Fantasy Golf Predictions
Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2019 Desert Classic
2019 Desert Classic Fantasy Sleeper Report
You wait nearly five years for a PGA TOUR win, and then two come along almost at once.
Matt Kuchar was the nearly man of world golf; given that a man of his talents seemingly unable to get over the line for so long.
But Kooch got the job done at the Mayakoba Classic before the holidays, and he would have opened his stocking on Christmas morning feeling pretty good about himself.
The good vibes have continued since, and success breeds success as the old saying goes.
Matt Kuchar of the United States poses with the trophy after winning…
Matt Kuchar of the United States poses with the trophy after winning the Sony Open In Hawaii at Waialae Country Club on January 13, 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
So perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised when he hoovered up the Sony Open last time out, leading pretty much from wire-to-wire and never really looking threatened, despite the putting heroics of Andrew Putnam.
Kooch is having the week off to spend his winnings – presumably not on caddie bills if the recent revelations are correct, and so somebody else will have a chance of winning an event at this week’s Desert Classic, the artist formerly known as the CareerBuilder Challenge, the Bob Hope Classic and so on.
Played out in the eye-catching Coachella Valley, the event is hosted on a rotational basis by three different courses: PGA West’s Stadium Course, a Pete Dye monstrosity that was once deemed so hard the players petitioned to have it removed from Tour; the PGA West Tournament Course, designed by Jack Nicklaus and featuring not one but two island greens; and finally La Quinta CC, the gentlest of strolls around the Santa Rosa mountain line.
This is a celebrity heavy pro-am event, so you won’t be surprised to learn that the action is rather laidback and the golf pretty easy by all accounts. Even that Stadium Course has been tinkered with to ensure that the likes of Justin Timberlake can hack his way around it.
There is no obvious profile of a winner here, so it’s ‘find some greens and make some putts’ time. All sorts of weird and wonderful characters have either won or challenged in this event, and so it’s something of a sleeper heaven!
As such, we’re excited to reveal this week’s sleeper plays for the Desert Classic.
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The Desert Classic Fantasy Sleeper Report
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The Desert Classic Fantasy Sleeper Report
Luke List – Vegas Odds 50/1 – You wonder if Andrew Landry’s efforts here last year will act as something of a marker for the longer hitters out there.
Landry hit mostly irons off the peg, and what he sacrificed in length he certainly made up for in keeping the ball in play; if you want to mix it in a birdie shootout, playing out of the short grass more often than not is preferable.
Perhaps that approach will work in the favor of Luke List, one of the longest drivers on Tour and also one of the most errant too.
He comes alive on the business end of holes; a decent approach player, List also boasts a cracking short game which saw him rank 15th for SG: Around-the-Green last season.
His other Achilles heel – making putts – has been a perennial problem, and yet based upon his efforts in the 2019 campaign so far he ranks a very respectable 25th for SG: Putting.
Could this be the year where the 33-year-old finally gets the job done? It’s possible, and a fairly low-key event like this – he was T6 here in 2016 – is surely the most likely destination.
Peter Uihlein – Vegas Odds 66/1 – A birdie fest where the players can hit irons off the tee should suit Peter Uihlein, who has posted six scores of 68 or better in his last eight rounds.
Two of those were 66s and a pair of those were 63s, so there’s no concerns about his ability to post red numbers on the board.
He finished T17 here last year, and that was his best performance of the campaign until mid-summer, when he banked top-fives in the Memorial Tournament and at Wells Fargo.
Those remained his sole top-10s on the PGA TOUR until last time out: the 29-year-old ended up T7 at the RSM Classic, where he ranked tenth for SG: Tee to Green.
Good signs then for the kind of player who is capable of winning on Tour in 2019.
Ryan Palmer – Vegas Odds 66/1 – This is the kind of guy who has a habit of letting punters and DFS gamers down when he really ought to cash in on a hot run of form, so there’s some uncertainty about backing Ryan Palmer.
But a three-time PGA TOUR winner deserves respect, and especially so when they posted consecutive top-10s just prior to the holidays.
The 42-year-old finished T3 at the CJ Cup, which included a sensational final round of 62, and at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open a pair of 65s were the meat in a tasty sandwich that ensured a T7 return.
Two top-20 finishes in the last three years here indicate that the pro-am, split course format doesn’t faze him, and given his high confidence Palmer will be looking to cash in this week.
Corey Conners – Vegas Odds 70/1 – Of the emerging new generation of talents, Corey Conners is among the most eye-catching.
His form on the PGA TOUR is haplessly inconsistent – in his last six starts he’s bagged two top-three finishes and three missed cuts! – but that tends to go with the territory for these youngsters learning their craft.
His last outing yielded a T3 at the Sony Open, and while his game from tee-to-green was in its customary good shape there were plenty of positives on the greens too, where the Canadian gained strokes on the field with putter in hand.
It’s still a learning curve for Conners, but any player who ranks inside the top-20 for SG: Tee-to-Green and Scoring Average, even at this early stage of the season, commands respect.
Beau Hossler – Vegas Odds 80/1 – It’s one of those rare weeks where we don’t really have the perfect player profile as to what a winner of this event looks like.
Rahm, Dufner, Reed, Gay….they do share one characteristic however: they are all ‘streaky’ putters when they get going.
Beau Hossler is one of the best with the flat stick on the PGA TOUR, ranking sixth for SG: Putting last season, and so if he rolls into La Quinta with confidence then very good things could happen.
The 23-year-old Californian can get into the mix when the going is good, as proven by his second place finishes at the Houston Open and Travelers Championship and T6 at the Quicken Loans National.
Hopefully, the holiday break has served him well.
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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for The The Desert Classic here.
Sleeper Report Predictions This Season (2018-2019)
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