Augusta National Golf Club is known as a course knowledge layout.
It’s one that many golfers say takes years and years to really master.
At the same time, most of the field has not played here enough to rack up reliable history samples.
As a DFS exercise, we can look at performance on similar courses to see what golfers might be well-suited to shine at Augusta National.
For our course-fit search, we will look into performance on other courses that lend themselves to hitting lots of drivers and then we’ll look at past performance on courses with fast greens. Augusta National is known for having some of the speediest surfaces the pros see all year.
Driver-Heavy Courses
There are some courses that try to limit driver usage but Augusta National isn’t one of those courses.
“I like Augusta because it’s Augusta. You can hit drivers and it’s a bigger golf course. At the same time there’s not a lot of rough. There’s thick trees but not a lot of branches.” -Bubba Watson
Here are the top performers on similar driver-heavy layouts, over the last two years:
Dustin Johnson
Jon Rahm
Xander Schauffele
Paul Casey
Scottie Scheffler
Cameron Smith
Daniel Berger
Viktor Hovland
Louis Oosthuizen
Tyrrell Hatton
Justin Thomas
Rory McIlroy
Will Zalatoris
Patrick Cantlay
Patrick Reed
We can also look at a golfer’s performance versus their baseline to see who over-performs most. Here is that list:
Dustin Johnson
Garrick Higgo
Marc Leishman
Robert MacIntyre
Cameron Champ
Paul Casey
Francesco Molinari
Guido Migliozzi
Kevin Kisner
Charl Schwartzel
Scottie Scheffler
Justin Rose
Brian Harman
Kevin Na
Louis Oosthuizen
Overlap List: names that show up on both lists include Dustin Johnson, Paul Casey, Scottie Scheffler, and Louis Oosthuizen.
That is a strong group of ball-strikers, as you might expect. Casey has a big question mark over his head this week, after dealing with injuries in the lead-up.
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Fast Greens
There may be rain set to arrive before the main event, but Augusta National is always prepared.
“It’s playing like it could be a Sunday. It’s firm. The ball is running in the fairway as much as I’ve seen in a few years. Greens are already really firm, getting a little brown spots, which we love, but I think they know rain’s coming tomorrow. With the wind coming, it seems like the course will dry out pretty quickly again, but all in all, it’s in really good shape.” -Webb Simpson on Monday
The pre-tournament rain and early firmness should offset each other and have things running speedy as usual come tourney time.
Here are the top performers on courses with fast greens (over 12 feet on the stimp), in the last two years:
Jon Rahm
Xander Schauffele
Matt Fitzpatrick
Justin Thomas
Viktor Hovland
Cameron Smith
Jason Kokrak
Rory McIlroy
Louis Oosthuizen
Hideki Matsuyama
Bryson DeChambeau
Daniel Berger
Patrick Cantlay
Collin Morikawa
Dustin Johnson
We can also look at a golfer’s performance versus their baseline to see who over-performs most. Here is that list:
Cameron Young
Jason Kokrak
Matt Fitzpatrick
Hideki Matsuyama
Louis Oosthuizen
Billy Horschel
Luke List
Marc Leishman
Brooks Koepka
Viktor Hovland
Bubba Watson
Cameron Smith
Brian Harman
Stewart Cink
Jon Rahm
Overlap List: names that show up on both lists include Jon Rahm, Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Smith, Jason Kokrak, Louis Oosthuizen, and Hideki Matsuyama.
Elite iron play is somewhat of a theme here and it makes sense. When playing courses with extremely fast greens, it is a big advantage to land your approaches and manages your misses to prevent short-siding yourself as much as possible.
FanDuel Focus
Cameron Young ($8,300): They say first-timers are tough to back at Augusta National but we’ve seen plenty of debutants play their way into contention. Given the price point here, you don’t need Young to win the event, just need him to flirt with the top 15 or so. He was asked how the course sets up for him today in his presser and had this to say, “I think very well. I typically drive it quite well. I think that’s rewarded out here. The driving, you can just make it simpler from hitting good tee shots. I know it’s very complicated around the greens and very tricky and I have a lot to learn, but I think if I can kind of keep my wits about me and make smart decisions around the greens, I’ll do all right.”
Scottie Scheffler ($11,600): Feel like riding the hot hand? There is no one hotter than Scottie right now. He’s won three of his last six events played. Coincidence that the rally started shortly after linking up with veteran caddie, Ted Scott? The same Ted Scott who was on the bag for both of Bubba Watson‘s wins at Augusta National.
Good luck with your lineups this week and check back tomorrow for some more course-fit analysis.