Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report: The 2016 BMW Championship

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

The BMW Championship 2016 Fantasy Sleeper Preview

With a mere two events left on the PGA TOUR, the fields are getting tough and the race for the FedExCup is heating up. Following a tremendous come-from-behind victory by Official World Golf Rankings No. 2 golfer, Rory McIlroy, in the Deutsche Bank Championship, the top-70 golfers from the FedExCup standings head to Carmel, Indiana for the BMW Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club. The long par-72, 7,516-yard course will bring out the best in some of the elite players in the world as they set their sights on the Tour Championship and $10 million grand prize for the victor. Of course winning here will go a long way to achieving that goal as the man who goes out on top this week will gain a whopping 2,000 FedExCup points and certainly be a lock, if not the front-runner to win it all, in the big event in a couple of weeks time.

Of course with the best players in the World competing in the same event, there have been plenty of big names to come away with this trophy. The list includes the likes of Tiger Woods (2007, 2009), Dustin Johnson (2010), Justin Rose (2011), Rory McIlroy (2012), and defending champion Jason Day. Of the past champions here, only Woods in both of his winning years and Billy Horschel (2014) have went on to take home the illustrious top spot in the FedExCup standings at the end of the playoffs. Some pretty impressive scores have been put up over the course of this event, which has been played at five different venues since 2007, with three players going for 20 strokes under-par or better; including Day last year with a final tally of 22-under. His defeat of runner-up Daniel Berger by six strokes was outmatched only by Woods in 2009 when he defeated the likes of Jim Furyk and Marc Leishman by an astonishing eight strokes. McIlory should feel a ton of confidence coming off of his 12^th PGA TOUR win as he was the man who dominated this course in this tournament’s last visit here in 2012 with a two-stroke win over runners-up Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood behind his 20-under score.

With the field diminishing to the best players from this year, there are of course some tremendous names to watch out for when the players hit the fairways on Thursday. The top-five in the standings really present some of the heavyweights of the game with Patrick Reed continuing to lead while being followed by Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, and Adam Scott. Each of these golfers is currently in the top-eight of the OWGR and it is very likely the final winner will come from this handful of golfers. The current field is set at 69 for this week with the one omission being Henrik Stenson who is dealing with an injury and will likely miss out on the TOUR Championship with his current standing of 24^th. Two rookies will be making their way to Indiana, and both have a strong chance at competing again the following week with Smylie Kaufman sitting at 33^rd and Emiliano Grillo joining the party in eighth.

The group of players each week is getting smaller and there is less of a chance that one of the men with high odds will be competitive throughout the four days, but once again there were plenty of sleepers at the top of the leaderboard at the Deutsche Bank Championships last week. Paul Casey and Ryan Moore finished second and eighth respectively after being featured in this article while names such as Fabian Gomez, James Hahn, Billy Hurley III, and David Hearn were in the top-10 as well. Below are a few of the players who have a solid chance at staying with some of those top golfers already mentioned and make their way to the TOUR Championship.

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The BMW Championship 2016 Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The BMW 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.

Russell Knox – Vegas Odds 60/1 – Knox continues to get little respect compared to his peers in the top-10 despite continued success in recent weeks amongst the best in the world. He earned his way to his current position of seventh in the FedExCup rankings thanks to two victories, two runner-up showings and another five top-25s over his 23 tournaments. Knox comes into this week on the heels of nine consecutive made cuts and finished 15^th just last week in the Deutsche Bank Championship. He’s made it here in each of the past two seasons, earning a 23^rd and 45^th respectively, but is having a much improved season in 2016 as he seems a lock to head to the TOUR Championship. It has been the 31-year-olds amazing accuracy that has gotten him this far, nailing 68.23% of fairways (10^th on TOUR) and 70.30% of GIR (4^th on TOUR). With his ability to control his ball at will, Knox is in line for an impressive finish come Sunday afternoon.

Billy Horschel – Vegas Odds 75/1 – Horschel has always thrived in the FedExCup playoffs and that was never more evident than in 2014 when he took home the win at both this event and the TOUR Championship on his way to becoming the FedExCup Champion. Like last year, though, he sits well outside of the top-30 position needed to make it to next week, but it would be no surprise to most if he was able to get there with a big outing in Indiana. In 2016 he has made 16-of-19 cuts (84%) and has had some of his best performances of late with a fifth at the Wyndham Championship and 13^th in the first round of these playoffs. Horschel’s ability off the tee (0.432 strokes gained, 31^st on TOUR) has been the leading factor in gaining 0.770 strokes on the field (28^th on TOUR) as he consistently uses those tee shots to hit GIR (67.59%, 47^th on TOUR). The 29-year-old’s 62^nd in the standings is quite misleading as he is still four spots better than where he ended up last year despite playing in nine fewer tourneys. His position does not dictate his talent and it would be a surprise if he didn’t contend for a spot in next week’s top-30.

Zach Johnson – Vegas Odds 80/1 – Johnson has been able to make it to the weekend in each of his last 13 outings, but it hasn’t all been impressive. Over four tough events in the beginning of the summer, Johnson was able to knock out four straight top-17s at events like the U.S. Open, Bridgestone Invitational, and Open Championship, but has since seen his average finish dip to 43.8 over the most recent five tournaments and is on the outside looking in at the top-30. Johnson’s below-average stretch looks ready to come to a halt this week, though, as he heads into an event where he has an average finish of 19.2 in the last six years; winning it all in 2013 and netting a 12^th when it was last played at this venue. At 40 years old, Johnson is not the same as the man who won 12 PGA TOUR events, but his putting (0.443 stokes gained, 22^nd on TOUR) and short game (0.267 strokes gained around the green, 27^th on TOUR) remain elite and will keep him fighting each and every time out there.

Jason Kokrak – Vegas Odds 100/1 – While the previous two players on the list will have a lot of work in front of them in order to make it to the TOUR Championship, Kokrak needs only to move up four spots to get there for the first time in his five year career. Previous to 2016, his best finish in the FedExCup standings was 62^nd back in 2013 when he earned a 44^th in this event, but he is having by far his best campaign thanks to his second career runner-up performance and a top-eight in each of the first two stops in these playoffs. Kokrak is massive off of the tee (307.1 yards per, 6^th on TOUR) and will have no issues hitting his fair share of greens in regulation (68.50%, 29^th on TOUR) which bodes well on this course measuring greater than 7,500 yards. Each year there seems to be a run by someone unexpected to get to the TOUR Championship and we believe this is the guy to do it in 2016.

Kevin Na – Vegas Odds 100/1 – It is amazing that Na has won just once in his 323 starts on the PGA TOUR. The soon-to-be 33-year-old has a total of 21 top-10s, eight of which were either second or third, over the last three seasons and has been the definition of consistency with a made cut percentage of 84% (43-of-51) since the start of last year. Since his 74^th at the Memorial Tournament in early June, Na has been impressive with five top-25s in seven outings; including a seventh at the U.S. Open and consecutive 22nds at the Open and PGA Championship. So while Na has not won on the TOUR since 2011, he remains one of the best thanks to his 0.865 strokes gained on approach to the green (4^th on TOUR) and is in line to improve on his best career FedExCup finish, a 24^th back in 2014, as he tees it up at Crooked Stick.

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

Cover photo via Instagram.