Fantasy Golf (1 Viewer)

[Zow]

I'm in a friendly but competitive fantasy golf league (8 of us, two are golf pros and a third played on the junior pga tour or whatever and follows it a lot). It's one of those yahoo ones with the year broken into 4 segments and the players broken into A, B, and C categories. You start one guy from A and C and two from the B categories with the same number of backups for each. Points scored on a ratio of an individual day's score against the rest of the field with bonuses for finishing top 3 on Sunday if you have the guy in your Sunday lineup. There's no draft so everyone can use any guy and week with a max total of using a particular guy 9 times over the year (so basically you can't start Matt Kuchar every week).

To this point I'm getting my ### kicked and I don't like it. Finished 3rd and 6th the first two segments and am currently in 7th this segment. I find myself either starting the same guys as everyone else and making up no ground or picking the right guys but leaving my high scorers on the bench. I don't know anything about the strategy to this - and so far all I've done is try to determine who is hot, who has the best percentage of not missing cuts, and which of those guys other may be least likely to pick (since I'm always behind the leaders and choosing the same guys doesn't gain me any ground) and/or guys I don't care about burning a usage up on. But that hasn't gotten me far.

Anyone with some strategy advice here so I don't look like the league's doormat?

 

[3 hour lunch]

I'm in a friendly but competitive fantasy golf league (8 of us, two are golf pros and a third played on the junior pga tour or whatever and follows it a lot). It's one of those yahoo ones with the year broken into 4 segments and the players broken into A, B, and C categories. You start one guy from A and C and two from the B categories with the same number of backups for each. Points scored on a ratio of an individual day's score against the rest of the field with bonuses for finishing top 3 on Sunday if you have the guy in your Sunday lineup. There's no draft so everyone can use any guy and week with a max total of using a particular guy 9 times over the year (so basically you can't start Matt Kuchar every week). To this point I'm getting my ### kicked and I don't like it. Finished 3rd and 6th the first two segments and am currently in 7th this segment. I find myself either starting the same guys as everyone else and making up no ground or picking the right guys but leaving my high scorers on the bench. I don't know anything about the strategy to this - and so far all I've done is try to determine who is hot, who has the best percentage of not missing cuts, and which of those guys other may be least likely to pick (since I'm always behind the leaders and choosing the same guys doesn't gain me any ground) and/or guys I don't care about burning a usage up on. But that hasn't gotten me far. Anyone with some strategy advice here so I don't look like the league's doormat?

Check a guy's tournament history before making a pick....some guys just don't play well on certain courses, their hometown tournament means more to them, etc. Like last week, Stricker finally didn't win at Deere Run, but you'd be nuts not to pick him and he's fromt he area and won it 3 years in a row. Overall though I think you are right picking hot players instead of the higher ranked players. 2 months ago i would have taken Jason Dufner is any tournament he entered.

 

[TobiasFunke]

Sounds like the biggest mistake you're making is not tailoring your picks to the course/tournament. For example, going into last week you absolutely had to pick Steve Stricker and/or Zach Johnson based on how they'd played at that course and tournament recently, regardless of their performance to date this year.

pgatour.com makes it pretty easy to review both tournament results in the last year and a particular player's history over many years. When I'm making fantasy golf picks I start with that and things like scoring averages and world golf rankings and missed cuts as a secondary criteria. I've been playing medium-stakes fantasy golf with the same guys for a while now and other the guys in the league I've talked to who've done well seem to follow the same logic.

 

[Zow]

I'm in a friendly but competitive fantasy golf league (8 of us, two are golf pros and a third played on the junior pga tour or whatever and follows it a lot). It's one of those yahoo ones with the year broken into 4 segments and the players broken into A, B, and C categories. You start one guy from A and C and two from the B categories with the same number of backups for each. Points scored on a ratio of an individual day's score against the rest of the field with bonuses for finishing top 3 on Sunday if you have the guy in your Sunday lineup. There's no draft so everyone can use any guy and week with a max total of using a particular guy 9 times over the year (so basically you can't start Matt Kuchar every week). To this point I'm getting my ### kicked and I don't like it. Finished 3rd and 6th the first two segments and am currently in 7th this segment. I find myself either starting the same guys as everyone else and making up no ground or picking the right guys but leaving my high scorers on the bench. I don't know anything about the strategy to this - and so far all I've done is try to determine who is hot, who has the best percentage of not missing cuts, and which of those guys other may be least likely to pick (since I'm always behind the leaders and choosing the same guys doesn't gain me any ground) and/or guys I don't care about burning a usage up on. But that hasn't gotten me far. Anyone with some strategy advice here so I don't look like the league's doormat?

Check a guy's tournament history before making a pick....some guys just don't play well on certain courses, their hometown tournament means more to them, etc. Like last week, Stricker finally didn't win at Deere Run, but you'd be nuts not to pick him and he's fromt he area and won it 3 years in a row. Overall though I think you are right picking hot players instead of the higher ranked players. 2 months ago i would have taken Jason Dufner is any tournament he entered.

Good idea. Is there an easy way to check a guy's tournament history though?

 

[Zow]

Sounds like the biggest mistake you're making is not tailoring your picks to the course/tournament. For example, going into last week you absolutely had to pick Steve Stricker and/or Zach Johnson based on how they'd played at that course and tournament recently, regardless of their performance to date this year.pgatour.com makes it pretty easy to review both tournament results in the last year and a particular player's history over many years. When I'm making fantasy golf picks I start with that and things like scoring averages and world golf rankings and missed cuts as a secondary criteria. I've been playing medium-stakes fantasy golf with the same guys for a while now and other the guys in the league I've talked to who've done well seem to follow the same logic.

awesome, thanks. FWIW, I started Stricker last week and had Johnson on my bench... but every other guy in the league had them two (I think six of us started and played Stricker the entire tournament, the other two Johnson). This seems to be my downfall too every week, that I can pick the clear top guys, but am just getting crushed in my B and C selections and lose ground there.

 

[TobiasFunke]

I'm in a friendly but competitive fantasy golf league (8 of us, two are golf pros and a third played on the junior pga tour or whatever and follows it a lot). It's one of those yahoo ones with the year broken into 4 segments and the players broken into A, B, and C categories. You start one guy from A and C and two from the B categories with the same number of backups for each. Points scored on a ratio of an individual day's score against the rest of the field with bonuses for finishing top 3 on Sunday if you have the guy in your Sunday lineup. There's no draft so everyone can use any guy and week with a max total of using a particular guy 9 times over the year (so basically you can't start Matt Kuchar every week). To this point I'm getting my ### kicked and I don't like it. Finished 3rd and 6th the first two segments and am currently in 7th this segment. I find myself either starting the same guys as everyone else and making up no ground or picking the right guys but leaving my high scorers on the bench. I don't know anything about the strategy to this - and so far all I've done is try to determine who is hot, who has the best percentage of not missing cuts, and which of those guys other may be least likely to pick (since I'm always behind the leaders and choosing the same guys doesn't gain me any ground) and/or guys I don't care about burning a usage up on. But that hasn't gotten me far. Anyone with some strategy advice here so I don't look like the league's doormat?

Check a guy's tournament history before making a pick....some guys just don't play well on certain courses, their hometown tournament means more to them, etc. Like last week, Stricker finally didn't win at Deere Run, but you'd be nuts not to pick him and he's fromt he area and won it 3 years in a row. Overall though I think you are right picking hot players instead of the higher ranked players. 2 months ago i would have taken Jason Dufner is any tournament he entered.

Good idea. Is there an easy way to check a guy's tournament history though?

Go to PGATour.com, click on "players," then pick the guy you're interested in. Click the "season" or "career" tab. It'll show you his 2012 results, but there's a dropdown to check previous years too.The previous year's results for the tournament are also available on their front page under the "tournaments" tab. They leave last season's leaderboard up for each tournament until the tournament is played again.

 

[Quint]

i usually check some stats too. but you need to address them with the upcoming event. for example, at the British this week i'm looking at:

Putting

- GIR putting

- Overall putting

- 3 Putt Avoidance (by round)

Around the Green

- Overall Proximity to Hole

- Overall Scrambling

Ball Striking

Bounce Back (and reverse bounce back)

Overall Scoring

even a cursory evaluation of these stats should give you a good idea, or maybe a sneaky insight, as to who is best suited week by week.

finally, check out sites like Vegasinsider.com for futures odds on the players in the tourney. this week i'll also be looking at the odds from Paddy Powers.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

So I have a friend who is a big golfer, he has been around a +2 handicap in the past. But he doesn't quite have time for it like he used to and he's pretty overloaded with work, home, etc. these days. But he pretty much knows nearly every player, every tourney, watches (watches) the Golf channel, you get the picture.

I told him about fantasy golf but I'm not in it myself, is there a good site worth trying? I don't think he would be comfortable using a public league (he doesn't do fantasy sports at all, not even FF), it's the kind of thing he would start up with his golfing buddies.

Also how does it work?

Thanks.

 

[belljr]

The way we do it is you get whatever a golfer wins money wise for the tournament. We also can only use a golfer once. We are talking about bumping that to twice.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Thanks. So when do people usually start up their leagues? It runs from when to when?

 

[Zow]

We have an ffa league on yahoo. Some moron is currently kicking everyone's butt.

Season started a few weeks ago, but you guys could probably start your own league.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

We have an ffa league on yahoo. Some moron is currently kicking everyone's butt.

Season started a few weeks ago, but you guys could probably start your own league.

Thanks, any other thoughts on scoring?

All I see is:

Earn fantasy points based on your golfers' scores per round

Is that pretty much it, plus the money earnings thing mentioned above?

 

[belljr]

Thanks. So when do people usually start up their leagues? It runs from when to when?

we start now until tour championship

 

[Zow]

We have an ffa league on yahoo. Some moron is currently kicking everyone's butt.

Season started a few weeks ago, but you guys could probably start your own league.

Thanks, any other thoughts on scoring?

All I see is:

Earn fantasy points based on your golfers' scores per round

Is that pretty much it, plus the money earnings thing mentioned above?

You pick 8 guys (4 starters) from three tiers/groups of players every week. Earn points based on a starter's score for each particular round of a tournament and get bonus points if a starter finishes in the top three. Maximum ten uses for a player.

Season started a few weeks ago but you can start your own league.

 

[Golden Gopher]

We have an ffa league on yahoo. Some moron is currently kicking everyone's butt.

Season started a few weeks ago, but you guys could probably start your own league.

Thanks, any other thoughts on scoring?

All I see is:

Earn fantasy points based on your golfers' scores per round

Is that pretty much it, plus the money earnings thing mentioned above?

You pick 8 guys (4 starters) from three tiers/groups of players every week. Earn points based on a starter's score for each particular round of a tournament and get bonus points if a starter finishes in the top three. Maximum ten uses for a player.

Season started a few weeks ago but you can start your own league.

Ugh... I seem to be struggling with this format so far. Keep forgetting to change my lineup after Thursday. This week, for example, I left Haas in as my "A-list" player all weekend (and he missed the cut), while leaving Palmer (14-under) on my bench. Oops.

I've been in a "local" league with about 15-18 other guys for close to 20 years. It's pretty old-school (we still do everything on an Excel sheet that the commish sends out twice a week... Thursday morning with the lineups, and Monday with the results). Starts next week (AT&T at Pebble Beach), and goes through the PGA Championship. Basically, it started as something to do during the "off-season" of fantasy football.

We pick six golfers every week, with the stipulation that you can only use any one golfer 8 times during the season. Top five (of your six) count towards your weekly "score" (we use strictly money earnings for the standings), but all six count as being picked (towards the 8 total times per player). Essentially, your low score is thrown out, but picking six (instead of just five) helps in WD situations. Cost is $40 per person, with an optional side pool ($5 each) for the majors. Each weekly winner gets a $10 skin, and the top 4 in the standings at season's end are paid out (I think the winner gets roughly $250?), plus a bonus for the highest single-week score.

It's a lot of fun, and even moreso now that it's no longer a game of "which weeks do I use Tiger?".