Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – Quicken Loans National

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the 2017 Quicken Loans National

The 2017 Quicken Loans National Fantasy Sleeper Preview

As endings to golf tournaments go, they don’t often come as pant-shreddingly exciting and nerve-racking as the conclusion of the Travelers Championship last week.

The key takeaway points? Daniel Berger is slowly but surely becoming a potential winner in any given PGA TOUR tournament, while after his chip in from the bunker we can confirm that Jordan Spieth indeed does have balls of steel. He struggles to get the job done on Sundays though; but then some things never change.

Onwards we go this week to Maryland for the Quicken Loans National, another Par 70 event this time at a new track: TPC Potomac. The reviews of the course have been overwhelmingly positive, and while it is yet to host a PGA TOUR level event – two Web.com Tour contests in 2012 and 2013 are as high profile as it has got since a major overhaul – the early suggestion is that the players will find conditions to their liking.

That’s not to say it will be a walk in the park, however. It’s short at 7,139 yards, but the indication is that there won’t be a massive amount of room off the tee. Significant volumes of water are in play on the back nine, and the bunkers have been redesigned deeper and wider.

So, this is a similar kind of test to a number of the recent Par 70 events, with light winds again a factor.

So who are the sleepers to keep on side this week?  Let’s take a look.

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The Quicken Loans National Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The Quicken Loans National 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.

Graeme DeLaet – Vegas Odds 50/1 – He ranks seventh on tour for Total Driving, 20th for Greens in Regulation, and 21st for Strokes Gained: Putting, so it remains something of a mystery as to how Graeme DeLaet hasn’t broken his PGA TOUR duck as yet.

It’s not as if 2017 has been a bad year for the Canadian either: 12/18 cuts made, eight top-25s, and five top-10s. So why can’t he get over the line?

Maybe this is the week he does. DeLaet heads to Maryland on the back of T10 at the Memorial and T26 at the Travelers; an effort which included an outstanding opening round of 65.

Everything is in place for a DeLaet challenge….so can he finally see one through?

Kevin Streelman – Vegas Odds 55/1 – With two victories and 31 top-ten finishes to his name, you could argue that Kevin Streelman has underachieved on the PGA TOUR in the past year or so, but the signs are that he is rediscovering his best form.

How’s this for an upward trajectory of form: T18 at Dean & Deluca, T13 at Memorial, and T8 at Travelers, and those are listed in chronological order. If that pattern continues, a top-five this week looks to be a distinct possibility for Streelman.

He went T12 in this event last year at Congressional, and at the Travelers last time out gained +1.501 strokes on the field with his putter to go with the +2.006 he gained with the short stick at Muirfield Village. When you are putting that well, anything is possible.

David Hearn – Vegas Odds 90/1 – With back-to-back top-10s, the going is very good for David Hearn at present. The Canadian’s performances often flatter to deceive – his average drive is 279 yards long, so there’s always going to be missed cuts at longer courses – but on this Par 70 stretch of the tour he is coming into his own.

Six of his last eight rounds have been in the 60s, so we have no reservations about his ball striking, and at a course where we suspect length will not be an advantage-maker there’s no reason why Hearn can’t post low numbers again.

T10 at the St. Jude and T8 at the Travelers, on courses that correlate in terms of length to Potomac, is handy momentum.

Morgan Hoffman – Vegas Odds 90/1 – Hoffman is one of the few players in this field with a competitive start at Potomac to his name, and that was a nice T6 there in 2012.

That will give him plenty of confidence, as will a decent run of form in the past few months. He finished T2 at the Honda Classic back in February as a nod to his quality, and in the past few weeks has made four out of five cuts; each resulting in a top 30 finish.

The obvious standouts are the pair of T12 returns at Wells Fargo and Dean & Deluca; proving that he can shoot low numbers and in good company too.

MacKenzie Hughes – Vegas Odds 150/1 – The Canadian was one of the first of the new batch of Web.com Tour graduates to break his PGA TOUR duck at the RSM Classic, and while his maiden tour campaign has shown inconsistencies – natural really given the step up in class – Hughes burst back to form at the Travelers last week.

There he finished T12 but gained a whopping +2.289 strokes with his putter; and as if we have written about in the past, if the short stick is hot – and the rest of your game follows – then excellent things are achievable.

The upward curve is no surprise to anyone that witnessed his T16 return at THE PLAYERS Championship, and Hughes’ short but methodical game should stand in good stead at Potomac.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the Quicken Loans National here.

Cover photo via Instagram