Travelers Championship | Fantasy Golf Preview & Picks, Sleepers, Data – DFS Golf & DraftKings

The TOUR heads to TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, North Carolina for the Travelers Championship. Rick uses data to breakdown the courses, field and much more!

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SHOW INDEX
0:00 Intro
0:24 Course Preview
5:08 10K Range
13:10 9K Range
17:43 8K Range
23:06 7K Range
26:38 6K Range
29:37 Custom Model
32:06 Outro

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what’s up guys Rick here with your preview for this week’s Travelers Championship we had an unbelievable instant classic last week but there is no rest for the weary because we are going straight to another signature event we’re going to break it down with data with information with numbers maybe a little bit of trend action we’re going to run some models and we’re going to see what happens so let’s just jump right on into this this is uh my website rickun good.com everything you see will be from my website I think it’s great and I think that you will too TPC River Highlands so we are headed to Cromwell Connecticut and this is a golf course that’s fairly unique on the PGA tour right it’s a it’s a Pete diec so you know that there is going to be visual attacks as well as physical attacks on you and there’s going to be a little bit of mental Warfare along the way but by all accounts this is one of the shorter golf courses on the PGA tour schedule playing to about 6,800 yards as a par 70 and if you look at the regression model over the course of the past uh 12 years or so which is where I run this data from it does reward Precision uh more than it rewards power or distance and obviously because the short yardage does not box anybody out of this golf tournament so what you’ll see here is that driving accuracy is ranked 12th that means there are only 11 other courses in which driving accuracy is more important not only that but look at some of the um highest corelated secondary stats distance from edge of Fairway right rough tendency that is golfers who are not only playing out of the Short Grass but when they’re missing they are missing in a small way driving distance is ranked 41st 41st that’s not very highly correlated at all in fact it’s really not and then you look at the rest of the stats here and most of them are middle of the road anywhere between 21st and 23rd which I also think passes the sniff test because this golf course opens up a wide range of outcomes basically every golfer one through in this case 70 um is is capable of winning and and this was kind of this was a lot different when this was a full field event right because you would see some of the shorter guys maybe there were longer shots um shorter like distance-wise not odds wise and then longer uh odds guys uh popping up winning uh playing well and and it created a situation where maybe 150 guys were alive now there’s not even close to that number of players in the field this week and it is a no cut event so they are guaranteed to play those four rounds but when you look at it uh I think start with precision and and go from there now if you take that model uh and look at every golfer in this field over the last 36 rounds Scotty Sheffer still gets the best adjusted fit I know that the um the US Open was was not great for him we will talk about Scotty here in sec in just a second but the top five in terms of best adjusted fit are Scotty sheffler Xander Schley Rory mroy Hideki lud VI oberg and then you get to the guys that um are maybe you know just non studs right so you get Chris John Baden hot Denny McCarthy Colin morawa certainly a stud seu Kim Russell Henley McKenzie Hughes right those types of golfers where their skill set is more rewarded at a golf course like this and you’ll see it um you know in the numbers here I have missed Fairway penalties I’ve got long drive rewards how often players are hitting fair and basically I mean you hit a lot of Fairways around here because most guys are clubbing down you’re not having to hit driver and the reward the statistical reward for hitting a long drive it’s not it’s not huge long drive for me I Define that as a drive that was longer than the average on that hole that day right so if the average was 270 how much did you get uh in terms of a scoring a average boost or or were you able to beat the field average if you hit one 300 yards on that hole or 290 or something like that and there is just not a huge reward for having a long drive uh compared to other golf courses the exception there is is number 13 that’s a par five if that’s your you know one of your really big opportunities to to make an eagle um to short par five guys are going to be able to to take advantage of that and then of course that leads to you know a lot of shots coming from 150 yards and in uh especially relative to to tour average I would also throw in 150 to 175 in there just hitting a bunch of different uh buckets coming in here I think that’s mostly it on TPC River Highlands it’s a fun little course um enjoy it quite a bit you should be able to see really good scoring and then also um relative to the field there should be a pretty big uh wide gap of guys that have a have the ability to win so here’s the cheat sheet on rickun good.com and there are four golfers over $10,000 before we even get to that TPC River Highland is a is a pretty sticky course history course right the guys that play well here tend to play well year-over-year the guys that don’t play well here tend to struggle year-over-year I will say that that is slightly different uh maybe more than slightly different with this being a signature event this used to be an event that would get okay to good Fields because it’s an incredibly well-run golf tournament it usually it often wins Awards literally wins awards for like the best run Tournament of the Year all that stuff so it would get an okay to good field but with the signature status you’re you’re definitely getting a a a crazy good field so what I’ll do here is I’m just going to take you to the holy grail and I’m going to take you to the course horses tab now this lets you look at um any player for any golf course set the minimum number of rounds and see how well they’ve played there and if you want to filter out years and such you can so let’s just pump in TPC River Highlands here and just get a baseline for the types of golfers who have had success we’re going to lower our minimum rounds down to 12 if you think eight is better you could go to eight that would really just bump in uh Cory Connor and Austin ecro so we’ll we’ll we’ll go with that here and we’ll sort this by salary just so that we can kind of get a feel for because that’s the way we’re going to go through the fantasy that’s the way that we’re going to go through this real quick um so the big three at the top Scotty shuffler Rory mroy Xander shley have all played at least 14 rounds they’ve all gained at least 1.5 Strokes per round very good there K morawa which is surprising has not played well here eight rounds he is losing Strokes to the field that is two missed Cuts one in 2020 W in 2023 that is interesting we’ll talk more about him in just a second um klay’s been great now I’m just looking for big numbers here Brian Harmon at 8300 has been great uh Shane Lowry or excuse me Adam Scott I was looking at the wrong row um I’m pointing out guys that have gained at least a stroke per round Jason day Justin Rose and finally web Simpson at the bottom I believe I hit all of them there um once we got down into that 8K range okay okay so let’s go back to the cheat sheet here Scotty sheffler is $12,500 um he is uh whatever whatever you want to say about Scotty the performance last week was was not great um he finished t40 41 that’s that’s not good it’s not good enough for him especially after the run that he’s been on I’m still quite pleased with how he did this right he gained nine Strokes from Tia green and he was fair miserable off the te okay I mean he was hitting so many shots especially on Thursday and Friday where he set up for that beautiful little cut and the ball never cut I mean he just was in the left garbage constantly and still found a way whoops to gain a stroke to the field you can see he actually got better after Thursday um gain Strokes off the te in each of the final three rounds the big issue is the putter he lost every single day he lost six Strokes putting that’s the first time he’s lost putting since Riviera I’m quickly forgiving this right this is uh going to be a much better Golf Course for him there’s going to be a lot less I shouldn’t say better there’s going to be less luck involved he’s going to be guaranteed four rounds it is going to be a smaller field and he said something about you know the um he had really struggled reading those greens last week if you look at what he has done at The Travelers in the past he’s played here four times he has gained 2.6 minus point2 he lost he lost one stroke and he gained a half a stroke in his four trips and he is he has been on a much better putting stretch recently than prior any of those tournaments so very good time to just quickly forgive and forget here Rory mooy oh boy oh boy if I feel gutted imagine how he feels uh again good enough to win a major and the only way to chalk that up is a is a choke that that’s it that’s that’s what it was I do not often try to get into these guys heads uh I like to look at the data and the information and you can figure out whether this is okay for you he destroyed this place off the tea last week um which I did not think was going to be all that possible for him and he just manhandled it gained seven strokes off the tea gained throughout the bag Friday or excuse me Sunday for the first 15 holes looked like the best putter in the world if the only mental if the only concern is mental and the only mental concern is that major championships then why not Rory right and I know that is incredibly scary to think about but I think that’s how I’m going to approach it this week I’m going to look at you know him never finishing outside the top 20 at this event and that’s not with you know signature status finished seventh here last year coming into this week he’s been Splendid I will be very interested to see what people do with him this week which we will know on the live chat which by the way I should have started with this the live chat this week alert alert alert is 9 a.m. eastern on Wednesday I know that is different uh that is six hours earlier than normal I am Mina and I are flying to a wedding we’re going to be in Denver uh so we’re flying on Wednesday and we need to get that done um if you’re from Denver please uh leave in the comments your best pizza place in and around Denver that Denver that would be great so it’s going to be 900 a.m. eastern on Wednesday I’m waking up early if you go there and drop your question now throughout the week I’ll try to grab the questions before YouTube erases them if you can’t make it that way you can watch it later I’ll do my I’ll do my best on that also while I’m doing announcements the um Splash contest for this week we are filling these very very quickly I I assume because it’s guaranteed $5,400 like it’s guaranteed no matter what this is already a fifth full and I just opened it up for the first time so it’s tiers um guaranteed it’s $20 an entry somebody’s going to win the 800 bucks bus up top it’s very fun very simple um and we’re growing it it’s very very cool so that listener league has really taken off a bit okay sorry back to the regularly scheduled programming Xander Schley is your defending Champion here lud viberg played here for the first time and finished 24th last year I’m gonna kind of see what these guys are doing um Xander I think is is is likely uh my favorite there out of those two just because of how well he’s played this year I think he’s been the second best player in the world he won this event excuse me won in 2022 he’s not the defending Champion he did not win this last year that was Keegan Bradley I should have I should have remembered that um but he’s been he’s been stellar and then ludvig is there a golf course that is bad for him I think the short answer is no but if there is might it be this one right distance he doesn’t really get the reward of distance but he is still very accurate very good Precision he might run into a couple of tricky spots around the greens that maybe a little bit more experience would help he goes from an A minus to an a or maybe from an A to an A minus something like that right but I do think this is probably on the other side of good courses for him but I’m not sure there are any bad courses for him the 9k range is full with a lot of guys that I think are going to be popular right you’ve got K morawa here who has been um very very good as of late right I mean it’s throw out the Zurich but the 16th at the Wells Fargo fourth at the PGA fourth at the Charles Schwab runner up at the memorial and then 14th at the uh Us open in which he again again for now the third straight tournament has gained throughout the bag which is just such a really good sign he’s picked up seven strokes um putting over the last uh two eight rounds what are people going to do with him right we we showed it he has not been good here it has only been I think it’s three career trips uh let’s see here 2019 t36 2020 missed cut 2023 missed cut lost Strokes approach in each of his last two uh completely different guy right just completely different guy right now but I will be interested to see if people underplay him because of that the other one is Patrick Klay how quick are we to run to Patrick Klay T3 the US Open in my opinion by far his best result of the Year statistically and just in terms of the field that he that he beat I mean he was literally there is an alternate universe in which Patrick Klay wins the US Open and we are not that far away from it right he had a what 20 foot putt on 18 for to get in at five under if he makes that which is what 14% And if Bryson does not get up and down from that Fairway bunker in which he said he that’s like a three out of 100 shot then we’re in a three-way playoff and anything can happen in a playoff so it we are not like there’s another Universe not that far from here in which Patrick Klay just won the US Open um but his history at TPC River Highlands is is essentially unmatched uh 4th 13 13th 11th 15th 15th in each of his last six in his in his last six years going back to the the coar horses the only golfer who has played more rounds since 2008 and played better than Patrick Klay at TPC River Highlands is is is Brian Harmon so I am fascinated and we’ll know more on Wednesday what are people going to do with Colin and Klay that’s the most fascinating section of this board in my opinion Victor havland might be the odd man out miscut the US Open which you know unfortunately kind of thought was going to be possible we saw some really big numbers around the greens on the greens last week uh Victor was was victim to the around the green number other than that he played well enough so I’m I’m we are getting very close to this just being like an every week Victor havin thing again uh Hideki Matsuyama solo 6th he is such a great offer the uh history here is 13th in 2023 that’s the that’s the recent history look at these ball striking numbers look at the putting numbers he has gain Strokes putting at four straight and a lot of them we we’re running out hii and then the other one that I’ll point out I mean there’s a lot going on here um I wish Sam Burns’s record at River Highlands was better did not play last year Miss cut in 2022 t13 t-24 t43 and his last five Sam Burns and I tweeted this out so you might have seen this he played the last 66 holes at five underpar last week so he started five over through his first six I didn’t even realize he made the cut until like Saturday morning because I just assumed he was gone battles back from that on Thursday morning actually gains Strokes to the field and then he has a great final three days to finish T9 at the US Open I will Pat myself on the back I didn’t get a lot I got we did okay last week with with bombers and warming on Bryson later in the week but I have now declared twice this year a golfer that I believe is is going to have their best major championship result and we’ve gotten them both right so I’m probably going to retire from that Sam Burns last week and Bryson at the Masters so I’m I’m uh I think I’m retiring from from those types of statements but Sam Burns is here at n at $9,000 the 8K range will Russell Henley be the most popular golfer on the Slate I think there’s a pretty good case for it so if you go to I mean there’s a lot of reasons right uh let’s start with the Holy Grail so let’s start with the course history 22 rounds here 1.29 Strokes gain per round that is the sixth best in this field uh of anybody with at least eight rounds Okay so we’ve checked off that box um course fit we can check that off because uh you know this is a golf course that’s you know Precision so he’s got course history course fit look at the trends tool so this looks at how a golfer’s playing now compared to their 100 round Baseline and gives them kind of a new adjusted Strokes gain Trend if you take Russell Henley who is playing about 9/10 of a stroke in the last 36 over his 100 round Baseline and add it to his Baseline he is now basically uh the seventh best player in this field right looking at kind of that heat situation and he is priced to move right coming off the t7 at the US Open really great finishes coming in so he’s got recent form he’s got history he’s got course fit he’s got he’s got it all right so will be really interested to see if Russell Henley is the most popular player on the Slate and then what that does with Keegan Bradley you could conceivably play both of them he is our defending Champion if you’ve been following along you know that I have been heavy on Keegan in this run here basically since the Masters he has played much better the putter again gained him Strokes at the US Open um this is his it’s not his Super Bowl it’s his AFC Championship game right um just just loves this event he’s going to have the crowd behind him all that fun stuff the rest of this range Justin Thomas I could just rip my hair out from this guy right I could just absolutely rip my hair out I don’t know what to do with this uh after looking so so is it like can I just say it’s mental and just and just pick him again so he has lost Strokes on approach three times this year one of them was at Riviera when he played with tiger one of them was at the Masters and one of them was at the US Open but he was great at the PGA so it’s not like it’s not like it’s too big for him or anything like that but every other week just absolutely Elite level stuff maybe we wait and see I don’t know I really don’t know what do you think we should do with Justin Thomas finished ninth year last year let me know what you think I I don’t know um Cory Connor is at $8,400 this this sets up like a good spot for him right accurate drivers guys who have great distance from edge of Fairway if you go back to the course key stats he got one of the best adjusted fit numbers I believe yeah he was he was here right below McKenzie Hughes and Russell Henley gets a a really good adjusted fit number he has gain Strokes putting and a lot of them in two of his last three um let’s see how he’s puted here at TPC River Highlands in his career not great but it’s over a fiveyear period so he lost big in 2018 he lost medium in 2020 and he lost a little in 2023 so maybe he gains a little this time and and picks up uh a stroke there and now he’s very much in contention the rest of his game looks strong uh I do like that Brian Harman we mentioned it just he’s done everything but win here right just unbelievable unbelievable course history Tom Kim and Matt Fitzpatrick let’s deep dive Tom Kim for a second clearly playing better golf this should be in theory a pretty good spot for him distance doesn’t matter yeah so in last year’s the only time he played here he gained a stroke off the te five on approach and he gave back three and a half in the short game category his short game has been much better recently he has gained Strokes in the short game in seven out of eight and the one that he lost he lost huge and still finished t-43 at the memorial gain Strokes on approach first three days at the US Open gain shks putting the first three days he really just had a bad he had a he actually was awesome the first three rounds and then he let’s actually look at this so let’s do Strokes game by tournament 2024 uh golfer no no uh Us open and then can I hit this with the round one round two round three of course I can he was the let’s see yeah one two three he was like the third best player in the field over the first three rounds tied with a lot of guys obviously but um wow okay okay Tom Kim really well done the 7K range it is it’s it’s sep straa week again right uh uh he is he is proving that he can play on a lot of different golf courses and this is an accuracy and precision test which is perfect for him he was victim to the areas on and around the green last week it happens dude right he made an ace he made a triple that he didn’t deserve there is I mean he he got Pinehurst it right and he is now I mean he only coughs up Strokes in the short game categories essentially at major championships or major championship level golf courses this is not this is a much better spot for him we we we ride with seep straka I would love to find a way to get to maxom I’m pretty sure this is going to be the the cheapest we’ve seen on maxom in a very long time he is $7,800 that is the cheapest he has been since still scrolling I’m still scrolling uh 2022 TOUR Championship which doesn’t count because they it’s a really weird thing he was 7,900 in Memphis in 2022 still not there yet because he’s 7800 this week since the 2022 Masters and the match play before that and the so that stretch right there from 2022 of The Players Championship to the Masters is when he was last this cheap I get it I mean it’s he’s been horrible he’s not driving it well his second shots are well he’s gained he’s gained two and a half Strokes or more in three of his last five the short game’s not good enough and his history here is abysmal five Miss Cuts five for five and I mean that he has missed the cut in all five so why do I want to be involved in this I just love I just love the buying the historically low multi-time PGA Tour winner I don’t have any other reason other than gluttony for punishment I think it’s very easy to get SEIU and Christian bazen hod and Billy horel and Denny McCarthy like those guys right back right back in your lineups um the other one is Thomas dietry who you know I I I’ve been impressed with the way that he’s played the at the last two major championships because I didn’t think they were great setups for him this is almost a little bit of a of a better setup for him isn’t it um you know I’m kind of just looking at at what he does well he’s got some decent approach numbers from a lot of different proximities he doesn’t three putt um he’s a very strong putter very good on par 3s makes a lot of birdies can you you can just see clearly see him growing in confidence gained five Strokes on approach last week at Pinehurst which is probably his career best at least on the PGA tour dating back a couple of years but yeah maybe it’s too soon maybe it’s a hair too soon but I I just I just like the trajectory that that dri is on here we’re we’re going to get a regression on approach right although he’s going to drive it better too there’s not a lot of you know that losing 3.2 Strokes at off the te that’s there’s probably a regression coming for D Tre but I’m very interested moving forward the 6K range before we run a model here let’s just do this I just want to see who the best player has been over the last 36 rounds raw Ben Griffin McKenzie Hughes Victor Perez is back okay so I want to actually we gotta dive into a couple guys here so let’s do Victor Perez Michael thorbjornson this would normally be a great Lucas Glover spot though he is he has not played particularly well we could look at Sheamus power together look at Andrew putam together I I still believe in Nick Dunlap who’s 6600 okay let’s look at those guys so Victor Perez 50th the Charles Schwab third at the Canadian open 12th at the memorial and then miscut at the US Open which I’m going to forgive basically anybody for maybe this is a chance for him just to continue that good stretch of golf again Michael thorbjornson if you’re not if you’re not familiar with him he is uh he’s graduating from college right he he got in he’s going to be a a PGA Tour holder I don’t know if it starts this week or not with uh PGA Tour University so that’s the way ludvig got out last year this is the way Michael Thor bornon got got in this year uh do not expect them to be the same right do not expect that he played in the John Zer classic last year in July finished t17 he played in Dubai in January finished t11 that’s a stacked field very very good player don’t expect the the ludvig immediate success but he’s very good for 6500 Shamus power has gained Strokes on approach in all but one start since the Arnold Palmer Invitational and his lack of uh distance is not a huge issue here and and if you look at all of these I mean I’m not a big proximity bucket guy but every proximity Bucket from 50 to 75 all the way up to 175 to 200 he is top 100 on the PGA tour and most of them he’s top 60 which is that’s very difficult to do he’s not great anywhere but he’s good he’s good all those places and uh this is this is a course that is not going to beat him up distance wise oh I clicked Andrew putam but I wanted who did I want I wanted um hubard did I want hubard I don’t know why I clicked putnam’s name Hub is hubard in this field hub’s not in this field that’s who I thought I was clicking when I clicked that no hubard is not in this field well let’s look at putam why did I click that because he was in there as shks gain total but I thought this was I thought I was clicking hub’s name this is not this is not good loses a ton of Strokes ball striking hard to make it all up with with just the putter okay let’s run a model let’s run a model here Travelers Championship let’s do a couple of items here before I forget let’s do course history because this is a very sticky course so we’re going to put uh TPC River Highlands for 12 we are also then going to do short courses for 12 we’re then going to do driving accuracy for 15 and distance for five so total of 20 there we’re going to do strokes gained approach last 24 rounds for 20 around the green last 24 rounds for 10 putting last 24 rounds for 10 and then we are going to put our final 16 on uh well it’s two fantasy points gained our number one golfer is Scotty Sheffer no surprise wow look at this okay Scotty one Xander 2 no problem no problem ludvic 3 Russell Henley is four Rory’s five Collins six Hideki seven Cory Connors is eight Brian Haron is nine Tony feno is 10 can’t L is 16th yeah he’s been bad recently that’s the problem Thor bjornson we have very little data and it’s old data but he’s 21st victor goes down to 26 that kind of hurts so Henley at 4 Connor’s at eight that’s very interesting Sam burs at 11 I’m not even sure this is that good of a course for him but that’s a good model I’m going to save this save it as I like to do the date because that it’s easy to sort Travelers Monday okay well we can dive more into this on Wednesday it’ll be an early morning for me and maybe for you but again if you just want to go drop your question now I’ll do my best to grab those throughout the week um I’m wishing you the best of luck let’s rock and roll