Horse For The Course: PGA DFS Course History - THE PLAYERS Championship

Hello RotoBallers and welcome to Horse For The Course! The Arnold Palmer Invitational is always a top-notch event and that was especially true of last week's edition, as the tournament provided crazy amounts of drama. In a moment that will live forever, Bryson DeChambeau did successfully drive the Par-5 sixth hole at Bay Hill! And oh by the way, he also won the tournament. DeChambeau held off an eclectic cast of characters for the victory, including a still-surging Jordan Spieth, aging Euro Tour legend Lee Westwood, and the "Canadian Keegan Bradley" Corey Conners.

After a week filled with drama at Bay Hill, we can actually expect more of the same at THE PLAYERS Championship, an event that some consider golf's "fifth major". While that is debatable, what is not up for discussion is the strength of the field that will be in attendance at TPC Sawgrass. This is a HUGE week! Let's dig in!

Horse For The Course is an article that highlights players in this week's field with elite course history and is part of our free PGA DFS content here at RotoBaller. For my favorite DFS plays of the week check out my Core Four article here at RotoBaller every Wednesday. It's part of our amazing PGA Premium package that includes an all-new PGA Research Station, Lineup Builder & Optimizer, and some of the best articles in the PGA DFS industry! You can sign up now using Promo Code: NICE for an extra discount at checkout!

THE PLAYERS Championship Overview

Some view it as the "Fifth Major", while others see it as a very long PGA Tour commercial. Whatever your feelings on the magnitude and importance of THE PLAYERS Championship, there's no doubt that it is an event that we earmark on the calendar every year. The tournament brings together perhaps the best field of the year and offers a ridiculous amount of prize money.

As most of you remember, this event is where golf stood still last year. The PGA Tour struggled with the fast-emerging COVID-19 crisis at last year's PLAYERS by initially trying to power through, but eventually canceling the event after just one round (a round that was led by Hideki Matsuyama, who I was ALL-IN on). It was the start of a new, harsh reality for everyone in the country and the beginning of a three-month shutdown for golf fans.

Thankfully, golf has bounced back and feels stronger than ever. An unbelievably exciting start to 2021 brings us to this week's PLAYERS and a field that's perhaps the best we'll see all year. Official defending champion Rory McIlroy will have to fend off a field that includes 48 of the world's top-50 golfers.

You can also find out who the smart money is on by checking out Spencer Aguiar's PGA DFS: Vegas Report every week. And be sure to read all of our other top-notch weekly PGA DFS articles to help you win big!

The Course: TPC Sawgrass - Stadium Course

Par 72 - 7,189Yards, Greens: Bermuda, Designed By: Pete Dye

At just under 7,200 yards, the Stadium Course is one of the shortest layouts these players face on the PGA Tour schedule, but what it lacks in length, it makes up for in bite. The Pete Dye design that opened in 1982 has endured as one of the trickiest courses in the world. In true Dye fashion, it's a second shot golf course with danger lurking everywhere in the form of water hazards and bunkers.

This layout was specifically designed to not favor any one style of play, so we see holes of varying length in Par 3's, 4's, and 5's, doglegs that go both left and right, with no two consecutive holes playing in the same direction. THE PLAYERS' most iconic hole is, of course, the Par-3 17th 'Island Hole'. The 17th is short, but its psychological impact on players in key moments makes it difficult. A recent update to TPC Sawgrass now has the 12th hole playing as a driveable Par-4 with water in play to raise the risk/reward stakes.

With TPC Sawgrass being such a balanced course, it's tough to give the edge to one type of player this week. While we can normally classify courses as a 'bomber' track or an 'accuracy' layout, we have no such luxury this week. I will say that I'm not giving the distance guys their usual bump this week (though we did see Rory McIlroy win last year). I'm targeting ball strikers with strong approach games that are solid from tee to green. I will also consider a player's short game strength and ability to avoid bogeys, as big numbers are seemingly lurking everywhere at TPC Sawgrass. It's always hard to predict putting, but this week's winner will need to get hot with the flatstick on these fast bermuda-grass greens. I will also lean towards those in the field that have some PLAYERS experience, as this track can be brutal on first timers

For an in-depth breakdown of this week's course, check out RotoBaller's PGA Premium Course Breakdown by Josh Bennett!

Recent Champions & Winning Scores

• 2020: Cancelled
• 2019: Rory McIlroy (-16)
• 2018: Webb Simpson (-18)
• 2017: Si Woo Kim (-10)
• 2016: Jason Day (-15)

Notes From Last Year's THE PLAYERS Championship

• Last year's PLAYERS was cancelled after just one round due to the emerging coronavirus crisis.
• Hideki Matsuyama fired an opening-round 63 to lead last year's event and tie the low-round tournament record

The Horses - THE PLAYERS Championship

I won’t subject you guys to another movie-themed HFTC write-up this week, but I will kick THE PLAYERS (ALL CAPS!) Championship edition off with a quote from Oscar-winning screenplay writer William Goldman, who said: “Nobody knows anything.”

Goldman was referring to the Hollywood movie industry with the famous quote, and while I like to think the thought doesn’t apply to PGA DFS, it sure feels applicable for this week's event. 

TPC Sawgrass has volatility seemingly built into the marrow of its design, as Pete Dye infamously laid the course out with a mission to prevent an advantage for any specific “style” of play. A quick look at course history confirms that Dye’s undertaking has been successful, as even golfers with good results at The Players appear to be just as likely to struggle in any given year.

One of the top options on the board this week is Rory McIlroy (DraftKings: $10.6k), the winner of the last official Players Championship. McIlroy’s 2019 win was both impressive and preceded by a missed cut at The Players in 2018. One of the world’s best players, he ran off a string of top-10 finishes at TPC Sawgrass from 2013 through 2016, though that stretch was ushered in on the heels of three missed cuts in the first three Players starts of his career, a stat that reflects just how tough this course is on first timers. He turned in a vintage Rory performance last week at Bay Hill, opening with a 66 and closing with a 76 to finish in a tie for 10th. Despite the underwhelming weekend, top-10 results in his last two starts indicate the form is present, which means McIlroy is capable of dominating any given tournament on any given week. 

Xander Schauffele (DK: $10.3k) was a rare exception to the “first-timers rule”, posting an impressive runner-up finish in his Players debut in 2018. However, in true Sawgrass fashion, the X-Man promptly missed the cut in his second start the following year. Despite the Jekyll and Hyde nature of his two Players starts, Schauffele qualifies as the type - if there is a “type” at TPC Sawgrass - of player we’re looking for this week, which is someone that's consistently good in all facets of the game. It's a trait that’s led him to a pair of runner-up finishes in 2021 and will likely serve him well this week. 

Another player we can throw into the jack-of-all-trades bucket is Webb Simpson (DK: $9.5k), a player that missed the cut in three of his first four starts at TPC Sawgrass before developing the veteran savvy that led to a dominant win at The Players in 2018, a victory that’s bookended by a pair of T16 results in 2017 and ‘19. That type of rare consistency at Sawgrass deserves instant consideration, especially when we take into just how rock solid Simpson’s play has been both as of late and for an extended period. The Wake Forest alum has as many wins - two - as missed cuts over the past year.

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When Goldman said, “Nobody knows anything.”, perhaps he was talking about Jason Day (DK: $8k), a guy that’s maybe the oldest 33-year-old in the world and is trapped in the purgatory between elite and washed up as a result. To his credit the Aussie was able to resist the siren song of Disney World while in Orlando last week and actually played well at Bay Hill, hitting fairways and greens at a surprisingly-high clip, before completely ejecting with a final-round 79 in tough conditions. It feels like the highly volatile pairing of Day and TPC Sawgrass should be like fire and gasoline, but there’s been more of a two-negatives-make-a-positive thing going on between the two in recent years. Since winning The Players in 2016, Day has rattled off three consecutive made cuts with a top-five finish in 2018 and a T8 in 2019. Of course there's always the lingering WD fear factor that comes with rostering Day, something that Louis Oosthuizen and Justin Rose reminded us last week is very real for a select handful of players. 

Tommy Fleetwood (DK: $7.9k) blew up any chance we had to grab him flying in under the radar this week with a fairly deep run that resulted in a T10 at Bay Hill. It was an outing that reinforced his ability to excel on hard, Florida golf courses. His affinity for that combination is also evident in his track record at TPC Sawgrass, a layout that’s perhaps the ultimate example of “Florida golf”. Fleetwood has made the cut in all three of his career Players starts, going T5-T7 in his last two trips to the Stadium Course. The Englishman has yet to log a win in the United States and - at the risk of stumbling drunkenly down #NarrativeStreet - this has a real Rickie Fowler-winning-The Players vibe to it, as like Fowler, Fleetwood has consistently played great in major championships without actually winning one and is a fan favorite that feels perpetually on the edge of a breakthrough victory of some sort. 

Lee Westwood’s runner-up finish last week at Bay Hill has me thinking about veterans at TPC Sawgrass, a course at just under 7,200 yards, where massive length isn’t a true necessity. If it isn’t Westy himself (three top-10s in 10 career Players starts), perhaps fellow Englishman Ian Poulter (DK: $7.1k) will be the vet that steps up this week. Poults has twice been a bridesmaid at TPC Sawgrass, most recently in 2017, and has made the cut in 13 of 16 career Players starts. At 45, he’s not gonna be a weekly threat on the PGA Tour anymore, but he does pop up in big events as top-25 finishes in last year’s PGA Championship and Masters indicate. 

As we round out our Players Championship edition of HFTC, I wanted to splash in a bit of value in the form of Brian Harman (DK: $6.9k). Harman has been a solid, if unspectacular, performer over the past six months, making the cut in 14 of his last 15 starts with five top-25s. Like many, his record at TPC Sawgrass is one of peaks and valleys. The diminutive lefty has missed the cut in three of his eight Players starts, but has also posted T8 finishes in both 2015 and 2019. He’s never gonna blow us away statistically, but he’s a fairways-and-greens player with a good short game and the ability to handle any wind. Harman grades out 39th in this elite field in SG: Total over the last 50 rounds and is a solid route to take if you venture below $7k on DraftKings this week.

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