Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2015 PGA Championship

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the 2015 PGA Championship from Whistling Straits

The 2015 PGA Championship Sleeper Preview

This week Whistling Straits will host the PGA Championship for the third time in the last 12 years.  In 1998 the former waste dump was resurrected as a beautiful European-style links course with plenty of sand and has quickly become one of the PGA’s favorite spots for big events.

The par-72, 7,514-yard course that sits along the banks of Lake Michigan will also play the host to the 2020 Ryder Cup and should have some more fireworks in store this year after sending the participants to a playoff in the last two installments the PGA Championship being played here (2004, 2010).

The first of those was won by Vijay Singh (-8) as he took down American’s Chris DiMarco and Justin Leonard in extra holes while Martin Kaymer earned the victory in 2010 with a score of 11-under, outlasting Bubba Watson in the three additional holes.  Since that 2010 event, world No. 1 Rory McIlroy has won this event twice (2012, 2014) as Keegan Bradley (2011) and Jason Dufner (2013) were victorious in the other two.

All but two of the last eight of these tournaments have been won by two strokes or fewer with McIlroy’s 2012 margin of victory of eight strokes being the largest in tournament history since they first began with stroke play in 1958.

The field is very deep with all but two of the top-100 players from the OWGR making the visit to Whistling Straits—No. 24 Chris Kirk (Hand) and No. 74 Alexander Noren (Rib) are held back by injury.

The Spieth watch will be on once again as the now 22-year-old looks to become just the third player in PGA history with three major victories in one year (the others being Ben Hogan in 1953 and Tiger Woods in 2000), after finishing in a tie for fourth at the Open Championship nearly a month ago.  Also gunning for the trophy will be Tiger Woods, who has won this major four times, but has not done so since 2007 and has seen his standing in the OWGR drop to No. 278 while sitting at 186th in the current FedEx Cup standings.

Let’s now breakdown a few players who could outperform their sleeper status and compete for a top spot at this week’s huge event in Wisconsin.

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The 2015 PGA Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The PGA 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.

• Paul Casey – Vegas Odds 66/1: The former Sun Devil Casey has always known how to win as evidenced by his 13 career European Tour victories, but he hasn’t been able to transfer much of that success over to the PGA TOUR, with his sole victory coming back in 2009 at the Shell Houston Open.  But Casey has put himself in position to win a handful of times this year as he has already participated in more events (18) than any previous year.  In all, he has two runner-ups in 2015, both of which went into a playoff, and has added another four top-10s over the course of the season.  He tied for 12th when this event was last held at Whistling Straits in 2010, and has made the cut in all three majors this year—including a tie for sixth at the Masters back in April.  Casey has hit 71.39% of GIR (5th on TOUR) and has a proximity to the hole of 32’9” (12th on TOUR), so if he can improve his putting (-0.113 strokes gained putting, 141st on TOUR) even a little bit, he should put himself in line for a big showing.
• Keegan Bradley – Vegas Odds 80/1: While Bradley is currently in the midst of the worst season of his career—ranking 61st in the FedEx Cup standings after doing no worse than 33rd before that—he is still a former major championship winner and has eight top-25s to his credit in 20 events played this year.  He took this tourney back in 2011 and followed that up with a tie for third in 2012, so he knows how to get things done under the big lights of majors.  Bradley also been playing some solid golf recently and after failing to make it to the weekend at the Open Championship he placed in a tie for 17th at the Bridgestone Invitational last week where he averaged 335.5 yards per drive.  His driver (306.1 yards per, 65.68% fairways hit on the season) will be a strength against the winds at Whistling Straits and he has the ball-striking ability (1.107 total strokes gained, 16th on TOUR) to be competitive from day one.  Bradley may be having a down year by his standards, but he can break out on any given week and dropping a few units on him would be smart.
• Danny Lee – Vegas Odds 80/1: Lee is one of the hottest players on TOUR right now, and has placed in the top-six at four of his last five tournaments after racking up just three top-10s with 16-of-25 cuts made up until the Traveler’s Championship.  The big knock on the 25-year-old could be that he has not performed well in the big events, missing the cut at the PLAYERS Championship, U.S. Open, and Open Championship before finally performing among the best with a tie for sixth last week in the Bridgestone.  In that WGC event, Lee was able to putt 0.531 strokes better than the field and that should factor in once again as he is ranked 31st on TOUR in the category (0.390 strokes gained putting).  Lee is feeling it lately and should be a factor over the weekend at this beautiful links course.
• David Lingmerth – Vegas Odds 100/1: Joining Lee as another streaking golfer heading into this huge event is David Lingmerth who actually tied with Lee at the Bridgestone Invitational after shooting six-under over the weekend and carding his fourth top-six performance in his last six outings.  One of those performances was a victory at the Memorial Tournament back in June where he staved off Justin Rose in a playoff for his first career PGA TOUR win.  Major events such as this one are new to the Swedish player who has attended just three since joining the TOUR in 2013 and has made the cut twice—including a few weeks ago at St. Andrews where he shot five-under over the first three days before a 77 derailed his week on Sunday.  Lingmerth is solid across the board while not being among the elite in any one area of his game, but that ability should give him opportunities to score in any type of condition and do quite well on Lake Michigan this week.
• Marc Warren – Vegas Odds 125/1: Warren has been consistent yet unspectacular in the big events this year; making 7-of-8 cuts with a top-25’s at two of the WGC stroke play events.  He ranked in the top-40 at both the U.S. Open (27th) and Open Championship (40th) while having impressive results at this tournament in the past.  In his two attempts at this major, the Scottish golfer has a 12th (2013) and a 15th (2014) place finish, totaling 11 strokes under par in that time.  Like many others who should have a shot here, he is long off the tee (303.5 yards per) and his putting (0.231 strokes gained putting) is enough to put him just outside of the top-50 on TOUR if he qualified.  Warren has shown some strong play over in Europe where he ranks 13th in the Race for Dubai and should easily outperform his odds come Sunday.

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 2015 PGA Championship here.

Cover photo by Dan Perry on Flickr