A star-studded field is lined up to take on TPC Scottsdale this week at the WM Phoenix Open.
When building a DFS roster this week, you’ll likely want one or two of the big names near the top of the board.
Let’s dig through some stats to see if we can find some viable value options.
Drive for Dough
TPC Scottsdale is a par 71 that plays at a slight altitude and 7,261 yards on the card.
This is desert golf, though, so there aren’t a lot of forced layups that we see so often on some more tree-lined layouts. Golfers can grip it and rip it here in hopes of getting a shorter club on approach.
“You basically hit drivers out there and try to carry all the bunkers.” -Byeong Hun An in 2017
“The greens being so firm, you kind of forced to hit driver at tee shot. You want to hit a shorter club on second shot.” -Danny Lee in 2016
“I love coming out to a course like this where you can pound driver. There is a bunker out there that if you want to challenge it, you can hit it over or lay short. It’s a nice change of pace.” -Keegan Bradley in 2015
Here are the top performers in adjusted strokes gained per round when playing driver-heavy courses, over the last two years:
Jon Rahm
Scottie Scheffler
Rory McIlroy
Xander Schauffele
Patrick Cantlay
Tony Finau
Viktor Hovland
Collin Morikawa
Cameron Young
Alex Noren
Jordan Spieth
Justin Thomas
Tyrrell Hatton
Brian Harman
Matt Fitzpatrick
We can also look at performance versus baseline to see who shows the largest increase in performance compared to their typical scores:
Trey Mullinax
David Lipsky
Sam Ryder
Francesco Molinari
Cameron Young
Peter Malnati
Sahith Theegala
Davis Riley
J.T. Poston
Patrick Rodgers
Scott Stallings
Kevin Kisner
Alex Noren
Brian Harman
Stephan Jaeger
Overlap List: names that show up on both lists include Cameron Young, Alex Noren, and Brian Harman.
Young is one of the longest off the tee, while Harrman is one of the most accurate. Noren lands somewhere in between.
Harman to hang around in Phoenix
He’s not the big hitter you might expect to feast on a driver-heavy course but the Georgia Bulldog has gained strokes off-the-tee in five of his last seven trips to Phoenix, striping more fairways than the field in all seven of those visits. He arrives with a trio of podium finishes in his last 10 starts so the game is trending despite a missed cut at the AmEx.
Can Cam (Young) crack the winner’s circle?
The reigning Rookie of the Year has five runner-up finishes and a pair of third-place finishes in 32 career starts. A remarkable podium rate for someone without a win on their resume. He also arrives fresh off a runner-up finish at the Saudi International. Fellow TOUR pros have been in awe of his driving ability for the last year and TPC Scottsdale will allow him to unleash that weapon early and often.
