BMW Championship: Fantasy Expert Pick

What: BMW Championship

When: September 14^th – 17^th

Where: Conway Farms Golf Club

2016 Winner: Dustin Johnson (-23)

Purse: $8.75MM ($1.58 to the winner)

The BMW Championship is the third of four separate weekends which are the PGA Playoffs. The top 70 golfers will participate this weekend (down from the 100 that participated last week in the Dell Technologies Championship) during the third tournament of the PGA Playoffs. After this weekend the top 30 points leaders will advance to the Tour Championship. Notable cuts that just happened include: Bubba Watson, Adam Scott and Brandt Snedeker.

Course: Conway Farms Golf Club. Founded in 1991, this 7,200 yard par 71 course was designed by Tom Fazio. It hosted the BMW Championship in 2015 and has mostly held collegiate events over the years. It is similar to a Scottish links course and boasts a prairie atmosphere. The roughs are an unforgiving Kentucky Bluegrass and the bunkers can be wide and place strategically. Trees and doglegs force golfers to be tactful with their shots, given it’s small distance but tricky navigation, expect to see a discrepancy among the best and worst golfers.

A Golfer.

Rory McIlroy. I’m picking Rory for a strong bounce back after some struggling at TPC Boston. Prior to that missed cut he had top 25 finishes in 5 of 6 tournaments. He finished 42^nd here last year, 4^th in 2015 (when BMW Championship was at Conway) and 8^th in 2014. Despite his 4^th OWGR, he’s 51^st in FedEx Ranking, it will be a steep order to jump into the top 30 but I’m sure he will try.

B Golfers:

Paul Casey. Currently 12^th in Fedex Cup Ranking, he has 5 (…um make that 6) straight top 15 finishes. He finished 2^nd here last year and is currently 8^th in total strokes gained. He has been among the best Golfers going down the final stretch.

Jordan Spieth. The obvious choice because his last 10 tournaments have resulted in: Missed Cut, 2^nd, 13^th, 35^th, 1^st, 1^st, 13^th, 28^th, 2^nd, 2^nd. That is 5 top 2 finishes in 10 tournaments, no more explanation needed.

C Golfer.

Jon Rahm. I should have kept the faith, I deviated for a few tournaments and he came in with 3^rd and 4^th place finishes. The 5^th place golfer in the current fedex rankings is 4^th in total strokes gained, 6^th in strokes gained tee to green.

Dark Horse:

Daniel Berger. He’s had a rough stretch of Missed Cut, 33^rd and 61^st place finishes after a stretch where he was in the top 30 in 5 out of 6 tournaments. He comes to Conway where he finished 10^th last year and 2^nd in 2015 (BMW was at Conway in 2015).

Current Stats on picks so far this season:

A Golfers: Avg finish 44th (32nd percentile)

B Golfers: Avg finish: 47th (35th percentile)

C Golfers: Avg finish: 53rd (40th percentile)

Sleepers: Avg finish 44th (33rd percentile)

2017 average 135 golfers per tournament.