2011 Mondays: Fantasy Golf Update

If you’ve never played Fantasy Golf, now is the time to learn about it.  You’ve lost out on a profitable points week at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions (where there is not cut) but that’s all right.  At most, you’ll be 180 points behind the leader in a typical league and you can make that up over the course of the season.

This is my second year in a league and first as the commisioner.  Last season, our league had about 15 guys in it, although 20% dropped out as the season progressed.  This year, we hav 46 guys, yet I can’t claim that all of them are very bright.  Five guys somehow failed to get a lineup in for the first week and garnered ZERO points as a result.

In brief, you select 8 guys each week.  Anyone can select any player, but you can only use that player 10 times during the year on your team.  Players are randomly designated as “A", “B” or “C” players.  You select 2 A, 4 B and 2 C players for your team.  The goal is to get 1-2-1 at minimum to the weekend.  “Horses for courses” often comes into play, making the loss of Geoff Ogilvy to reef violence that much more daunting.  As a result, players like Jonathan Byrd and Graeme McDowell received more exposure.

Speaking of Byrd and McDowell, they along with Robert Garrigus were the unexpected heroes of week one.  I don’t care how many aces Byrd makes in playoffs, I’m not picking him (but many folks did!)  Sure, Mac won the Open and the Tiger last year, but he was playing new clubs at an event he’s never experienced before.  As for Garrigus, would he collapse, would he hold on?  In the end, he held on and nearly won the whole thing.

Guys who let us down were Ernie Els, Dustin Johnson, Steve Stricker and Bubba Watson.  Even though 17 is a 504 yard par four and 18 reaches into the mid 600s as a par five, Kapalua is not a bomber’s course.  Byrd and Mac (1st and 3rd, respectively) are not long hitters, although Garrigus is.  Stricker and Petterson are not rocketeers, either.  Stricker is the most ennervating of the bunch.  As soon as you make him the one to beat due to “experience,” he shoots a final-round, front-nine 36 (when the rest are at 32) and has to play catch-up like Greg Norman on a Major championship Sunday.  Stricker will get you your points, but only once or twice a year will he do something exciting.

Next week, over an island or two to the Sony.  We’ll see a more classic and shorter course come into play, which should change the average roster a good bit.