The 2015 Open Championship Fantasy Sleeper Picks
By Danny Norris
Jul 13, 2015; St. Andrews, Scotland, GBR; Matt Kuchar plays his tee shot on the 10th while watched by Jason Dufner and Tiger Woods during a practice round for the 144th Open Championship at Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. Mandatory Credit: Ian Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports
The Open Championship is this week and for the third time this year DraftKings is having another Millionaire Maker.
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The winner of the Millionaire Makers for The Masters and the U.S. Open both used just one lineup. The winner of each major just put in twenty bucks and got back a million. That’s a pretty decent return in your investment.
Now, normally each week the sleeper picks I recommend are golfers that are value picks. Golfers that will make the cut, have a decent enough finish and provide enough salary cap relief to grab a couple of the favorites.
Like last week, at the John Deere Classic, three of the four recommendations did well. Unfortunately, Brice Garnett missed the cut but Will Willcox finished T-8, Brian Stuard finished T-18, and Mark Hubbard finished T-24.
Those were quality picks and if you nabbed a couple of these golfers (save for Garnett) plus had a couple of the favorites like Jordan Spieth, or Zach Johnson or Justin Thomas on your team, you probably made a good amount of cash.
This week it will be different. Given that this is a major, the field is strong, and with the thousands that will be playing the Millionaire Maker, having a couple of cheap picks make the cut just won’t do.
The six golfers you draft on your team need to compete for the win in order to win a life changing amount of money this week. Which leads me to the point of this article.
Given the golfers available under $7,000 I can’t envision anyone of them hoisting the Claret Jug. So, I can’t strongly recommend anyone of them as they, more than likely, won’t be on my teams.
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t like anybody below the $7,000 dollar range. There are a few golfers that I do like and golfers that have the tools to go low, I just don’t completely trust them with a million dollars on the line.
Here are The Open Championship fantasy sleeper picks to consider this week.
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When you look at someone like Graham DeLaet, DeLaet has the tools to be a great value pick. DeLaet has one of the best Tee-to-Green games on Tour.
In 2013, DeLaet was 15th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, 10th last year, and this year he is 55th. Now, that 55th looks pretty pedestrian, but you have to take in account that DeLaet was battling injury early on in the season and his results were pretty poor.
DeLaet is playing much better of late, he has made the cut in six straight starts and he has finished inside the top 26 in three of his last four starts including a 4th place finish at the Travelers Championship.
The rumor going around is that St. Andrews is playing extremely soft. Rain is in the forecast early in the week, so St. Andrews should only get softer and if the wind isn’t blowing too much accurate bombers, like DeLaet, will have a huge advantage.
I want to like Kevin Na and Brendon Todd, but they aren’t bombers. They are extremely accurate and in pretty decent form, but their games aren’t exactly tailored to St. Andrews.
Having said that, Na wasn’t set up at Chambers Bay and he had a couple of nice rounds before tailing off and finishing in a tie for 46th. Todd is such a fantastic striker of the ball and putter that you can’t completely write him off, but his lack of distance off the tee is something to be weary about.
Thomas Aiken is another superb ball-striker. Aiken has hit 73% of fairways and 76% of greens this season. Plus, Aiken has made the cut in eight straight tournaments finishing inside the top twenty-five in five of those tournaments.
Another South African you could consider is George Coetzee as he just shows at Open Championships. Coetzee has made the cut in three of four Open Championships, including an 18th place finish last year and 15th place finish in 2011.
David Howell has been hot of late finishing in the top ten in two of his last three tournaments and has made the cut in the last four Open Championships he has played. Including a T-15 last year and a T-7 in 2008.
As I mentioned, these are golfers I would keep in mind if I wanted to go cheap. I just feel that with the soft pricing this week, it really isn’t necessary to go down to this level in pricing.