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Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, & Predictions – The Masters

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Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for The Masters

The Masters 2018 Fantasy Preview

Ian James Poulter. When the chips are down, you can always rely on this over-the-top character to come up with the goods.

He bested Beau Hossler in a playoff to win last week’s Houston Open; a week after his place at Augusta for The Masters was ripped away from him by a mathematical error. Poulter believed he had entered the world’s top 50 after a decent showing in the WGC Match Play, but it turned out somebody had pressed the wrong button on a calculator and he was actually 51st – one place outside the automatic qualification places.

The winner of the Houston Open is guaranteed a spot in The Masters….and you can probably guess what happened next.

The fact that he triumphed at the Golf Club of Houston is testament to both his character and the powers that can be generated from a beloved club; Poulter has dusted off the putter that he used to such good effect in the Ryder Cup at Medinah. Lo and behold, the Englishman has gotten his confidence back on the greens….and the win in Houston was the fitting conclusion.

So Poulter is in the field for one of the most eagerly-anticipated editions of The Masters in recent memory. There are so many potential winners this week that it is a thrilling prospect for spectators, punters and DFS gamers alike, and you suspect the quality in the field – plus the complexity of Augusta National – will lead to yet another thrilling finish in Georgia.

The Masters dates back to 1934, and since 1949 the winner has slipped into the famous green jacket. Who will add their name to the rollcall of Masters champions this week?

And perhaps more importantly for the sake of this segment…who will take home DraftKings big $1 Million prize.

Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo of England during the final round of the…

Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo of England during the final round of the 1997 Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club on April 13, 1997 in Augusta, Georgia. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

Last Week’s Fantasy Results from the Houston Open

Six of our seven main fantasy picks played through the weekend including our Top Pick Henrik Stenson who finished the week T6 with 16 birdies and 1 eagle.

Grayson Murray, a low-tier pick managed to put down twenty birdies with an eagle on the week which landed him a T14 finish.

Ian Poulter of England poses with the winner’s trophy after winning…

Ian Poulter of England poses with the winner’s trophy after winning the Houston Open at the Golf Club of Houston on April 1, 2018 in Humble, Texas. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

In the end it was Ian Poulter; a guy who was told he was out of The Masters unless he won in Houston who came through with a gutsy win in Houston. He turned it up at the right time and if any fantasy players rode those coattails, then they most likely we’re rewarded nicely.

The Masters 2018 Field

Picking the winner of the 2018 Masters is akin to cracking the Da Vinci Code. We’ve got recent Tour winners in Poulter, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Phil Mickelson, Paul Casey and Bubba Watson in the field this week, all of whom could make a run at the Green Jacket.

There’s also the world number one (Dustin Johnson), the defending champion (Sergio Garcia), and former winners (Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott, Charl Schwartzel, Zach Johnson).

And don’t forget the vast majority of the world’s top 50 players too – Brooks Koepka, nursing that injured wrist – being the main absentee, and there’s a special invite for the impressive young hope, Shubhankar Sharma.

And Tiger….he couldn’t, could he? It’s been 21 years since he won his first green jacket and 13 since his last. It would be one of the most incredible stories in Masters history if he could land a fifth title at Augusta this week.

Bubba Watson of the United States shakes hands with Justin Thomas of…

Bubba Watson of the United States shakes hands with Justin Thomas of the United States after defeating him 3&2 on the 16th green during the semifinal round of the World Golf Championships-Dell Match… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

This Week’s Course Preview

Augusta National’s status as one of the most iconic golf courses on the planet remains overwhelmingly intact.

Built on the site of an old nursery, Augusta remains true to its roots with some beautiful flower-beds made up of Azaleas and other species. Indeed, Sergio was so enamored with the site of his first major victory that he has named his first child Azalea! The course remains heavily tree-lined too, and each hole is named after a tree, plant or flower.

Originally designed by Rees Jones back in the 1930s, the course was given something of a makeover by Tom Fazio in 2002. Holes were lengthened to keep up with the trend of players ‘gaining’ length off the tee, fairways were tightened (although the rough remains fairly agreeable) and the greens were switched from Bermuda to Bentgrass. These run at a fierce lick – roughly 13.5 on the stimpmeter.

One of the chief defenses of the course is the weather, which goes some way towards explaining why Jordan Spieth won in -18 in 2015 and Danny Willett in -5 just 12 months later. If the conditions are benign we can expect a lower score; if the wind is up conditions become rather trickier. As we will see in the forecast, there is a bit of everything expected this week!

The Par 72 stretch measures 7,435 yards but plays much longer, as the grain of the fairways points back towards the tee boxes. The winner at Augusta is in for a long old slog.

Here’s your cut-out-and-keep guide to each of the holes at this magnificent layout:

Hole 1: Tea Olive (Par 4, 445 yards) – There are bound to be nerves on the first tee box, and those won’t be helped by the thick tree-line that greets the players of this gently sweeping dogleg to the right. What a way to start: this hole played at a stroke index of 4.62 in 2017! If the course is soft then it could well be a 4-iron into a green that slopes from back to front, with the players reporting putts that break as much as eight feet.

Hole 2: Pink Dogwood (Par 5, 575 yards) – The first birdie opportunity comes as early as the second hole, with 41% attempts ending in birdie in 2017. The key is the second shot: anything from 220-250 yards can be expected into a green that dips from left to right.

Hole 3: Flowering Peach (Par 4, 350 yards) – It may only be 350 yards, but there’s no chance of driving the green on this Par 4; laying up with an iron off the tee is key. Severe run-off areas and protective bunkers ensured this hole played at 4.188 in 2017.

Hole 4: Flowering Crab Apple (Par 3, 240 yards) – A 240-yard Par 3 is as devilish as it sounds, with Jason Dufner calling it ‘probably the toughest hole on the course’. Pin placement ranges from the tough to the downright beastly, with most players having to hit a long iron or even rescue club into the green. Make par and run is the idea here.

Hole 5: Magnolia (Par 4, 455 yards) – Sand left, trees right….threading your tee shot through the middle is key here. The tiered green provides the chief defense, with a two-putt almost inevitable for approaches outside of ten-foot. Just 7% of attempts ended in birdie in 2017.

Hole 6: Juniper (Par 3, 180 yards) – The general consensus among the players is that if the pin is front left than it can be got at, with the natural camber of the green feeding the ball down to the hole. Anywhere else and, well, it will take an excellent tee shot to get anywhere close.

Hole 7: Pampas (Par 4, 450 yards) – Arguably the narrowest fairway on the course, the players are almost forced to hit driver given the length that as added by Fazio at the turn of the millennium. The green features a small landing zone too; a few yards out and balls will roll off the dancefloor, and with the green almost wholly protected by bunkers that is less than ideal.

Hole 8: Yellow Jasmine (Par 5, 570 yards) – The second Par 5 brings another scoring opportunity, but the second shot can be a hook around the tree-line (for right handers) and that brings its own difficulties approaching a ‘blind’ green. This has a ridge through the middle, making front pins easier to find. Back pins will require a steady two-putt.

Hole 9: Caroline Cherry (Par 4, 460 yards) – The fairway doglegs gently from right to left, and the green features three tiers, but this generally considered to be one of the easiest Par 3s on the course. There were more birdies made here than bogeys in 2017.

Hole 10: Camellia (Par 4, 495 yards) – There is an element of the risk-and-reward at ten. A second shot is likely to be from a downhill lie into a sloping green, so hitting a wedge in is far more desirable than a mid-iron. Just one-in-ten visits ended in birdie in 2017.

Hole 11: Magnolia (Par 4, 505 yards) – Amen Corner, the site of many a disaster through the years, starts at eleven. Players have spoken of ‘the fear’, especially debutants, of tackling the hardest hole of the layout. A whopping 505 yards, if players can find the fairway they are still greeted with a long iron, from a downhill lie, into a green protected by a pond to the left and a bunker at the back.

Hole 12: Golden Bell (Par 3, 155 yards) – Don’t be fooled into thinking that the shortness of this hole helps in any way. This is the smallest green on the course, and Jim Furyk says that the players have roughly 9ft of real estate to aim at for a realistic birdie opportunity. Some 8% of attempts ended in birdie last year – 3% resulted in double bogey or worse.

Hole 13: Azalea (Par 5, 510 yards) – Playing comfortably under par in 2017, this is the easiest hole on the course. A decent drive or three-wood sets up a mid-range iron over Rae’s Creek, and one of the easiest greens to read offers plenty of birdie chances.

Hole 14: Chinese Fir (Par 4, 440 yards) – Fourteen features one of the most extravagant doglegs of the layout, with a draw around the tree-line required. The green features a top shelf and a lower section that slopes dramatically. Pin position dictates the players’ strategy.

Hole 15: Firethorn (Par 5, 530 yards) – The only genuine risk and reward hole on the course. A decent drive leaves roughly 220 yards into a narrow green protected by water short, while an over-hit leaves a knee-trembling chip into a green that runs rapidly towards the pond.

Hole 16: Redbud (Par 3, 170 yards) – A tiny green is framed by bunkers, and many have reported the swirling wind here making club selection difficult. Otherwise, it’s a fairly standard Par 3 of medium difficulty.

Hole 17: Nandina (Par 4, 440 yards) – The removal of the famous ‘Eisenhower tree’ has opened up the fairway a lot more, although missing the short stuff leaves a rather dramatic cut or fade around the trees into the green. Putts with the grain are frighteningly fast, while lags across the grain require a very steady hand.

Hole 18: Holly (Par 4, 465 yards) – What a fitting end to this championship course, with a Par 4 that played at 4.274 in 2017 with 30% of visits ending in bogey or worse. A narrow chute off the tee is supplemented by an uphill approach that adds an extra ten yards or so to approaches; caddies will need to keep a clear head as their charges edge towards the green jacket!

Sergio Garcia victorious during Sunday play at Augusta National. Al…

Sergio Garcia victorious during Sunday play at Augusta National. Al Tielemans TK5 ) Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

Weather Forecast for Augusta, GA

It really is a bizarre forecast for Augusta this week, with a bit of everything being thrown into the mix.

It’s a warm start to the week, with temperatures topping 86 degrees, and as such the light rain predicted on Wednesday will do very little to soften the conditions.

Thursday and Friday are almost identical: they dawn quite cool at around 46 degrees, before the sun comes out and warms things up a bit. The wind is the differentiating factor though: on Thursday it will chart around 7 mph in the morning before dropping to 2 mph in the afternoon. On Friday, it will go from approximately 5 mph at 9am to 11 mph by 3pm.

Saturday could be an interesting moving day. The mercury will barely get above 54 degrees, with rain featuring heavily in the forecast from dawn to dusk. The wind will peak at around 12 mph by midday.

Sunday is expected to be cool and calm, with less chance of rain but not much sunshine either.

Last Year’s Results from The Masters

The purists would love The Masters to be finished in regulation time, but who can begrudge the fans the drama of a playoff similar to that in 2017?

Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose co-led at the 54-hole stage 12 months ago, and they could not be separated in the final round after final rounds of 69. Extra time beckoned….

They went back down eighteen and Rose skewed his tee shot into the trees on the right. Garcia’s drive clung on to the fairway and his approach shot – under immense pressure – was sublime to about 10ft. Rose almost scrambled his way to par, but Garcia downed his birdie putt to secure his first ever major title and end his dubious honor of being considered ‘one of the best players never to win a major.’

And yet it could have all gone so differently. Charley Hoffman opened up with a round of 65, the week’s best, which put him four clear on Thursday and seven ahead of the field outside of the top four! The Hoff showed just how hard it is to play four good rounds at Augusta and get over the line in a major.

Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth were knocking on the door heading into Sunday too, as they were one and two shots back respectively. But neither could deprive Garcia and Rose of their iconic Sunday shootout.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX6qpK07894[/embedyt]

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for The Masters this Week

As you are probably already aware, the daily fantasy sites tend to gather their tanks on the lawn ahead of the majors, and this week’s lucrative slate is testament to that.

DraftKings is offering players the chance to become a millionaire, among other things….

  • PGA $3.5m Fantasy Millionaire: Where else can we start this week. For a $20 entry, players have the chance to land a cool $1 million if they can outdo the rest of the 205k field. The first 2250 home will trouser a minimum of $100.
  • PGA $200k Driving Range: The small field size of The Masters means less variance for gamers, so the multi-entry contests are naturally more difficult find an advantage in. So how about this single-entry contest: a $150 entry will net the winner a handsome $30k.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes for The Masters

As far as the majors go, The Masters is arguably the best for DFS gamers in terms of spotting trends and angles of attack given that it is played at the same course each year.

There is a barrage of trends that are available to gamers, and some do seem to have genuine significance. You might think that golf is an open sport when it comes to age, for example, but statisticians will note that each of the last 10 winners of The Masters were under the age of 40 when they tried the green jacket on for size.

There are countless other trends like that to follow, and here are perhaps the pick of the bunch:

  • Each of the last four Masters champions had won on the PGA/European Tour in their last eight starts.
  • 16 of the last 20 champions had made the cut in their previous start on Tour.
  • 10/10 had played at Augusta at least once before.
  • 10/10 had made the cut in the previous year’s Masters.
  • 9/10 were ranked inside the world’s top 30.
  • 9/10 had posted a top-30 at Augusta before.
  • No defending champion and no world number one have won this title in the past decade.

Here’s a look at the last four winners in more depth:

2017: Sergio Garcia

  • How many times in Masters: 19
  • Masters finish the year before: T34
  • Best Masters finish: T4
  • Form heading in: 48-12-14-49-1
  • Past three major appearances: MC-5-5 (PGA ’16, The Open ’16, US Open ’16)

2016: Danny Willett

  • How many times in Masters: 2
  • Masters finish the year before: T38
  • Best Masters finish: T38
  • Form heading in: 28-23-3-45
  • Past three major appearances: 54-6-MC (PGA ’15, The Open ’15, US Open ’15)

2015: Jordan Spieth

  • How many times in Masters: 2
  • Masters finish the year before: 2
  • Best Masters finish: 2
  • Form heading in: 2-2-1-17
  • Past three major appearances: MC-36-17 (PGA ’14, Open ’14, US Open ’14)

2014: Bubba Watson

  • How many times in Masters: 5
  • Masters finish the year before: 50
  • Best Masters finish: 1
  • Form heading in: WD-9-2-1
  • Past three major appearances: MC-32-32 (PGA ’13, Open ’13, US Open ’13)

2013: Adam Scott

  • How many times in Masters: 11
  • Masters finish the year before: 50
  • Best Masters finish: 2
  • Form heading in: 33-3-30-10
  • Past three major appearances: 11-2-15 (PGA ’12, Open ’12, US Open ’12)

As for player suitability, there is an obvious premium on Bogey Avoidance over Birdie Making. Seven of the last ten winners have ranked first for BA, and as if to highlight the point 9/10 champions had ranked inside the top-10 for Scrambling.

You’ve got to putt well on these super quick Bentgrass greens too. Nine of the last ten winners had ranked inside the top-12 for Putting Average, and that isn’t a surprise given the number of two-putts and twitchy ten-footers required to do the business here.

And finally, take a look at the combined breakdown of the last ten Masters champions:

  • Par 3s: -6
  • Par 4s: -24
  • Par 5s: -86

Any picks we make this week have got to get the job done on the longer holes!

This Week’s Fantasy Stats and Tools

With the first major comes the first big prize in fantasy golf. Make sure you’re using all of our exclusive fantasy tools to get the most out of your rosters this week.

Here’s a quick run-down of all the fantasy tools available to our Premium Subscribers.

Key Stats Tool 

Get an edge by sorting the field to identify the type of player you want on your roster. In this example, we looked for players priced between $7,000 and $7,500 with a scrambling percentage above 62%, driving distance greater than 280 yards, and driving accuracy of at least 63%.

Fantasy Golf Key Stats Golficity DraftKings

Premium subscribers can use our Key Stats tool to sort and filter the field by any of the top 8 predictive stats we’ve identified.

GPFP (Golficity Projected Fantasy Points)

The GPFP is a player’s forecasted fantasy points for the upcoming tournament based on a weighted algorithm factoring in over 20 different key performance statistics. This grid will allow you to not only sort by predicted fantasy points per event, but you can match those points to other key stats like Short Game, Accuracy, Putting, and Power.

Ask our Experts

Remember, all of our Premium Subscribers have the option to receive personalized answers to fantasy golf questions directly from our fantasy golf guru team. Simply use this form to submit your specific fantasy questions no later than 24 hours before lineups lock on Thursday.

Now let’s get after that million dollar prize!

Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win The Masters

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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2017-2018)

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[skill_bar heading=”Total Top 3s” percent=”6.02%” bar_text=”8 out of 133 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 10s” percent=”19.55%” bar_text=”26 out of 133 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 25s” percent=”43.61%” bar_text=”58 out of 133 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Winners Picked” percent=”5.26%” bar_text=”1 out of 19 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Runners-Up Picked” percent=”26.31%” bar_text=”5 out of 19 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)” percent=”80.45%” bar_text=”107 out of 133 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″]

Remember to visit our private Facebook group to discuss this week’s picks for The Masters with other Premium Members.


Cover Photo via Instagram

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