The PGA Tour heads to the \u201cLone Star State\u201d for the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play event as the best golfers in the world take a week off from stroke play and battle it out in head-to-head competition. For the sixth year since 2016, the tournament will be held at Austin Country Club on the outskirts of the Texas capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having moved to its current location in 1984, Austin CC is a shorter par-71 course that measures 7,108 yards. Located along the banks of the Colorado River, it spans over 180 acres of hill country vistas and canyon views just west of downtown Austin, Texas. Playing host to the World Golf Championships match play event, Pete Dye designed a difficult test of golf featuring uneven lies, forced carries, and menacing pot bunkers that challenge the best golfers in the world. True to his reputation, this Dye track will force players to play positional golf by strategizing their way around the course and being sharp with every club in their bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the course does have Bermuda grass in play throughout for much of the year, it is still dormant during this time in March because of the cooler temperatures. The fairways are over-seeded with ryegrass and fescue. The rough is an ugly dormant brown Bermuda and is very short at only two inches. The greens are Poa trivialis and are the same surface as was just seen at both THE PLAYERS and Valspar Championships. While many of the greens have undulations and numerous tricky areas, they run around a 12 on the stimpmeter\u2014Tour-average speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the course is somewhat generous off the tee with wider fairways on many holes, it is filled with deep bunkers, a handful of water hazards, sidehill lies, and surrounding canyons to penalize those who are spraying their drives. Unless super accurate, bombing away off the tee here is simply not a wise choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like always, but especially here for this event, some of the best ball-strikers in the world are also among the best match-play performers. While you can win some matches by scrambling or two-putting for pars, birdies are the name of the game for winning match play. And with flag sticks typically placed in tight positions and the greens being undulated, keeping the ball out of trouble off the tee, and then hitting approach shots with accuracy to the proper quadrant will be crucial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a very unique event in that if you don’t create optimal lineups (as 39% were not last year), you have little to no chance to win or finish high in a DraftKings tournament. This sounds basic, but you must actually look at the bracket when constructing lineups because you want as many golfers as possible to advance without knocking each other out somewhere in the draw. Below are some rules to follow when constructing lineups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember, DraftKings scoring this week awards three points for winning holes as opposed to -0.75 for losing a hole and +0.75 for halfing a hole. Players with high ceilings who can finish matches quickly can also gain 1.6 points for holes not played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similar to selecting players for betting matchups, there are many important factors to consider in choosing a player pool for this week. Along with trying to stick to the rules above, there are plenty of quality metrics we can model this week, even without historical Strokes Gained data. Many of these are centered around stats that fit the course at Austin Country Club. An example of this is Fairways Gained. Even though we don’t have Driving Accuracy stats, because of all the bunkers, hazards, and tricky lies outside of the fairway, we can make the assumption Fairways Gained is an important stat this week. Birdie-makers, scramblers, and consistent putters are also types of players who typically have more success in match play events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other non-stat splits included in the model are “Comp Courses” which are mostly other shorter, positional Pete Dye tracks, past match play history, and past history at Austin Country Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The winning trends for this event also show that current form matters. Each of the last 12 winners had at least one top-10 finish in their last four starts. Local Texas players who have more familiarity with the course, such as Scottie Scheffler, also have an advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will also be focusing on strong putters. The ability to consistently sink short to mid-range putts, especially on these sloping greens, even if just saving par, can put enormous pressure on opponents. Many elite putters have won this event including Billy Horschel, Kevin Kisner, Dustin Johnson, and Jason Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Left-handed golfers also seem to have an edge here as Bubba Watson, Brian Harman, and Robert MacIntyre have each had success in this event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This unique type of event is one in which we can target players by simply using the “eye test” and knowing which players are able to consistently give themselves birdie chances because of their elite ball-striking or who can grind out holes by scrambling to save par.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the world’s top-ranked player can overcome his short-game woes, the sky is the limit. We know he is frustrated. We know he is motivated. He also has a quality 10-5-3 career match play record here at Austin Country Club that includes a +29 hole differential, which is the second-highest average in the field behind only Alex Noren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tucked away in the weakest grouping of players that includes a still-injured Bryson Dechambeau, along with two aged veterans, Talor Gooch has the fifth-easiest path to the quarter-finals out of anyone in the field. He has come into his own over the past six months with his first Tour victory and excellent all-around play. His price is a potential steal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When looking for all-around players who are strong in every facet of the game and do not show any weaknesses, Patrick Cantlay is one of the few that jump out. With his mental toughness, he has the perfect demeanor for match play. Even with a small sample size, his 7-3-1 career match play record is good early evidence of what he is capable of in this format. He is one of the most consistent putters in the field, and over the past six months, he is averaging the most strokes gained per round out of anyone in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the best iron players in the world, Tom Hoge has immense upside. The biggest downfall limiting his growth is inconsistent putting with the flat stick. He is in one of the weakest groups in the bracket. Over the past nine months, he is gaining 1.3 strokes per round, which ranks ninth in the entire field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along with having one of the easiest quadrants in the bracket, Xander Schauffele is very similar to Cantlay in that he possesses the all-around skills necessary to take down a tournament such as this. His consistent play will keep him in every match, and his ability to sink putts on these tougher green complexes (ranked 11th in the field on difficult greens), along with his stellar tee-to-green play, should allow him to make a deep run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the most consistent players on Tour, Brian Harman has the moxie, combined with short-game skills and the right-to-left ball flight, Austin CC seems to favor. He is a solid 5-3-2 in his career on this course and has been playing superb golf with three top-15 finishes over the past two months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While not popping in my model, the home-grown Jordan Spieth fits a lot of the narratives this week: Texas native who loves this course, “magic beans” short game around the greens, creative player who can make the most of tough bunker shots and uneven lies, and he has the ability to sink 30-foot daggers on the greens to half a hole and drive his opponent crazy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joaquin Niemann gained strokes around the green in seven straight events, turning his only real weakness into a strength. He has gained 32.3 total strokes on the field in his last four events and played well in his inaugural trip here last year, finishing 1-0-2. Though Russell Henley is getting much of the attention in this group, Niemann is my choice to break through to the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Featured Image Credit: Tom Pennington<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ron Klos discusses strategy and player selections for this week’s DraftKings contests for the WGC-Dell Match Play event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":736,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"bs_types":[15],"bs_tags":[103,73],"class_list":["post-735","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","bs_type-fantasy","bs_tag-dell-technologies-match-play","bs_tag-golf-dfs"],"acf":false,"featured_image":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/5c372ad02fa4575949207d21_jordan-spieth-celebration-scaled.jpg","tags_list":[{"id":103,"name":"Dell Technologies Match Play","slug":"dell-technologies-match-play"},{"id":73,"name":"Golf DFS","slug":"golf-dfs"}],"types_list":[{"id":15,"name":"Fantasy"}],"bs_author":{"name":"Ron Klos","profile_image":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Ron-Klos-150x150.jpg"},"bs_term_name":null,"is_paid":"false","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"bs_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bs_types?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"bs_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/api.betspertsgolf.com\/raw-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bs_tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}