Fantasy Golf Predictions
Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, & Predictions – RBC Heritage
Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the RBC Heritage
2018 RBC Heritage Fantasy Preview
Forever his own harshest critic, Patrick Reed would probably be the first to admit that – up until last week at least – he has largely failed to make the most of his undoubted ability.
A Ryder Cup ‘specialist’, Reed won five times on the PGA TOUR between August 2013-2016, but it has been a lengthy drought since then and many pundits wondered if he would ever reach great heights as an ‘individual’ performer, rather than merely as a team-game expert.
Well, wonder no more….
Reed slipped into the green jacket at Augusta on the back of a fantastic performance in which he showed fantastic character. Heading into Saturday’s third round he was two clear of the field, but this was no ordinary chasing pack: Leishman, Stenson, Spieth, McIlroy, Thomas ad Dustin Johnson were all in touching distance.
It’s testament to Reed’s mental fortitude that on a day of low scoring aided by softened greens, he not only held his lead but extended it too.
Sunday’s closing round was strange. Many expected a charge from Rory McIlroy and those in close quarters, but neither he nor Reed could get their game going. There was some fantastic scoring from Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and Jon Rahm, but all had timed their charges a little late in proceedings.
And so it was Reed who took the rather muted plaudits of the patrons. His troubled back story of family rifts, and a standoff-ish, insular personality means that he has few friends on Tour – that’s been confirmed by his fellow pro’s incidentally, rather than being mere conjecture, and it was strange, sad even, to see a guy who went to college a stone’s throw from Augusta be so coolly welcomed as he celebrated with his first major win for his wife.
The 27-year-old also broke a number of age-old trends and patterns to tread new ground; a real bummer when previewing the 2019 Masters in a year’s time!
All in all, it was a fantastic occasion that once again adds plenty of memories to the collection of this fine tournament.
You know that feeling when you have to go in to work on a Monday morning and you’ve enjoyed a week or longer of vacation? That’s kind of what this week’s PGA TOUR event, the RBC Heritage, feels like for the players. It’s perhaps no wonder that in the past five years, where this event as immediately followed The Masters, four of the winners had either not played at Augusta or not made the cut there.
That perhaps shows how tough it is to follow up a strong week in the first major of the year at one of the Tour’s so-called lesser events, so perhaps DFS gamers are wise to look a little outside the box for their picks this week.
Dustin Johnson of the United States reacts to a birdie on the sixth…
Dustin Johnson of the United States reacts to a birdie on the sixth green during the third round of the 2018 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 7, 2018 in Augusta, Georgia. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
Last Week’s Fantasy Results from The Masters
With the field as stacked as it was, it was tough seeing through the headliners and picking Patrick Reed. Turns out, you didn’t necessarily need him to cash in, but it would have been nice to have him on your roster.
Our top pick was Spieth, who turned out an impressive Sunday round, yielding him 3rd place and 107.50 fantasy points on DraftKings.
Patrick Reed of the United States celebrates during the green jacket…
Patrick Reed of the United States celebrates during the green jacket ceremony after winning the 2018 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 8, 2018 in Augusta, Georgia. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
In total, our main picks segment resulted in 6 out of 7 made cuts, and three total Top 15 picks including Spieth’s 3rd place finish.
Our Sleeper Pick segment resulted in 4/5 made cuts including Marc Leishman as our top Sleeper Pick who finished in 9th place with 85 fantasy points.
The RBC Heritage 2018 Field
South Carolinan and world number one, Dustin Johnson, is the obvious draw this week. He has signed a sponsorship deal with the RBC Group that will see him compete in their events, starting on home soil this week. Curiously, DJ hasn’t teed up at Hilton Head since 2009.
After top-ten showings at The Masters, the Australian pair of Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith will be looking to go that bit closer this week, while Paul Casey’s closing round of 65 at Augusta will give him plenty of confidence too.
Charley Hoffman – fresh from his ace at 16 on Sunday, Tyrrell Hatton and Brian Harman are also in town, as are former RBC Heritage champions Matt Kuchar, Brande Grace, Brandt Snedeker and the reigning champion, Wes Bryan.
Perennial Harbour Town Links specialists, Luke Donald, Jim Furyk and William McGirt, will be looking to make their pleasant experiences around this track work for them once again.
Patton Kizzire of the United States watches his chip to the first…
Patton Kizzire of the United States watches his chip to the first green during the first round of the 2018 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 5, 2018 in Augusta, Georgia. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
This Week’s Course Preview
There are two features of Harbour Town Golf Links that makes this layout a cracking test: the tiny Bermuda greens, which really are tough to find in regulation, and the wind; a feature that sweeps in hard into the south east coast of North America off the Atlantic Ocean.
Measuring 7,100 yards for its Par 71, this Pete Dye track has just three Par 5s to work with and tree-lined fairways that, while not narrow, certainly reward those who can land their drives in prime location.
This is one of those ‘position’ golf courses where strong approach players tend to thrive – it was the key ingredient for Wes Bryan 12 months ago, certainly, and the sense is that even the tidiest of players will miss greens this week, so scrambling is key.
And yes: this is a coastal course where the wind is routinely up, which naturally suits some more than others!
Ian Poulter of England hits a tee shot on the 18th hole during the…
Ian Poulter of England hits a tee shot on the 18th hole during the final round of the 2017 RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links on April 16, 2017 in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
Weather Forecast for Hilton Head, South Carolina
There is a decent amount of rain in the forecast for Monday and Tuesday, which could well soften the greens ahead of Thursday’s start.
Otherwise, the theme in Hilton Head this week is of sunny spells and mild-ish temperatures.
Thursday and Friday look set to be sunny with cloudy intervals, with wind speeds of up to 11mph.
Saturday should be the warmest day at 75 degrees with winds hitting 13 mph, while on Sunday things look rather interesting in the early forecast: thundery showers and storms are expected with winds peaking at 20 mph!
Last Year’s Results from the RBC Heritage
The opening line of Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem ‘If’ reads: if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs….and it’s an idea that worked well for Wes Bryan on a chaotic Sunday here 12 months ago.
He was four back in T6 at the start of the day, and must have looked on with faint bemusement as those above him – Jason Dufner, Graeme DeLaet, Kevin Kisner, Webb Simpson and Ian Poulter – sank without a trace, carding 76, 73, 74, 74 and 73 respectively.
Bryan meanwhile cantered around Harbour Town serenely, making four straight birdies on the front nine and finishing with a round of 67 to take the tartan jacket and end up one stroke clear of Luke Donald, who recorded an incredible seventh top-three finish here in just nine visits.
Patrick Cantlay and Ollie Schneiderjans, both on debut, and William McGirt rounded out the top five.
Highlights | Final Round | RBC Heritage
SUBSCRIBE to PGA TOUR now: http://pgat.us/vBxcZSh In the final round of the 2017 RBC Heritage, South Carolina native Wesley Bryan strung together a strong push early to move ahead and claim his first career PGA TOUR win. The RBC Heritage is held at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the RBC Heritage this Week
If you picked up some tasty winnings from The Masters, then well done! There’s no time to reinvest them quite like the present, and an open-looking RBC Heritage is a decent place to start.
- PGA $500k Drive the Green: If you missed out on the million last week, then not to worry. There’s a handy consolation prize of $100k available to the winner of this contest, with a cheap buy-in of $5 enabling multi-entry where desired.
- PGA $40k Albatross: We do enjoy a single entry contest every now and then, especially in tournaments that are hard to decipher like this RBC Heritage. Buy in for $12 and maybe you can take home the $4k top prize.
This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the RBC Heritage
This week it’s all about the approach play. The RBC Heritage is an event where Strokes Gained: Approach and SG: Around-the-Green yield a higher percentage of importance than the Tour average, and so act as the basic foundation for your draft at Harbour Town.
Typically, this is a place for accurate driving, but last year Wes Bryan served up a rather anomalous championship result. He hit just 31/56 fairways, proving that you can miss but you have to do so in the right places. Besides which, he gained +2.11 strokes on approach PER ROUND; a ridiculous amount!
But generally speaking, finding these smaller-than-average greens is much easier from the short grass, so place a premium on accuracy over power off the tee.
And don’t forget we’re back on Bermuda this week after a brief foray onto Bentgrass at Augusta National.
We can debate the worth of course form over current form until we are blue in the face, but the fact remains that course form at Harbour Town does count for something. How else can we account for the fact that the likes of Furyk, Donald, McGirt and Sabbatini regularly feature here despite their barren runs almost everywhere else on Tour.
One thing we mustn’t forget, no matter how crazy it sounds, is the psychology of a post-major week: who will be dialed in and giving it all their all, and who is in town simply pick up an easy paycheck given South Carolina’s proximity to Augusta?
As for correlating courses, Sea Island (RSM Classic) and Waialae (Sony Open) are the two most obvious ones given their coastal and wind-affected location, and in Waialae’s case the tree-lined fairways. Jim Furyk, Graeme McDowell, Kevin Kisner and Brian Gay have all featured prominently at Sea Island and Harbour Town in the past few years.
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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the RBC Heritage
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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the RBC Heritage
*Please note that some players may not have registered enough events this early into the 2017-2018 season to have an accurate GPFP.
Top Tier Pick #1:
Paul Casey (Odds: 16/1, FPPG: 69.8, GPFP: 104.50 Salary: $11,300)
It’s a tough week for DFS gamers, with the ‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t’ presence of Dustin Johnson rather muddying the waters.
He is the best player in the field and, of course, the most likely winner, and the concern is that his likely high ownership will leave anyone who doesn’t draft him in the brown stuff.
But DJ isn’t exactly convincing at present with his all-round game, and while Paul Casey wins on the PGA TOUR are as rare as hen’s teeth, his triumph at the Valspar Championship might just be the spark he needs for greater things.
He’s certainly striking the ball very nicely: his closing 69-65 was bettered only by Rickie Fowler at Augusta, and that sets him up nicely for a trip to a course that should suit.
His four visits to Harbour Town have yielded three top-20 finishes, and with his new-found confidence perhaps he can get into the mix for the trophy. His approach play should certainly give him an opportunity.
Key Stats:
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 2nd
- SG: Approach – 9th
- SG: Around-the-Green – 11th
Top-Tier Pick #2:
Cameron Smith (Odds: 30/1, FPPG: 80.9, GPFP: 88.95 Salary: $9,000)
His top-five finish at The Masters will finally have identified Cameron Smith as a ‘proper player’ to a wider audience, but anybody who saw his T4 return from the US Open in 2015 will have been watching the Australian closely ever since.
Since then he secured victory alongside Jonas Blixt at the Zurich Classic – played at another Pete Dye layout at TPC Louisiana, and Smith also triumphed in his home Australian PGA Championship; a quality event which would have heaped so much pressure on his young shoulders.
His closing 66 at Augusta confirmed what many knew already: Smith is the real deal, and a maiden PGA TOUR singles victory is surely on the horizon.
Key Stats:
- Par 4 Scoring Average – 11th
- Scrambling – 11th
- SG: Around-the-Green – 24th
Mid-Tier Pick #1:
Bryson DeChambeau (Odds: 40/1, FPPG: 70.5, GPFP: 63.98 Salary: $8,300)
Another test of approach play, another chance to draft Bryson DeChambeau at a more than fair price.
The scientifically-minded 24-year-old has finished inside the top-ten in three of this ten PGA TOUR starts this term, including an eye-catching second at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in his penultimate start where he mixed it with Rory, Tiger and co and did not look out of place.
DeChambeau was T4 for here in 2016 and that’s not surprising: his game is perfect for finding these tiny greens. And the fact he is a recent-ish PGA TOUR winner is a great help in this field.
Key Stats:
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 15th
- SG: Approach – 32nd
- Greens in Regulation – 37th
Mid-Tier Pick #2:
Bud Cauley (Odds: 80/1, FPPG: 71.0, Salary: GPFP: 44.77 $7,300)
If golf was played by computers, someone like Bud Cauley would regularly feature high up on leaderboards given that he ranks inside the PGA TOUR’s top-70 players for both Strokes Gained from Tee-to-Green and Putting.
But it’s not, and the fact that Cauley has such obvious talent – without translating that to wins – is a concern that, psychologically at least, he hasn’t yet got the nous and experience to get over the line.
But that will come in time, and you sense the 28-year-old will pull off something special soon enough.
Layouts that place a premium on accurate approach play suit – he finished T9 here 12 months ago, he has played well at another pair of Pete Dye courses that host the CareerBuilder Challenge, and his current form is pretty good with top-20s in his last two starts at the Houston Open and Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Key Stats:
- SG: Around-the-Green – 37th
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 66th
- Birdie Average – 43rd
Low-Tier Pick:
Tom Hoge (Odds: 250/1, FPPG: 70.6, GPFP: 47.76 Salary: $6,500)
North Carolinan Hoge will be dropping south of the border this week, and we can only the inspiration that gave Wes Bryan last year will repeat itself.
The 28-year-old has really impressed this season with his iron play, ranking 30th for SG: Approach, and that as a basic building block gives him an excellent chance of replicating his solo third place finish at the Sony Open earlier in the term.
His stats on Par 4s this term are equally impressive, and that naturally gives Hoge some kind of edge at Par 71 layouts.
Key Stats:
- SG: Approach – 30th
- Par 4 Birdie or Better Leaders – 55th
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 67th
Sleeper Pick for the RBC Heritage
Jason Kokrak (Odds: 80/1, FPPG: 69.9, GPFP: 76.33 Salary: $7,400)
Course form seems to be a factor for the players at Harbour Town, with the likes of Luke Donald, Jim Furyk and William McGirt regularly appearing towards the summit of the leaderboard here year in, year out.
Jason Kokrak has his own slice of repeat success at Harbour Town (MC-6-18-12), and the 32-year-old does often appear on our shortlist at tracks where clubbing down off the tee is key.
That’s because he is hopelessly wild with driver in hand, and yet the cornerstone of his game is long-distance iron play, so he should be able to keep the ball in-play at Harbour Town.
Kokrak tends to dip in and out of form, but with plenty of strong showings on Pete Dye layouts we’re hoping that this will be the site of another decent performance for the Canadian.
Key Stats:
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 40th
- SG: Around-the-Green – 58th
- SG: Approach – 66th
Alternative Sleeper Pick for the RBC Heritage
Austin Cook (Odds: 110/1, FPPG: 70.2, GPFP: 65.71 Salary: $7,200)
Austin Cook made his debut at Augusta National, and while a final score of +10 saw him miss the cut he actually played some decent golf on Thursday.
As we know, a disappointing week at The Masters does not dictate performance at Harbour Town, and so we shouldn’t be too hasty in writing off the 27-year-old.
His exceptional chipping-and-putting game took him to the RSM Classic title earlier this year, and top-20s at the Sony Open and the Pete Dye hosted CareerBuilder Challenge are no coincidence.
Key Stats:
- Driving Accuracy – 25th
- Scrambling – 42nd
- SG: Around-the-Green – 45th
This Week’s Sample DraftKings Lineup
Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only. Be sure to mix-and-match players to best fit individual contests.
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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2017-2018)
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