The Perfect Lineup – Fantasy Fairway.com
Hello fellow golfers, The Commish here with some more fantasy golf advice for the upcoming season. One thing I like to do every off-season is put together what I call the perfect lineup. What I mean by the perfect lineup is to put together tournament by tournament which golfer scored the most points for a Fantasy Fairway league. If you are unfamiliar with how Fantasy Fairway scoring works, check out the website – fantasyfairway.com, or you can look at the Intro blog post to get more information, but it’s fairly straightforward. You pick 1 golfer per tournament and you earn what that golfer earns in money as points, simple right! This blog is really meant to provide fantasy golf advice and analysis throughout the offseason and once the fantasy season begins.
So, if it’s that simple you may be asking yourself, well Commish wouldn’t that simply be all the tournament winners? I don’t really need to read your blog to tell me that! Well, yes and no, at Fantasy Fairway you can only pick each golfer once, so when Tiger, Phil, and Snedeker each win multiple tournaments you have to figure out which of the tournaments paid the most and go to the second place player. Sometimes that second place finisher has won another tournament thus giving him more money in that tournament (in most cases) than the second place finish, so you have to go to the third place finisher and so on.
Now tough guy, it’s not as easy as it sounds now is it! In all honesty it isn’t really hard it just takes some time to work through and you can sometimes come down with tired head when you do it and realize the second place finisher won a tournament and you have to do it all over again and plus why would you do this yourself when you’ve got the Commish and the trusty Fantasy Fairway blog to do that for you.
Without further ado, the perfect lineup is below:
|
Tournament |
Money Earned |
Player |
Place |
| Sony Open in Hawaii | $1,008,000 | Russell Henley | 1 |
| Humana Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation | $1,008,000 | Brian Gay | 1 |
| Farmers Insurance Open | $536,800 | Josh Teater | T2 |
| Waste Management Phoenix Open | $421,600 | Scott Piercy | 3 |
| AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am | $1,170,000 | Brandt Snedeker | 1 |
| Northern Trust Open | $1,188,000 | John Merrick | 1 |
| World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship | $1,500,000 | Matt Kuchar | 1 |
| The Honda Classic | $1,080,000 | Michael Thompson | 1 |
| Puerto Rico Open presented by seepuertorico.com | $630,000 | Scott Brown | 1 |
| World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship | $880,000 | Steve Stricker | 2 |
| Tampa Bay Championship presented by EverBank | $990,000 | Kevin Streelman | 1 |
| Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard | $297,600 | Keegan Bradley | T3 |
| Shell Houston Open | $1,116,000 | D.A. Points | 1 |
| Valero Texas Open | $1,116,000 | Martin Laird | 1 |
| Masters Tournament | $1,440,000 | Adam Scott | 1 |
| RBC Heritage | $1,044,000 | Graeme McDowell | 1 |
| Zurich Classic of New Orleans | $1,188,000 | Billy Horschel | 1 |
| Wells Fargo Championship | $1,206,000 | Derek Ernst | 1 |
| THE PLAYERS Championship | $1,710,000 | Tiger Woods | 1 |
| HP Byron Nelson Championship | $1,206,000 | Sang-Moon Bae | 1 |
| Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial | $1,152,000 | Boo Weekley | 1 |
| the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide Insurance | $669,600 | Kevin Chappell | 2 |
| FedEx St. Jude Classic | $1,026,000 | Harris English | 1 |
| U.S. Open | $1,440,000 | Justin Rose | 1 |
| Travelers Championship | $1,098,000 | Ken Duke | 1 |
| AT&T National | $1,170,000 | Bill Haas | 1 |
| The Greenbrier Classic | $1,134,000 | Jonas Blixt | 1 |
| John Deere Classic | $828,000 | Jordan Spieth | 1 |
| Sanderson Farms Championship | $540,000 | Woody Austin | 1 |
| The Open Championship | $1,442,826 | Phil Mickelson | 1 |
| RBC Canadian Open | $369,600 | Dustin Johnson | T2 |
| Reno-Tahoe Open | $540,000 | Gary Woodland | 1 |
| World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational | $692,500 | Henrik Stenson | T2 |
| PGA Championship | $1,445,000 | Jason Dufner | 1 |
| Wyndham Championship | $954,000 | Patrick Reed | 1 |
For a grand total of $35,237,526, to put that in perspective, our grand prize winner scored just under 10 million (which was an all-time Fantasy Fairway record). Now, it would be very difficult to come even close to that 35 million total, like picture a perfect NCAA basketball bracket and multiply it by say 100 – statistical nerds out there, don’t call me out on that math it was an off the top of my head guess, but it’s pretty darn hard.
To try and create a perfect lineup really isn’t the point of the exercise. The real fantasy golf advice here is to recognize the tournament winners going into next year. Yeah, we know Tiger and Phil, but are you going to forget that Boo Weekly or Patrick Reed snuck a win in there? Or that notable names Rory McIlroy, Jim Furyk, and a few others are notably missing? Also, and possibly more importantly, it’s to not fall victim to the 2nd place is the first loser mentality. Guys like Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson, Steve Stricker, and Keegan Bradley may not jump out on the tournament winners page but if you can grab those guys when they pick up a Top 3, you are going to have success. It’s a good reference tool when making your fantasy golf strategy for next year. In a later article we will talk about ranking players, tiering players and tournament, and matching up courses with players, and most of these guys should be on your list, especially for those tournaments that don’t attract a top notch field.
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