PGA DFS Preview: 2021 John Deere Classic

Hi RotoBallers! I'm Andy Lack and I'm very excited to be with you as a new member of the RB PGA team! In our ongoing attempt to expand and improve our PGA coverage, I will be dropping a 'Tournament Preview' every Monday morning.

I hope this preview will give you a head start on your John Deere Classic research and I'd also like to encourage you to check out my Pick The Pup podcast to hear more of my thoughts on TPC Deere Run and this week's tournament. If you aren't already utilizing RotoBaller's amazing weekly PGA content, fix that right now by joining us this week and throughout the rest of the PGA Tour season.

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RotoBaller Weekly PGA Article Schedule

Monday

You can find out all you need to know about this week's layout with Josh Bennett's Course Breakdown (Premium) and learn which golfers have thrived at this course in the past with Joe Nicely's Horse For The Course.

Tuesday

We kick your DFS research into high gear with articles from Spencer Aguiar! Spencer will highlight his favorite DraftKings Plays of the week - an article that also includes his popular PGA DFS Rankings Wizard Model - and offer great tips with his Head-To-Head Betting Preview, while Joe Nicely drops some salary savers in his DraftKings Value Plays (Premium) article. We also have you FanDuel fans covered with free PGA DFS picks for every tournament.

Wednesday

Things start getting intense on Wednesday and we've got you covered! You can check out RotoBaller Staff One And Done selections and get inside the mind of our team with our PGA DFS Expert Roundtable (Premium). We also have two of the most popular articles in the PGA DFS industry with Spencer Aguiar's Vegas Report (Premium) and Joe Nicely's DraftKings Core Four (Premium). You can also check out Josh Bennett's DFS Cheat Sheet (Premium) for a quick cram session!

Tournament Overview

2021 John Deere Classic 

Recent Winners

• 2019: Dylan Frittelli (-21)
• 2018: Michael Kim (-27)
• 2016: Ryan Moore (-22)
• 2015: Jordan Spieth (-20)
• 2014: Brian Harman (-22)

Event Details

• Purse: $6,200,000
• FedEx Cup Points: 500 (Winner)
• Field: 156 Players

The PGA Tour travels to Silvis, Illinois this week for the John Deere Classic, a staple of the PGA Tour since 1971. This tournament always occurs the week before the Open Championship and the majority of those in the field are not already qualified for next week's major championship. Therefore, there is plenty to play for, as the top five finishers this week that are not already qualified will earn a trip to Royal St. George's. The John Deere Classic even sponsors a charter flight for those players on Sunday night to England!

The drawback of this scheduling spot is that most of the world's best players are already in Europe getting comfortable with links golf. Daniel Berger is the only player ranked inside the top-25 of the official world golf rankings in the field this week. Sungjae Im, Si Woo Kim, Brian Harman, Kevin Streelman, and Russell Henley highlight the crop of challengers, and John Deere Classic veterans such as Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker will also be in attendance.

While the lack of elite options this week may disappoint fantasy managers, I see opportunity! With so many lesser names in the field, the door is open for those who do the leg-work to really attack, as the general public is most likely to gravitate solely to the names they recognize. There is a large swath of data from TPC Deere Run to draw from as well, which should really help us hone in. Let's get into the course breakdown, key statistics, and three players that are worthy of further attention.

Course Breakdown

TPC Deere Run - Silvis, Ill.  

For the second week in a row, birdies will be the currency on the PGA Tour. The D.A. Weibring designed TPC Deere Run plays as a Par 71 and measures a modest 7,268 yards on the scorecard. It features Bent-grass fairways and greens and Kentucky Bluegrass rough. The John Deere Classic was cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2019, it ranked as the fifth easiest out of 51 PGA Tour courses on the schedule. Over the last ten years, TPC Deere Run has never ranked outside of the top ten easiest courses on Tour.

One of the biggest reasons that PGA Tour pros tend to tear up TPC Deere Run is that it features very generous landing areas, with 41 yard wide fairways on average. For context, Detroit Golf Club features 34 yard wide fairways on average, and those fairways were easy to hit. Torrey Pines, for example, features 25-30 yard fairways, so one can imagine how inviting these landing zones must appear. When most hear wide fairways, they immediately assume that such courses cater to a bomb and gauge strategy, yet a quick scan of the players who have experienced success in the Quad Cities shows us that distance is far from required at TPC Deere Run. Yes, Bryson DeChambeau has won here, but it was before he put on all of that weight! None of the last five winners have ranked inside the top 38 in driving distance the week that they won. Players such as Ryan Moore, Jordan Spieth, Brian Harman, Zach Johnson, and of course, Steve Stricker have all plodded their way to victory here.

With extremely generous fairways, the emphasis at TPC Deere Run really falls on approach play. Top 10 finishers have gained an average of over 0.8 strokes per round on approach, which is over double what they have gained off the tee, and nearly three times what they have gained around the green. Many of the players who have succeeded here are excellent on approach. With that being said, Dylan Frittelli did win this tournament in 2019 losing strokes on approach. He gained a combined 12.3 strokes around the green and putting, so there is always going to be a roadmap for those that can putt the lights out. Yet elite iron play is still the most bankable strategy, as right below Frittelli on the leaderboard, sat Russell Henley and Collin Morikawa, who respectively gained 7.7 and 8.9 strokes on approach that week.

In a vacuum, TPC Deere Run is still an extremely easy course, so while I would not call this tournament as much of a putting contest as last week's Rocket Mortgage Classic, this is still a week where I am looking closely at those who can pop with the flat-stick. While elite iron players will certainly have an advantage, these greens are still quite easy to hit. Players have hit 71% of the greens at TPC Deere Run, compared to the Tour average of 65%. This leads me to hone in on proximity distances, as significant gainers on approach and with the putter seem to have the easiest path. While I am not suggesting we ignore strokes gained off the tee, TPC Deere Run features a 72% driving accuracy percentage, compared to the Tour average of 62%! Zach Johnson, Jordan Spieth, and Ryan Moore are all players who are weak off the tee, yet fantastic with their wedges. It is no coincidence that they always perform well in the Quad Cities. Jordan Spieth won here ranking 60th in driving accuracy. Zach Johnson won ranking 34th, Stricker won ranking 32nd, and Stricker won again ranking 62nd. Conversely, all of those players ranked in the top 16 in proximity to the hole and the top 8 in putts per green in regulation.

In conclusion, anytime we get such an easy course like this, the rule of thumb is to look at putting more so than on a more difficult track. With that being said, there was not as strong of a correlation between putting and high finishers as last week at Detroit Golf Club. Instead, my numbers lead me more towards elite iron players and more specifically, wedge players. Dylan Frittelli, Michael Kim, Ryan Moore, Zach Johnson, Steve Stricker, and Jordan Spieth are all awesome putters, but also solid wedge players who tend to do their best work in easier scoring conditions. If your method for last week at Detroit Golf Club worked, I would not recommend changing things up too much. The biggest changes that I am making this week are a few tweaks on the proximity distances, a slightly higher weight on approach in exchange for a slightly smaller weight on putting, and adding Bent-grass putting and TPC Course/course history into the mix as well. Let's dig into the metrics!

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Key Statistics 

Outside of the obvious four major statistical categories (strokes gained off the tee, strokes gained approach, strokes gained around the green, and strokes gained putting), here are a few ancillary statistics that should prove pivotal, as well as the top-5 players in the field in these metrics over their last 24 rounds.

1. Birdies or Better Gained 
   1. Patton Kizzire
   2. Daniel Berger
   3. Troy Merritt
   4. Keith Mitchell
   5. Seamus Power
2. Opportunities Gained 
   1. Kevin Streelman
   2. Kyle Stanley
   3. Troy Merritt
   4. Jhonattan Vegas
   5. Daniel Berger
3. Weighted Proximity 125-175 yards
   1. K.J. Choi
   2. Russell Henley
   3. Henrik Norlander
   4. Doc Redman
   5. Chez Reavie
4. Average Strokes Gained per Round (Easy Scoring Conditions)
   1. Daniel Berger
   2. Russell Henley
   3. Patton Kizzire
   4. Jhonattan Vegas
   5. Si Woo Kim
5. Strokes Gained Putting: Bentgrass Greens
   1. Zach Johnson
   2. Kristoffer Ventura
   3. Aaron Baddeley
   4. Charles Howell III
   5. Andres Romero

While those five statistics are a great place to start, I am also looking at proximity from 175-200 yards, proximity from 200 yards plus, par 4 scoring (400-450 yards), strokes gained: par 5s, average strokes gained per round on TPC Courses, and average strokes gained per round on TPC Deere Run (course history).

Players To Target

High-Price Tier

Russell Henley  

While Russell Henley is not typically a player I am used to writing up in the "high-price tier" category, the University of Georgia product is indubitably one of the strongest players in the field this week. Over his last 36 rounds, Henley ranks second in strokes gained approach, 13th in opportunities gained, second in proximity from 125-150 yards, and 13th in proximity from 150-175 yards. Henley is an incredible wedge player, and he loves himself a birdie fest, ranking second in this entire field in average strokes gained per round in easy scoring conditions. It should not come as a shock that the three-time PGA Tour winner has finished 27th and 2nd in two career appearances at TPC Deere Run, and ranks fifth in this entire field in average strokes gained per round on TPC courses.

Henley is coming off a 13th-place-finish at the U.S. Open and a 19th-place-finish at the Travelers Championship, yet both of those results are a bit misleading, as Henley possessed a legitimate chance to win both of those tournaments and unfortunately stumbled down the stretch. The Georgia native continues to trend positively in the ball-striking department, as his 2.4 strokes gained off the tee at the Travelers was actually his best off the tee week of the season. As is always the case with Henley, the iron play remains elite, as he has gained over three strokes on approach in both of his previous two starts. Now tasked with defeating a much weaker field, fantasy managers should expect Henley to continue his run of strong play and be right in the mix come Sunday afternoon.

Mid-Price Tier

Jhonattan Vegas 

Jhonattan Vegas should be extremely comfortable this week in the Quad Cities. The three-time PGA Tour winner has already recorded a third-place-finish at the John Deere Classic in 2017, and all of his best results have come on courses where birdies are the currency. Vegas is a two-time winner of the RBC Canadian Open, and he has also won the American Express on the benign PGA West. More recently, Vegas finished second at both the Puerto Rico Open and the Palmetto Championship, two of the easiest courses on the schedule! It should not come as a surprise that Vegas ranks 14th in this entire field in average strokes gained per round in easy scoring conditions.

Over his last 36 rounds, the Venezuela native ranks first in strokes gained off the tee, 24th in strokes gained approach, fourth in opportunities gained, 23rd in birdies or better gained, and 15th in strokes gained par fives. While Vegas is the number one off the tee player in this field, he is also coming off two starts in a row where he has gained 3.5 strokes on approach. I am not of the belief that off the tee play will be incredibly important at TPC Deere Run, but it is still worth noting that he has had now six starts in a row where he has gained over 2.3 strokes in that category. The driver is a huge weapon for Vegas, and it allows him to decimate par fives and make birdies in bunches. Few players in this field possess the ball-striking prowess to hang with Vegas, yet big-hitting Venezuelan's success will all come down to his performance on the greens. Vegas has yet to pop with the putter this year, as he has not topped 1.5 strokes gained putting all season. With that being said, Vegas is a three-time PGA Tour winner who has shown an ability to make clutch putts down the stretch on countless occasions. Even if Vegas putts to field average, his ball-striking is solid enough for him to play a factor this week.

Value-Price Tier

Zach Johnson

Based on the fact that Zach Johnson is a former winner of this event who also has four other top fives in the Quad Cities, the Iowa native won't be catching anyone by surprise this week. With that being said, Johnson's course history is far from the biggest reason I have interest in him. The 12-time PGA Tour winner just gained 4.5 strokes on approach at the Travelers Championship, good for his best iron week since October. The only reason why Johnson could not muster anything better than a 25th-place-finish is because he lost strokes putting for the second week in a row. Johnson is way too elite of a putter not to bounce-back with the flat-stick. Over his last 36 rounds, he is still the number putter in this field, despite back to back negative weeks. The two-time major champion is also the number one Bent-grass putter in this field over his last 24 rounds.

My guess is that Johnson will be over-priced because of the course history. With that being said, if the ownership does not get too out of hand, he's a player I would feel comfortable paying up for. Very seldom do fantasy managers get the opportunity to buy a player that possesses both elite course history and trending ball-striking. Johnson's off-the-tee game has never been a strength, but at the Travelers, for the first time in five starts, he even gained in that category! His driver is improving, his irons are peaking, and he is now returning to greens that he has more familiarity with than anyone in this field short of Steve Stricker. Johnson is a must play this week.

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