this week due to charitable commitments, but wouldn’t it be great to see glimpses of the Tiger of old in the Bahamas? Here’s a look at the Big Cat striping his new M2 driver from TaylorMade.

A video posted by Brian Wacker (@brianwacker1) on

Aside from the Woods sideshow, the Hero World Challenge field boasts nine former major winners in its exclusively invited 18-man field and, remarkably, three players that have won tournaments in the past few weeks alone: Hideki Matsuyama, Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka.

The defending champion, Bubba Watson, is also here, and he will have plenty of competition on his hands from the likes of Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson, Patrick Reed and others.

It should prove to be a captivating four days.

This Week’s Course Preview

This is only the second tour-level event that the Albany club has hosted—the first being the 2015 renewal of this tournament—and so we only have a limited amount of data to work with.

What we do know is that it is a lengthy enough 7,400 yard, Par 72 stretch, but one that was described by Spieth last year as ‘like a pitch and putt for the power guys’.  With five par 5s, five par 3s and eight par 4s (rather than the usual four-four-ten ratio), you can kind of see what he means.

A photo posted by @loveat1stswing on

Albany has been described as “Linksy” in nature and like many of the sandbelt courses from Australasia, and the conditions have a Links feel about them due to the exposed nature of the track and occasionally fierce winds that can blow.  The stunning vistas are added further gravitas by the accompanying sand dunes, which can measure up to 30 feet tall!

Weather Forecast for New Providence, The Bahamas

After a bright start to the week, things are expected to take a turn for the worse in New Providence with rain in the forecast from Wednesday through Saturday.  Things should improve by Sunday with a bright and sunny day forecast, so hopefully given that the field is just 18 there won’t be too many delays.

Thursday and Friday are expected to be a little less breezy than the weekend, with speeds of up to 12 mph predicted, but as any coastal player will tell you at local level those gusts can often feel more intense.

Last Year’s Results from the Hero World Challenge

Last year was the first occasion that the Albany club had hosted the Hero World Challenge—in fact, any PGA TOUR level event for that matter—and so there was a lot of guesswork which went into drafting an effective DFS line-up.

After the first round it looked like those who sided with ‘wind players’ were going to have the last laugh with Jimmy Walker and Zach Johnson sharing the lead.  But strong second rounds from Spieth, Bill Haas, and Chris Kirk got them into contention, before a 63 from Bubba on Saturday forced him into the lead.

Despite a sterling weekend effort from Rickie Fowler, whose 65-64 took him into third, Bubba eventually closed out his win at -25, three shots clear of runner-up Patrick Reed.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwuKyOo4UY4[/embedyt]

This Week’s Broadcast Schedule

  • Television Broadcasts
    • Thursday-Friday: 1:30pm EST – 4:30pm EST (Golf Channel)
    • Saturday: 12:00pm EST – 2:30pm EST (Golf Channel)
    • Sunday: 11:00am EST – 1:00pm EST (Golf Channel)
  • Mobile Broadcasts:
    •  NA
  • RADIO: (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com)
    • NA

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the Hero World Challenge this Week

This is your last real chance to play DFS golf in 2016 (for PGA TOUR events anyway), so now might be the time to go in hard in readiness for the new calendar year.  With that in mind, here’s a pair of daily fantasy contests that are worthy of your investment:

  • PGA $70K Dogleg: 2452 players enter, one scoops up the $10k top prize.  If you have a spare $33 in your DraftKings account, now could be the time to invest it.
  • PGA $100k Fore: For just a $4 entry, you could trouser the top prize of $5k in this huge contest.  With the top 50 players winning a minimum of $100, this is an excellent chance to add to your kitty in readiness for 2017.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the Hero World Challenge 

Unfortunately, we have rather slim pickings to work with as far as statistical background is concerned.  Not a sausage was recorded last year – no strokes gained, no driving accuracy, no nothing – so we have little to play with.  But, we can take a look at Bubba’s run at Albany to offer some clues as to what we need to be looking at this week.

Clearly, with five par 5s to attack we’re looking for a power hitter: Bubba played the longer holes at -13 and clearly that was the foundation for his victory.  A number of the par 4s are attackable too (he played those at -9) and as such we need to have birdie monsters on side who can get close to the winning score expected, which will be around the -25 mark if the winds stay agreeable.

We still don’t know if current form is a factor here, although clearly it should help.  Bubba had a month off after the Asia swing in 2015, and his prior outing to his triumph in Albany was a T35 in China.  A number of players will be teeing off for the first time in a number of weeks here, and clearly we are going to favor those with a bit of form under their belts.

This is one of the very few times when our picks almost select themselves.  We have an 18-man field, but we can discount a decent percentage of them from the get go.  Tiger?  Not on our team until we have some kind of idea how is game is working out.  A few others – Emiliano Grillo, Brandt Snedeker, and Louis Oosthuizen are yet to sample the delights of this course and have no real form of late to speak of.

Consequently, perming five from fourteen should not prove too testing.

Note: Due to the small field this week, there will be no Tuesday Sleeper Report.  Sleepers are provided below. Also, GPGP stats are limited due to players lack of play so far this season.

Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Hero World Challenge

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Fantasy Golf Predictions Last Season (2015-2016)

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[counter num_start=”0″ num_end=”3068280″ num_speed=”5000″ num_prefix=”$” text_above=”Season Earnings” text_below=”$351,228 average”]
[skill_bar heading=”Total Top 3s” percent=”2.38%” bar_text=”1 out of 42 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 10s” percent=”21.42%” bar_text=”9 out of 42 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 25s” percent=”28.57%” bar_text=”12 out of 42 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Winners Picked” percent=”0%” bar_text=”0 out of 6 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Runners-Up Picked” percent=”0%” bar_text=”0 out of 6 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)” percent=”66.67″ bar_text=”28 out of 42 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″]

Remember to visit our private Facebook group to discuss this week’s picks for the 2016 Hero Challenge with other Premium Members.


Cover Photo via Instagram

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