Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2015 Crowne Plaza Invitational

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the 2015 Crowne Plaza Invitational from Colonial

Event Preview

Following one of the most dominant performances of the year by Rory McIlory at the Wells Fargo Championship will be the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial this weekend.

The par-70, 7,204-yard course has hosted this event since 1946 and has also seen the U.S. Open (1951) and second edition of the PLAYERS Championship take place on its grounds.  Overall, 11 different players have won twice when playing at this tournament, but only one man, Ben Hogan, has won more than that, owning the course for five victories between 1946-1959.

Looking to top the leaderboard this week will be a relatively weak field which will see a mere seven players from the top-25 in the Official World Golf Rankings; being headlined by the current top-two golfers in the FedEx Cup standings, Jordan Spieth and Jimmy Walker—each of who will be looking to become the first to three victories on the year while another top-25 golfer, Zach Johnson, will aim his sights at grabbing this trophy for the third time since 2010.

It was an impressive weekend by Adam Scott last year when he earned the win by firing a 66 on each of the final two days, eventually fending off Jason Dufner on the second hole of a playoff.  It was his first win as the number one player in the world and his 11th career PGA victory.  Scott won with a score of nine-under, the lowest mark for a victor since Olin Browne defeated the field with a score of eight-under-par in 1999.  Surprisingly not in the mix last year was Zach Johnson who, as mentioned previously, has two wins here (2010, 2012).  Zach set the tournament record with a 21-under showing in 2010, and has placed in the top-four in four of the last five years.

With plenty of foreign players typically sitting this one out, the winners have been primarily American, as 10 of the last 12 golfers to win were from the U.S. with Scott and Rory Sabbatini (2007) being the only two exceptions.  This year, the crowd will get a treat as two of England’s premier players, Ian Poulter and Paul Casey, take on the course for the first time since 2009.

There is still plenty of top-end talent going to Forth Worth this week, but with a relatively weak group compared to the last few events, there are a number of quality fantasy sleepers to be found as well.  Let’s look at a few of these golfers now.

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Mix and match these players with your usual rosters (or play them separately) to get the most out of your picks this week.

• Steve Stricker – 66/1: Stricker has played very little in the past few years due to a herniated disk, but the 12-time PGA TOUR winner is just two years removed from a 2013 campaign in which he had four runner-up performances and finished third in the FedExCup standings despite playing in a mere 13 events.  He’s been making his way back to the course slowly this year, but has played relatively well against great fields in the Masters (28th) and THE PLAYERS Championship (38th), hitting better than 71% of fairways at each of those events.  With the not too impressive field this week, the veteran should be able to stay at the top of the leaderboard and can look back at his 2009 win for confidence against the young guns that have the best odds this week.
• Chris Stroud – 75/1: It hasn’t exactly been a year to write home about for Stroud as he has missed seven cuts in 17 events, but he’s been consistent during each of the last two seasons with a top-50 FedExCup finish each time.  He could get some of the consistency back when he tees it up on Thursday though, as he has finished in the top-14 here in each of the past three seasons and was amazing on the par-3s (-4) last year while putting 1.58 strokes better than the field.  Despite his poor showings this year, Stroud has been solid around the greens with 56.4% mark in sand saves (49th on tour) while ranking 62nd in scrambling (61.3%).  Stroud is still searching for his first career PGA TOUR victory and could surprise many with his standing come Sunday afternoon.
• Bo Van Pelt – 90/1: Van Pelt has played 382 career PGA TOUR tournaments and has just one victory to his name, but he has performed excellently at this course with only one finish being worse than 19th in the past five years while having two in the top-10.  His best outing here came in 2011 when he shot 10-under-par (seven-under on par-4s) and grabbed sole possession of third place.  In 2015, the 40-year-old had one top-10 finish when he posted an 11-under-par at the RBC Heritage and tied for ninth.  He has also made the cut in four of his past five events.  Van Pelt should benefit from the par-70 course this week since he is one of the most accurate strikers from 50-125 yards with a proximity to the hole of 15’9”, which is good for eighth on tour.  The veteran may only have one win in his long career, but signs point to a solid showing for him.
• Scott Brown – 100/1: Brown has been steadily climbing up the FedExCup standings recently as he has improved his standing in each of the last seven events and was solid with a tie for 13th last week at the Wells Fargo Championship.  He’s made each of his last six cuts coming into this one after a putrid start to the year in which he failed to play on the weekend in 8-of-13 times.  Brown has hit better than 70% of GIR at three of the past five tournaments played and was exceptional with a mark of 77.8% GIR last week.  He shot 12-under-on the par-5s in the performance behind driving the ball an average of 304.1 yards per and he knows what it takes to win on tour as the 188th ranked golfer in the world was able to take home the hardware at the 2013 Puerto Rico Open and stands to perform well with the elite players kept at bay this week.
• David Lingmerth – 150/1: Lingmerth has made half (8) of the cuts in his 16 events this year, but has maximized his payouts when making it to the weekend with five top-25s.  It seems like all-or-nothing for the Swedish-born player as he comes into this one with three consecutive missed cuts.  But, now is the perfect time for him to get back on the top-25 train as he’s finished 18th (2013) and fifth (2014) here in the last two years.  In that 2014 performance he managed to hit 66.7% of GIR and was putting 0.743 strokes better than the field.  David has not excelled in any particular area this year, but is 30th on tour in total driving (142) as he is in the top-75 in both driving distance (290.5 yards per) and accuracy (63.1%).  The 27-year-old has plenty of talent and owns two runner-ups in his career, so look for him to get to the weekend and make some noise.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions?  Check out our full fantasy preview for the 2015 Crowne Plaza Invitational here.

Cover photo by @aimeewearsprada on Instagram.