Heading to Caves Valley Golf Club this week, it will be another week with no course history to lean on for fantasy gamers.
The course is a par 72 that will stretch out past 7,500 yards. Pretty beefy, even by TOUR standards.
Yet, word on the ground is that scoring should be moderate at worst and potentially turn into a shootout if the weather and course conditions fall the right way.
With no course history to dive into, let’s turn our attention toward some course-fit characteristics. We know the greens are bentgrass and the course is long. Let’s look at historical performance when golfers play under those conditions.
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Bentgrass Greens
Golfers will see Pure Distinction Bentgrass greens this week at Caves Valley.
I can’t say I’ve ever heard of Pure Distinction but golfers that grew up on cool-season bentgrass should be a bit more comfortable.
Let’s see who has gained the most strokes per round on courses with bentgrass greens, over the last two years:
Jon Rahm
Xander Schauffele
Patrick Cantlay
Dustin Johnson
Justin Thomas
Rory McIlroy
Hideki Matsuyama
Harris English
Webb Simpson
Collin Morikawa
Daniel Berger
Cameron Smith
Tony Finau
Russell Henley
Corey Conners
We can also look at a golfer’s performance versus their baseline to see who over-performs most. Here is that list:
Si Woo Kim
Sebastian Munoz
Kevin Na
Russell Henley
Patton Kizzire
Harold Varner III
Patrick Cantlay
Lucas Glover
Charl Schwartzel
Jon Rahm
Erik van Rooyen
Robert Streb
Cameron Champ
Harris English
Xander Schauffele
Overlap List: names that show up on both lists include Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Harris English, and Russell Henley.
Xander and Cantlay both grew up in California on cool-season bent while Rahm says everything about the California coast reminds him of home. He is comfortable on bentgrass, as well. As for English and Henley, those two are more surprising as I picture them more as bermuda guys, having grown up in the Southeast.
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Long Courses
Caves Valley can stretch out to 7,542 yards from the tips while playing as a par 72.
As Max Homa confirmed with Patrick McDonald yesterday, there will be “lots of mid to long irons.”
Here are the top performers per round, when playing long courses, over the last two years:
Jon Rahm
Dustin Johnson
Louis Oosthuizen
Rory McIlroy
Viktor Hovland
Tony Finau
Xander Schauffele
Collin Morikawa
Hideki Matsuyama
Webb Simpson
Brooks Koepka
Justin Thomas
Cameron Smith
Paul Casey
Scottie Scheffler
We can also look at a golfer’s performance versus their baseline to see who over-performs most. Here is that list:
Louis Oosthuizen
Charl Schwartzel
Alex Noren
Robert Streb
Aaron Wise
Keegan Bradley
Tony Finau
Viktor Hovland
K.H. Lee
Dustin Johnson
Brooks Koepka
Hideki Matsuyama
Maverick McNealy
Harold Varner III
Stewart Cink
Overlap List: the names that show up on both lists include Dustin Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen, Viktor Hovland, Tony Finau, Hideki Matsuyama, and Brooks Koepka.
Oosthuizen is returning from injury but was playing incredible before resting. He is a major wildcard for me. The others all pass the eye test of names you would expect to overperform on lengthy layouts.
FanDuel Focus
Viktor Hovland ($10,300): He was visibly frustrated with the putter down the stretch last week but his ball-striking was steady enough to consider a reinvestment. The Norwegian landed five more greens than the field average last week and I’d expect him to land quite a few more this week on another long course.
Harris English ($9,700): He’s won twice this year and now finds himself 9th in the Ryder Cup standings for Team USA. That is three spots outside of the automatic qualifier spots so there is still work to be done at the BMW, the final week of qualifying. It’s possible he has already secured a captain’s pick with his strong play in 2021 but you would think he wants to do everything in his power to guarantee that. While some golfers may be going through the motions as their season’s come to an end, we know English is going to try to squeeze out every possible shot this week.
Good luck with your lineups this week and check back tomorrow for some more course-fit analysis.
