Tournament History, Performance, Stats and Salaries At Bottom!
Scottish Open – Castle Stuart Golf Links (2016)
We’re back and ready to roll with this weeks hot and cold article for the Euro tour’s Scottish Open which turns out to be a big week for DFS purposes. With the cancellation of the Greenbriar Classic due to flooding, the Euro slate should be a lot more popular and the guarantees are all a bit inflated. Be careful with course history as this event is making a return to Castle Stuart but has not been played here since 2013, so the 2014 and 2015 results can probably be largely ignored. Let’s get right into it, here is a list of players with hot and cold recent form and course history coming into this week’s Scottish Open.
Hot Course History:
Henrik Stenson ($12,200) – As a golfer who has had very swingy recent form, Henrik Stenson marks one of the very few golfers who has never finished outside the top ten at a Castle Stuart Scottish Open. With a third and an eighth place finish in 2012 and 2013 look for Stenson to have a shot at repeating history again.
Raphael Jacquelin ($6,900) – While Jacquelin certainly doesn’t have the second best course history behind Stenson, I thought he was worth adding for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, his course history includes three straight made cuts, but more importantly in those three made cuts Jacquelin has trended upwards in every finish peaking at eighth place in 2013. With his multiple top tens in his last three starts I’ll be rostering Jacquelin quite a bit this week.
Cold Course History:
Shane Lowry ($10,500) – Despite his recent bout of strong play, particularly his second place finish in the U.S. Open, Lowry has never finished inside the top ten in three tries at this event. However, Lowry has made all three cuts in his three starts on this course, and the argument could be made that Lowry has progressed as a player since 2013.
Rafa Cabrera-Bello ($9,900) – Despite being one of my favorite golfers on the Euro tour, particularly as of late, Bello has one of the worst course histories to speak of in this upper salary range with two missed cuts in three starts and a forty-seventh place finish in the cut he did make. On a wide open links style course like Castle Stuart I’ll be passing on Bello and looking to roster him down the line.
Hot Recent Form:
Brendan Grace ($11,600) – We are finally starting to see Grace round into form particularly on the PGA side of things after what was a less than remarkable string of golf. More recently though Grace has finished inside the top ten in four of five events including a win in that stretch. Despite Stenson having one more recently I think Grace is my favorite to win this week.
Gregory Bourdy ($7,600) – Why not go straight back to the well with Bourdy for many of the same reasons he was hot last week. Bourdy finished twenty-fifth in his home country of France last week, and as expected continued his string of ten straight made cuts. I don’t necessary love Bourdy’s upside this week but he certainly seems like a great cash game option.
Cold Recent Form:
Patrick Reed ($10,200) – Reed by no means has the worst course history in the field and it’s not even close, but as a player who is typically high in price, our expectations should be tailored to high finishes which Reed has not done in over a month. With a missed cut and two finishes outside the top thirty-five, Reed has not performed to expectation recently in a big way.
Andrew Johnston ($7,000) – Due to name recognition alone I expect ‘Beef’ Johnston to be more popular than I am conformable with. Despite his fun-loving charisma and quirky nickname, Beef has not finished inside the top forty in over a month and has a missed cut sprinkled in. At $7,000 we don’t necessarily need him to win but we are certainly looking for something more than what he’s given us recently.
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