Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – The Barclays 2015

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for The Barclays 2015 from Plainfield CC

The Barclays 2015 Fantasy Sleeper Preview

The first leg of the FedExCup Playoffs kicks off this week at Plainfield Country Club as 119 of the top-125 players from the regular season meet up and attempt to move up the ladder to eventually compete in the TOUR Championship.  Last week, five players (Jason Gore, Davis Love III, Jonas Blixt, Camillo Villegas, and Ryo Ishikawa) used the Wyndam Championship to jump into the top-125 as Love III made the largest move, going from 186th to 76th after posting a 17-under score and defeating another bubble-buster in Jason Gore by a single stroke.  The field will also feature plenty of first-year players as nine rookies are making the trip to their debut in these playoffs.  The list of first-timers will be led by Justin Thomas (36th), Tony Finau (39th), and Daniel Berger (46th), all coming from the top-50.

The top players in the FedExCup standings are quite impressive heading into these events—which count for four times the amount of points as a typical PGA event—as world No. 1 Jordan Spieth sits 1,710 points ahead of world No. 3 Jason Day with the current lead.  The rest of the top-five features world No. 4 Bubba Watson, No. 14 Jimmy Walker, and No. 5 Justin Rose.  A win in a playoff event will earn the victor 2,000 points, so with the top-25 all within 3,000 of Spieth, there will be a lot of movement if someone can get hot in the next month.

Last year, it was Hunter Mahan who was able to grab the trophy at this event, defeating three golfers by two strokes and jumping from 62nd to 1st in the standings.  He was not the eventual winner of the whole thing, though, as Billy Horschel won both the BMW and TOUR Championships to be crowned the FedExCup Champion.

A different player has won here at The Barclays in each of the past six seasons, with five being from the United States and the exception being Adam Scott in 2013.

There will be one multiple-time winner here with Vijay Singh (1993, 1995, 2006, 2008) returning to an event where he is obviously comfortable.  The par-70, 7,012-yard course has hosted this tourney just once in the past (2011), and there was plenty of scoring to go around as Dustin Johnson posted a tournament record tying score of 19-under-par despite the event being shortened to 54 holes due to inclement weather.  There were another four players who were at 15-under or better, a score that would have won this event in the past six seasons not including 2011.

So with the competition heating up, let’s look at a few sleepers who could do well in New Jersey come Sunday afternoon.

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The Barlcays 2015 Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The Barclays 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 50/1: Haas has managed to put together a solid 2015 campaign with made cuts in 16-of-21 events (76%) and is turning it on of late with three top-25s in his past four events.  He tallied two top-sixes in that recent stretch and is coming off a great performance at the Wyndam Championship, racking up a score of 14-under-par and finishing in a tie for sixth behind 77.78% of greens hit in regulation.  He’s always been a strong contender in the FedExCup, coming away as the champion in 2011 and has done no worse than 31st each year since 2010.  Haas will look to build on the tie for 24th that he earned here in 2011 as he is currently one of the best ballstrikers in the game (0.841 strokes gained from tee-to-green, 26th on TOUR) and hits tons of GIR (68.81%, 36th on TOUR).
• Russell Henley – Vegas Odds 75/1: Henley is a former Web.com standout, winning three times on the lesser tour before bringing his winning ways to the PGA.  Since joining the TOUR, the 26-year-old has finished the weekend on top of the leaderboard twice and was very impressive in 2014 with a final overall FedExCup standing of 19th.  He has been more consistent this year with 18 cuts made in 21 events (86%) and has been playing great of late with a top-20 standing in each of his last four outings.  The last three were major events, The Open Championship, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship, and in those tough tourneys Henley was able to post a combined score of 18-under-par.  His biggest strength is with the flat stick as he ranks seventh in strokes gained putting (0.621) and that should aid him in having another big week among a very strong field.
• Brendan Steele – Vegas Odds 100/1: Steele is currently 47th in the FedExCup standings, making a career year easily attainable, and he has done so by getting to the weekend in 18-of-21 (86%) attempts.  The 32-year-old has been able to win on the TOUR once in his career, taking the Valero Texas Open in 2011, and once again came close this year at the Humana Challenge where he was the runner-up after shooting 21-under-par and putting .964 strokes better than the field.  Steele is one of the longest hitters out there, averaging 302.7 yards off the tee (15th on TOUR) and has gained a total of 1.036 strokes on the field (19th on TOUR) while hitting 69.44% of GIR (24th on TOUR).  Brendan will look to continue a hot recent stretch in which he has done no worse than 30th in his last four tournaments and proved himself to be among the best at the PGA Championship with a tie for 12th behind a score of 10-under-par.
• Jason Bohn – Vegas Odds 100/1: Bohn has been around the TOUR for over a decade, but before this season had never done better than 62nd in the FedExCup standings.  This year, he heads into the playoffs in an impressive 33rd place after putting together a year in which he was the runner-up at both the Sanderson Farms Championship and the Crowne Plaza Invitational and ranked in the top-25 another eight times.  There has been some great finishes from Jason of late also, with a top-13 in three of his last four times out, and after a great showing at the Quicken Loans National where he tied for fourth.  Bohn also made the cut at the PGA Championship thanks to a Saturday 66.  His ccuracy off the tee has been elite (72.19%, 3rd on TOUR) this year and he ranks in the top-50 in GIR% (69.35%, 27th on TOUR), strokes gained putting (0.338, 38th on TOUR) and scoring average (70.116, 20th on TOUR, so he should be in line for another strong performance at Plainfield Country Club this week.
• Greg Owen – Vegas Odds 200/1: Owen has been all over the place in 2015, making just 9-of-18 cuts, but has improved by leaps and bounds since missing the weekend in six of his first nine tournaments.  Since the Zurich Classic, the English-born 43-year-old has a runner-up performance at the FedEx St. Jude Classic and another three top-20s in his last four events.  One of those was on European soil as he tied for 20th at the Open Championship with a score of seven-under.  He is able to get on greens in regulation plenty (69.25% GIR, 28th on TOUR), but will need to improve his putting (-.721 strokes gained putting, 188th on TOUR) in order to compete this weekend.  Owen has yet to lock down a victory on the PGA TOUR in 219 career attempts, but is playing at a high level and is worth taking a chance on with the large odds.

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 Barclays here.

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