Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2015 Arnold Palmer Invitational

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the 2015 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill

Event Preview

The final stop of the “Florida Swing” will be Bay Hill for the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week as each of the top-five golfers in the Official World Golf Rankings tee it up at the favorite course of “The King.”  Last week’s winner, Jordan Spieth, will not will not be making his way onto the course after a tremendous finish at the Valspar Championship, but nine different players in the field will be looking to become the first multiple time winner on the tour this season.  They will be joined by another ten players from the top-30 in the OWGR as they attempt to grab the trophy at an event that has been held since 1979 and is hosted by one of the legends of the game.

The par-72, 7,381-yard course has been primarily dominated by one man, Tiger Woods, as he has won here eight times in the past, including four times in the past seven seasons.  He will not be attending the tourney this week and instead will have to watch Rory McIlroy, who is playing here for the first time, attempt to make his own mark on the historic course as the current No. 1 golfer in the world.  No player, other than Tiger, has won the event more than twice and the latest multiple winner was Ernie Els who came away the victor in both 1998 and 2010.

13-under has been the score to beat in each of the past three installments of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and while two of them were won by Tiger, the other was won by a virtual unknown golfer (at the time) in Matt Every in 2014.  It was his first and only career win to date as he surpassed the likes of Adam Scott, Keegan Bradley, and Jason Kokrak on Sunday to earn the victory.

With a new name topping the leaderboard each week, let’s pick through the strong field heading to Orlando to find a few sleeper players who could help boost your fantasy roster despite not being strong favorites.  Use these sleeper picks to help round out your DraftStreet and other salary cap fantasy leagues.

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The Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The Fantasy Sleeper Report

In an effort to continually provide our Premium Members with the best fantasy content anywhere on the web, this week we’ve added a bonus “Sleeper Report” to help you identify the undervalued, long-shots that can help you score some bonus fantasy points this weekend.  Mix and match these players with your usual rosters (or play them separately) to get the most out of your picks this week.

• Francesco Molinari – 66/1: Molinari hasn’t exactly been the model of consistency so far this year, making 4-of-6 six cuts with two of them ending in a top-25, but he possesses tremendous driving accuracy (75.6%, 3rd on tour) and that has helped push him to some solid results at Bay Hill in the past.  He’s played here three times in the last four years, doing no worse than 34th and was right in the mix last year with a score of nine-under; good enough to earn him fifth place and a big, fat paycheck.  Molinari hit 79% of the fairways in that installment of this event and if he can keep it in the short grass once again this week, there is no reason why he can’t card his best finish of the season.
• Branden Grace – 90/1: Grace has been one of the hottest players on the European Tour this year, earning two victories and finishing in the top-20 at four of his past five tournaments across the pond.  His recent strong play has vaulted him all the way up to 43rd in the OWGR, but he still has yet to do much on the PGA TOUR, making the cut in only 21-of-31 tourneys and grabbing just three top-25s in his career.  This trend is unlikely to continue as the 26-year-old continues to improve.  It is only a matter of time before he wows the American fans with his huge drives (305.2 yards per on the European Tour this year) and earns their respect with a win.  Grace could follow in the footsteps of fellow South African Ernie Els and earn a win at Bay Hill this week.
• Vijay Singh – 125/1: Don’t look now, but former superstar Vijay Singh is riding a solid stretch of golf, finishing in the top-12 at both the Northern Trust Open and Valspar Championship.  He is certainly no stranger to pressure with 34 PGA victories and 13 European Tour wins in his tremendous career.  Singh showed last year that he can still perform at Bay Hill, finishing with a score of four-under, which put him in the top-20.  He also was able to get a win here when he put up two 67s over the weekend in 2007, but has not won on the tour since late 2008.  His resurgence this year seems to stem from his ability to get a ton of sand saves (61.1%, 27th on tour) and gain strokes from tee-to-green (0.94, 18th on tour).  He is certainly no longer much of a threat to win against this tough competition, but his experience and talent could get him a trophy at least one more time.
• S.J. Park – 200/1: Park is among a strong group of rookies that have been making a name for themselves this year.  He’s made 7-of-11 cuts thus far clearly showing that he is ready for the big stage with a runner-up performance at the Humana Challenge behind four consecutive rounds of 68 or better.  Park seems to improve not only from week-to-week, but also in each round of a given tournament, with his best scoring coming on Sundays (69.29 average, 30th on tour), and if he can get off to a strong start there is no reason why he wouldn’t be able to close out a tournament.  S.J. is coming off a strong Sunday (69) at the Valspar Championship and should be able to use his fantastic scrambling skills (69%, 5th on tour) to remain competitive throughout this week.
• Erik Compton – 200/1: Compton actually comes into this week playing some of the worst golf of his career, failing to make the cut in each of the last five events that he has played in, but he’s still a tremendous player as evidenced by his 10th-place finish at the Humana.  Compton has always always seemed comfortable playing at Bay Hill.  He was solid here in 2013 when he finished in 16th and did even better last year with a nine-under, fifth-place showing.  Erik led the field in GIR (79.6%) in his top-five finish and has shown some solid putting skills this year (0.35 strokes gained putting, 56th on tour).  At 200/1 the odds are huge on Compton which means that he will come very cheap, so it may be smart to make a contrarian pick on the 35-year-old Florida resident.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions?  Check out our full fantasy preview for this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational Here.

Cover photo by Cameron Flanders on Flickr