Fantasy Golf Picks & Predictions – Sanderson Farms Championship

Fantasy Golf Picks and Predictions for the 2017 Sanderson Farms Championship

2017 Sanderson Farms Championship Fantasy Preview

The big bucks and the star names of golf are over in China this week for the WGC-HSBC Champions event, and it’s no surprise to learn that’s where the majority of the golfing community’s focus will be.

But this alternate event, the Sanderson Farms Championship at the Country Club of Jackson in Mississippi, is still very much worthy of the time of DFS gamers.

Here we will see an intriguing battle between the young guns fresh from the Web.com Tour, the solid PGA TOUR pros looking to pick up a trophy and the wily old veterans aiming for one final pay day before the sanctity of the Champions Tour comes a-calling.

This Jackson layout is a scoreable stretch that doesn’t really favor anybody in particular: hot putters (Cody Gribble won here in 2016), boomers off the tee (Luke List was T2 in 2016) and shorter hitters (David Toms was second in 2015) have all prospered, although the ability to make birdies is universal: a winning mark of around -18 is expected.

The tournament flag waves during round two of the Sanderson Farms…

The tournament flag waves during round two of the Sanderson Farms Championships at The Country Club of Jackson on November 7, 2014 in Jackson, Mississippi. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

The greens are Bermuda and pretty slick by all accounts, although they are pretty easy to find given their generous proportions. Some players have spoken of the dense Bermuda rough at Jackson in the past, but Gribble only ranked 38th for Driving Accuracy in his winning effort, so maybe that is something of a fallacy.

Let’s make no bones about it: this is a tough week for DFS, in that we still don’t have a handle on which Web.com guys are going to kick on. In this very event 12 months ago, Grayson Murray led after 36 holes before Gribble took the honors – both recent Web.com Tour graduates from the deep south – so perhaps that is one angle to explore.

We’ve also a penchant for a hungry, more experienced pro looking to return to the spotlight, so here’s who we’re drafting this week:

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This Week’s Sanderson Farms Championship Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s Sanderson Farms Championship Fantasy Picks

Kevin Streelman – $9,700 – With each passing year it gets easier to forget past achievements, and while the past few years have not been all that kind to Kevin Streelman he at least knows that he possesses the winner’s poise under pressure.

He’s a two-time PGA TOUR champion, and the second (the Travelers Championship in 2014) you may recall featured seven straight birdies on the back nine of his final round – a PGA TOUR record.

It’s been a barren spell since, but it’s hard to completely disregard a player that has made 21 top-25 finishes in the past three seasons alone.

In 2017 he banked decent cheques at the OHL Classic (T4), the Travelers (T8), the Memorial (T13), and Dean & Deluca (T18), which is the kind of consistency that took him through to the second week of FedExCup playoffs.

Streelman is solid off the tee (18th for Total Driving) and on approach (6th for approaches from 100-125 yards), and so all he needs is his putter to heat up for the whole set. The few spots of rain in Mississippi will at least slow the greens for him.

Ben Martin – $9,400 – There are a number of young talents on the PGA TOUR that have been bubbling around for a while without really making that next step up to challenge the big boys.

Ben Martin, still only 30, has recorded top-five finishes in each of the last four seasons on the PGA TOUR, and not just in alternate events but ‘proper’ tournaments with decent fields: John Deere, Quicken Loans, RBC Heritage and THE PLAYERS Championship.

He won in 2015 at Shriners, and while that didn’t prove the catalyst for him to kick on and become a big player on the PGA TOUR, you do sense that Martin has the game to do something special.

In theory at least, alternate events should be his best route back into the winner’s circle (he finished T6 and 14th at Barbasol and Barracuda last season) and T17 at the Safeway Open a couple of weeks ago suggests his game is in good shape.

Tyler Duncan – $8,100 – One of the most impressive debuts at the Safeway Open came courtesy of Tyler Duncan, who finished T5 and just four shots shy of winner Brendan Steele.

He played nicely from tee-to-green (+1.335 SG) and with flat stick in hand (+1.285), and indeed Duncan was in positive numbers for all of the Strokes Gained metrics to cap a fine week at Silverado – not forgetting that he led after 54 holes.

That has hopefully given him a taste for life at the top of the leaderboard, and we’re confident enough his game will hold up if he gets into the mix – he ranked 1st for Driving Accuracy (from a not-too-short 299-yard average) and 16th for Putting Average on the Web.com Tour.

Robert Garrigus – $7,600 – Are you ready to play a game of ‘let’s take a huge gamble and see what happens’?

If golf was played by computers rather than human beings, Garrigus would be an excellent player: he ranked top-40 for SG: Off-the-Tee, SG: Approach and SG: Tee-to-Green on the PGA TOUR last season!

The fact he was so highly rated in those three key metrics – he also finished ninth in Greens in Regulation for the old-school stat hunters – suggests he should really be doing a lot better than he is, but here’s a fun stats regardless: Garrigus’ three top-10 finishes in 2017 have all come at alternate events (Canadian Open, Barbasol Championship, Barracuda).

And you may just recall in 2010 when he led the St. Jude Classic heading into the final hole before fluffing his lines, before then winning another PGA TOUR later in the year? He also finished top-five at the US Open in 2011.

Yes, it’s a huge leap of faith to suggest Garrigus will win this week, but that is a captivating collection of evidence nonetheless.

Aaron Baddeley – $7,100 – Generally down the years Baddeley has been regarded as a so-so kind of player whose brilliance on the greens has led to some reasonable success – four PGA TOUR wins and counting.

The Aussie ranked eighth for SG: Putting in 2015, and while his form with the flat stick has tailed off since it is noticeable that he tends to do better on slicker Bermuda than grainy Poa Annua – as was the case in missing the cut at the Safeway Open a few weeks ago, albeit at T76.

More interesting to us was the fact he ranked eleventh for SG: Tee-to-Green and third for SG: Approach at Silverado; not two facets we would normally associate with Baddeley’s game.

Remember, this is a generally excellent putter whose iron play is dialed in at present, and his last win on Tour came in another alternate event: the Barbasol Championship in 2016. He was T4 here the same year and finished T5 and T15 at the Texas and Houston Opens respectively last year, and so Baddeley has enough about him to suggest this $7,100 price is a bargain.

Stephan Jaeger – $7,000 – There is a feeling this week that we are simply hoping for the best with our Web.com Tour picks, and that we don’t really know how they are going to fare (despite the history books suggesting they are the ones to back here).

There is, however, enough evidence to suggest that German-born Stephan Jaeger could be worth a play. He won twice on the Web.com Tour in 2017 – no mean feat – and finished T7 at the News Sentinel Open played in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Jaeger actually studied at the University of Tennessee as well, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to see that he is comfortable in Southern conditions and on Bermuda greens.

He made his maiden PGA TOUR start at the Safeway Open a couple of weeks ago, and while his T30 finish was impressive enough on debut even more eye-catching was the feat of raking second for GIR. That suggests he is striking the ball well and will not be overawed by stepping up in class.

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