PGA DFS Picks: The first Cut for the Safeway Open l Draftkings & FanDuel

Thanks for stopping by The First Cut! This is the first installment in our weekly PGA content for DraftKings, FanDuel, and SuperDraft, breaking down the best PGA DFS picks and everything you need to know for the Safeway Open.

If this is your first time reading the article, or you’ve forgotten all about PGA DFS, then I’ll give you a quick summary of what’s to come:

Tournament Intro
Course Breakdown and PGA DFS Sweatsheet
Player Preview
Statistical Preview

PGA DFS Picks: Safeway Open

The PGA Tour has turned the page on its 2020 season, one that will forever be in the history books. Only one major was played, and the lowest number of tournaments competed in a season since the Tour’s inception. Since the restart, however, the PGA Tour has done an incredible job and has been a blueprint of success for how to survive and thrive during a pandemic. For those of you that follow the Tour, I’m sure you’ll join me in the praise for the Tour. As we go onto the next chapter, one that will hopefully go ‘as planned,’ we can start to write off this terrible virus that’s wreaked havoc on our lives. Sure it’s not the turn of the new year, but for PGA Tour purposes, it offers a fresh new start. We’ll see plenty of new faces over the next two weeks, with the Safeway Open offering a ton of opportunity to players that are quite a way down the priority list and next week’s U.S. Open, which will feature players from around the globe. The prize pools have come a bit, but still, plenty of big dollars up for grabs to first place, including $200,000 to first in DraftKings themed contest called “The Fresh Start.” More on that late. Let’s learn a bit about the Safeway Open and The Silverado Golf Resort, this week’s tournament host.

Tournament Commentary

This tournament has served as the start of the season, and/or in the “swing season” since 2007. It bounced around venues a bit before settling here at the Silverado Resort in 2014. Typically an event that brings a significant social aspect to it with it being in the heart of wine country will undoubtedly have a bit of a different feel this week. Sadly this year, the Korn Ferry Tour players won’t be competing because of COVID, but it has served as a lynchpin to the careers of a few KFT grads, including Cameron Champ, Emiliano Grillo and more.

Course Commentary: Silverado Resort & Spa (North Course)

The North Course at Silverado Resort & Spa is the actual venue for the week, but the resort itself looks quite nice. In 2010 you might recall hearing about Johnny Miller, famed pro and announcer, bought the course, and transformed it into a championship course. A Par 71 just shy of 7200 yards that gave us a scoring average of 71.244 last year, or just about ¾ of a stroke under par. Let’s dig into the numbers:

Tournament Format

156 golfers with a cut after 36 holes and the top 65 and ties making the cut

Course Facts & Figures: Silverado (north course)

Par and Yardage

Par 72: 7,166 yards

Course Difficulty

19/40 in 2020: -.75 under par or 71.25

Hole Dispersion

Four Par 3’s: 240 212, 182, 189
10 Par 4’s: 436, 424, 407, 417, 360, 422, 458, 412, 375
Four Par 5’s: 538, 557, 571, 575

Grass Types & Hazards

Grass Type: Bent
Average Green Size: n/a
Water Hazards: n/a
Bunkers: n/a

Designer

Ben Harman/Robert Trent Jones, Johnny Miller

Facts and Figures

Off the Tee: If you struggle to hit fairways, then this is the place for you. The tournament average is around 53% of the fairways, ranking 42/43 out of 43 on the Tour in 2019. This is in large part due to the fact that driving distance was one of the longest by average. Simply that means more drivers are hit off the tee than other courses, thus lower accuracy. Fairway width obviously is a big factor in this as well
Approach to the Green: A shorter course that has a lot of drivers off the tee is bound to make greens on the more accessible side to hit. Just about 69% of greens were hit in the 2019 addition, ranking it 16/43.
Around the Green: The 30%, or so, time golfers were to miss the green, they get it up and down just about 60% of the time, That puts it on the harder side versus the rest of the PGA Tour stops. 18/43.
On the Green: When on the greens, the overall putting average’s beta isn’t very big at all, separated by just tenths of a stroke, which makes sense. So that’s why it’s one of the weirdest stats to talk about, but regardless, it ranked on the harder side at 20^th out of 42^nd.

Sweatsheet and Commentary

Forty percent, or so, of the scoring will come from just four holes, the par 5’s. The easiest birdie streak is undoubtedly the last three holes account for 27% of the total DraftKings scoring with two gettable par 5’s and the shortest par four on the course.

Player Preview

Having the best players in the world in our player pool the last three weeks will make us feel a bit spoiled this week. In terms of OWGR, Matt Kuchar is the lowest-ranked coming in at 25^th. Defending Open Champion Shane Lowry, Chez Reavie, Sergio Garcia and a new member of the PGA Tour, Erik van Rooyen, are the top-ranked golfers here this week. Other notables include Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson and Brandt Snedeker.

Previous Winners for the Safeway Open and Winning Score:

2019: Cameron Champ (-17)
2018: Kevin Tway (-14)
2017: Brendan Steele (-15)
2016: Brendan Steele (-18)
2015: Emiliano Grillo (-15)

Statistical Comparison

Driving Accuracy vs. Driving Distance: Certainly, the last two winners pride themselves on the long ball. Going past that, Steele and Grillo both were, and maybe are becoming again, great ball strikers. Indeed, I’d favor distance over accuracy this week.
Strokes Gained Tee to Green Analysis: As I mentioned above, ball strikers have reigned supreme. If you can get hot either off the tee or irons, and lukewarm with the other, it’s been a recipe for success here. Champ and Steele led the field off the tee in their wins, more specifically for Steele in 2017.
Putting; How good do they need to be here?: None of the previous winners are statistically “good” putters, but all had good weeks.

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Author

Jason Rouslin

Jason established his roots in the littlest state that could...Rhode Island. But after 29 years of bitter cold, and only being able to play golf 4 months a year, upended those roots and moved to Florida. Now four years later, Jason is a husband to Sarah and father of two boys, James & Myles. A dog and more specifically Lab lover (Bella), he dedicates his time to serve as the lead of PGA content at Awesemo.com. In the time he is not diving into the PGA stats and covering this week's current tournament, you can find him researching and trading stocks, on the golf course, at Disney World, on a hike, or somewhere in between. Want to chat? Have a question about Golf/Stocks or anything else? Hop on twitter and give him a message @dfsgolfer23. You can also contact Jason by emailing [email protected].