Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2015 Deutsche Bank Championship

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the 2015 Deutsche Bank Championship

Deutsche Bank Championship 2015 Fantasy Sleeper Preview

Players from the top-100 in the FedExCup standings converge on TPC of Boston in Norton, MA this week for the 2015 Deutsche Bank Championship.  This event has been part of the Labor Day festivities since 2003 and has been played at the par-71, 7,216-yard course each year.

The field will likely consist of 99 players out of the possible 100 with Sergio Garcia being the lone omission as he sits out for undisclosed reasons— Garcia has already qualified for next week’s BMW Championship.  Without even playing at last week’s Barclays tournament, Rory McIlroy regained his spot at the top of the Official World Golf Rankings, overtaking Jordan Spieth after a one-week hold of the position as the 22-year-old failed to make the cut at The Barclays with a score of seven-over-par in the first two days.

Spieth also saw his lead in the FedExCup standings disappear as The Barclays winner, Jason Day, stormed up the rankings and now holds a minuscule 290 point lead.  The 22-year-old was able to stay in second though, but after a missed cut in last week’s event, he now has Bubba Watson just over 1,000 points behind him and will be looking to rebound after a seven-over performance in New Jersey last week.  The power hitting Watson was able to climb the rankings thanks to a solid solo third-place finish last week as he could not keep up with the torrid pace that Day set, posting scores of 63 and 62 over the final two days of the event.

Making one of the biggest leaps in the standings was Henrik Stenson who jumped all the way from 41st to 4th in the playoffs thanks to a solo second at The Barclays.  Plenty of golfers used their performance in the first tournament of the playoffs to continue their season with a total of seven men using Plainfield Country Club to jump up into the top-100.  The biggest move of that group was from Spencer Levin who went from 115th to 80th after a tie for 16th.  He will be joined by Jason Dufner, Carlos Ortiz, Mark Wilson, Luke Donald, Johnson Wagner, and Camilo Villegas, all of who will need to put in more work this week in order to continue their season.

Of course, with seven players making the move into the event, seven other golfers went in the opposite direction and failed to post solid numbers, leading to a drop out of the top-100.  That group consisted of a couple of former major champions (Adam Scott and Padraig Harrington) along with Greg Owen, John Peterson, Adam Hadwin, Charl Schwartzel, John Huh and Franceso Molinari.

Last year, Chris Kirk used his score of 15-under-par to take home the trophy in this event, using the victory to jump from 17th to first in the standings, but eventually losing out to Billy Horschel, winner of each of the final two playoff events.

TPC Boston allows for plenty of scoring as evidenced by the victor’s score being 20-under or better at four of the last seven installments of this tourney and the final is typically not all that close as eight of the twelve winners here have taken the win by at least two strokes with seven of them coming from the United States.  The only golfer to claim multiple wins in this big event is Vijay Singh (2004, 2008) who did not qualify to play this week.

All of the players going this week have had some level of success during the 2015 season, but let’s filter through some of them whose odds are unfavorable heading to TPC Boston to find some diamonds in the rough.

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2015 Deutsche Bank Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The Deutsche Bank Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

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

Bill Haas – Vegas Odds 66/1: Haas entered the playoffs already in the top-25 of the FedExCup standings and was able to move up two more spots after a not so impressive tie for 53rd last week in New Jersey.  Previous to that performance, the 33-year-old had been in the top-25 at three of the last five events including notching two top-sixes at the Wyndam Championship and Quicken Loans National.  Overall, Haas has been in the top-25 at 11 of his 17 tournaments after making it to the weekend and also notched a victory at the Humana Challenge back in late January.  What will push him up the leaderboards this week is his ability to hit plenty of GIR (68.84%, 35th on TOUR) while he has a shown some impressive scrambling skills (62.89%, 23rd on TOUR).  Haas has six wins to his name since turning pro in 2004 and is a former FedExCup Playoffs champion (2011), so he should have no issues overcoming the pressure of this big event while posting some low scores.

Ryan Palmer – Vegas Odds 80/1: Palmer is very close to Haas in the rankings (33rd) with the difference being his inability to get a win in 2015 as he came very close with a runner-up performance at the Waste Management Open back in February.  In all he has made 16-of-20 cuts (80%) and has earned 10 top-25 finishes in that time, with one of them coming last week in New Jersey.  In that event he snapped a five tournament streak of finishes of 300th or worse with a tie for sixth behind 72.2% of GIR.  With his confidence back after the solid showing, Palmer should now be able to use his 11th-best average drive (306.2 yards per) to pad his scoring average of 69.959 (14th on TOUR) and move up the standings once again following this week.

Jason Bohn – Vegas Odds 100/1: Bohn is one of the hotter golfers out there right now, finishing within the top-13 at four of his last five events while coming off a tie for ninth at The Barclays behind a Sunday 65.  In his 25 tourneys played this year, he has made it to the weekend 20 times (80%) and has six top-10s to his name; including a couple of runner-up showings (Sanderson Farms Championship, Crown Plaza Invitational).  Despite having two victories in the past, this is by far-and-away his best overall season as his previous best FedExCup standing was 62nd which came way back in 2010.  He is currently ranked 24th in the standings this year thanks to his 71.99% accuracy off the tee (3rd on TOUR) while also ranking among the best in GIR% (69.54%, 22nd on TOUR), total strokes gained (0.981, 20th on TOUR) and scrambling (62.30%, 29th on TOUR).  Look for Bohn to continue his career-year this week in Boston with yet another solid performance.

Chris Kirk – Vegas Odds 125/1: Kirk has always been a factor in these FedExCup Playoffs since becoming a full-time member of the PGA TOUR back in 2011 and has finished within the top-50 each year.  The 2014 season was by far his best finish as he was the runner-up to Horschel thanks to two victories on the year, including one in this event which gave him the overall lead in the standings.  Kirk tallied three consecutive rounds of 66 or better to close out last year’s win behind 75% of fairways hit and Chris had a great week with his flat stick which aided him in putting 1.479 strokes better than the field.  He notched another win this year at the Crowne Plaza Invitational and has been able to get into the top-25 seven times in his 15 made cuts.  His biggest asset is the ability to get up-and-down out of the sand, something he has done a TOUR-best 64.66% of the time and that should aid him in showing up big come Monday afternoon.

John Senden – Vegas Odds 125/1: Senden is currently on the outside looking in on the BMW Championship as he currently ranks 81st in the FedExCup standings following a season in which he made the cut in just 15-of-23 (65%) attempts.  Three of those resulted in a top-10 as he is one of the more accurate drivers (67.37%, 37th on TOUR) and has putt better than the field in his last two events.  What gets him on this list are his past showings at TPC Boston as he has done no worse than 21st in his last four attempts and had his best performance in 2014 with a tie for fifth after going for a 69 or better in three of the days.  This Australian-born player should have no issues getting back on track when he visits a course which he is obviously quite comfortable.

Need a few more options to fill up your roster?  Remember to check out our new fantasy predictions stats page for Golficity Predicted Fantasy Points, Price Per Fantasy Point, and more info on every player in this week’s field!

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions?  Check out our full fantasy preview for the Deutsche Bank Championship here.

Cover photo by @zach0414 on Instagram