Alright guys, we have a short stint overseas with the Genesis Scottish Open this week and then THE OPEN next week at Royal Birkdale in England.
I think there is more validity for wildcards this week than next week (although we do see some low owned pop for Top 15s at the OPEN), paying attention to the DPWT players with good form this week will do well next week. I listed out some top values for DPWT below and they are by no means mandatory to jam in, but they make the stars and scrubs work quite well.
Course-wise, yes it really caters to bombers, despite our driving buckets showing that majority of holes are not bombs-away. It is a unique dynamic. Truthfully, according to the data there is no advantage to distance. THere is also not much penalty for missing fairways. I think what this actually shows us, generally speaking is that the best players are already above average in terms of length, and they gain more strokes in total anyways.
So while, yes the driving distance is a factor, this really aligns with the best players anyways. To prove my point, or at least illustrate this "chicken or the egg" case, look at the last few leaderboards here. Is this a case of actually the longest players exceeding their normal expectations or is it that the best players played the best, and they are in fact the longest in the field to begin with: