An inspired Sam Burns continued his impressive run of golf over the last few months. He was the most vocal about being left off the Ryder Cup squad, arguably playing some of the best golf over of anyone in the world recently. The win at the Sanderson Farms may the start of something bigger for Burns. The tour heads to Sin City for the Vegas swing portion of the fall circuit, the first of two tournaments in the gambling capital of the world. However, we will not be focusing on the sports betting facet in this article — that will come later this week — but rather taking a first look at the PGA DFS side of things for DraftKings and FanDuel lineups this week.
In case you are just out of for the first time, here is what you can expect to see in this article:
- Tournament and Format
- Course Commentary
- Course Facts and Figures
- PGA DFS Course Summary and Statistical Comparison
- PGA DFS Preview, including sweat sheet
- Player Preview
Shriners Open PGA DFS Preview
Last year, with the pandemic wreaking havoc on the playing schedule, many of the world’s best ended up making the trip to Vegas for the Shriners. While only one of the world’s top 10 will tee it up this week, 15 of the next 20 and about half of the world’s top 50 are here to compete. The tournament has been played for almost 40 years and has been played at TPC Summerlin for quite some time now.
TPC Summerlin Preview
Summerlin has been a staple in the Vegas scene since the early 90s. Played at elevation, it makes all par 5’s reachable, and the lone par 4 over 470 yards makes it relatively short.
Par and Yardage
- Par 71: 7,300 yards
Course Difficulty
- 39/41: 68.85 average or -2.14
Hole Dispersion
- Four Par 3’s: 197, 239, 168, 196
- 11 Par 4’s: 406, 469, 492, 450, 430, 382, 420, 448, 442, 444
- Three Par 5’s: 563, 606, 560
Grass Types & Hazards
- Grass Type: Bentgrass greens, Bermudagrass fairways and rough
- Average Green Size: 7,400 sq ft. (above the average)
- Water Hazards: 4
- Bunkers: 92
- Rough Length: 2 inches
Designer
- Bobby Weed
Facts and Figures
- Off the Tee: While the course plays on the easier side each year, being one of the top three easiest was a bit of a change. A lot of that can attribute it to the driving accuracy going up to 72.2%, with an average drive of over 300 yards.
- Approach to the Green: All those extra fairways and short irons into greens translated into almost 80% of the greens hit in regulation by the field (77.8%).
- Around the Green: When golfers missed the green (22.2%), they got up and down about 60% of the time.
- On the Green: With one of the easiest scoring averages of any on tour, it is no surprise that the greens are not that tricky at all, ranking in the top 15 easiest last year.
Sweat Sheet
Much of the scoring comes for the back nine, and specifically three holes, as 14, 16 and 17 account for 35% of the total scoring.
Shriners Open PGA DFS Player Preview
Half of the world’s top 30 are here to compete, but only one in the top 10: Louis Oosthuizen. A couple of Ryder Cup participants are done partying for now, as teammates Brooks Koepka, Harris English and Scottie Scheffler are joined by Europeans Viktor Hovland, Paul Casey and Ian Poulter. Burns will try to make Captain Steve Stricker feel worse about not picking him by winning back-to-back weeks. Kevin Na, Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im and Joaquin Niemann are also here.
Shriners Open Strokes Gained Review
If higher scoring with a heavy emphasis on strokes on the approach is the type of PGA DFS you enjoy, then this is the tournament for you. Golfers finishing in the top 10 last year averaged over 1.2 strokes gained on the approach, with only one golfer losing strokes in the category: Abraham Ancer. None of the golfers lost strokes off the tee, but only one golfer managed to gain more than on an average per round: Bryson DeChambeau. The lowest number of points a golfer scored that made the cut was 65 points, and 22 golfers scored 100 or more — one of the highest outputs in that category all year.
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