The Tour turns its attention to Bay Hill Club & Lodge for this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. The course is a Par 72 that plays over 7,400 yards. For more info on how the course plays and stats you should be targeting, check out yesterday’s article.
Checking the Chalk
Bryson DeChambeau ($9,700) is trending toward being one of, if not the, highest owned golfers when all is said and done this week. It makes sense, too. While he didn’t exactly put his best foot forward in Mexico, he still has four worldwide wins in his last 11 starts. At $9,700 in this field, he’s been talked about a bunch and provides some flexibility if you want to pay up a bit but don’t want to dip into the $10,000 or $11,000 range.
At the bottom of the $9,000 range, Tommy Fleetwood ($9,100) looks like he’ll soak up his fair share of ownership as well. He’s on a streak of 17 made cuts worldwide and has seen 54 percent of his rounds wind up in the 60s during that stretch. Over that span, he has a dozen top-20 finishes. He also has some course history, going 2-for-2 at Bay Hill with 10th and 26th place finishes.
Ian Poulter ($8,000) looks like a misprice down at $8,000 given his recent form. Over his past four starts, he has two third-place and two sixth-place finishes. Even without his A-game on approach, he managed to card all four rounds under 70 in Mexico. If he’s dialed in with his irons this week, it’s hard to envision him not posting a solid finish given the state of his all-around game.
GPP Pivots
At the very top of the salary scale, it appears ownership will be relatively flat at the moment. That can always change, so make sure you scroll down to the actual ownership projections below as we approach lock.
Hideki Matsuyama ($9,300) is getting close. He’s now made 14 straight cuts dating back to last August. Over that timeframe, he has 10 top-20 finishes. The third-place finish at Torrey Pines was his best chance to win recently, but he was done in by a shaky Saturday. If he’s relatively low-owned for this range, I don’t know how you can ignore him. I believe he’ll be hoisting a trophy over the next couple of starts: why not this week?
Charles Howell ($8,600) always gets knocked for “lacking upside.” My model and his recent results disagree. He’s made six straight cuts in 2019, including five finishes inside of the top 20. In his last 10 starts, Howell has scored at least 80 DK Points on eight occasions.
If you’re looking for a way to fit in the McIlroys and Roses of the world, you’ll need to go low to fill out your roster. A couple of guys that pop out based on the course fit model are Joaquin Niemann ($6,900) and Corey Conners ($6,300). Through the beginning of his young career, Niemann seems to prefer Bermudagrass over Poa. He struggled to start the year but found his putting stroke a little bit last week. If he can get his irons a bit sharper, we could see the 20-year-old Chilean phenom start to pop on leaderboards again. Conners is more of a dart throw. His game would definitely fit here, but he hasn’t found his groove yet this season. I wouldn’t go crazy on him, but throwing him in a lineup if you’re MME-ing something like the Birdie ($3 20-Entry Max) makes some sense.
Cash Locks
We continued our good run in this section last week with a Jason Kokrak top-10 finish. Gary Woodland was a bit disappointing but made the cut and finished 36th. That brings the season total up to 16/18 made cuts with 11 top-20 finishes. Here’s who I’m willing to go 100 percent on this week.
Tommy Fleetwood ($9,100) for all the reasons stated above. Jason Kokrak ($8,300) for a couple of simple reasons. I don’t think he’s done with this hot streak. He’s now made 14 straight cuts with eight top-25 finishes in that span. This is a great course fit for him. According to the model, he has the third strongest course fit of anyone in the field.
