Is it all about winning?
When you think about Fantasy Sports generally one of two things come to mind. You are either looking forward to winning your league championship, or looking forward to winning some cold hard cash.
Gambling has always had it’s place in Fantasy Sports. At it’s heart playing Fantasy Sports is gambling. Each player you pick needs to not only play well, but also avoid injury, and be given ample opportunity to succeed.
I absolutely love Fantasy Football. When drafting a team it isn’t about just picking the best statistical player. What you are really attempting to do is draft Players who will exceed their previous couple of years performance. In the case of rookies you are speculating on their immediate impact. That’s what it takes to win your league. Analyzing each Player’s peak potential, and then selecting the right combination of players that actually come close to reaching, or better yet exceeding it. I’ve been doing exactly that quite successfully for years.
Fantasy Golf is still quite new to me. I haven’t played a seasonal format yet but will in 2018. Currently I just play individual PGA tour events. I factor in each Player’s previous performance at the course, their recent form, the overall strength of the field, and key statistical areas depending on the course layout. When choosing a roster of Golfers based on salary cap, such as on Draft Kings. I usually avoid the highest value players. Instead I assemble a core group of second, and third tier players I expect will make the cut. The only exception to this strategy is events with a particularly weak field. In that case I’ll invest in one of the favourites. I’ve had minimal success so far, but learning while playing has definitely been fun. If you’ve had some success playing Fantasy Golf? I’d like to hear about it, and what deciding factor led to your selections.
It’s still a couple of months before I begin drafting my Fantasy Football teams. In the meantime I’ll be discussing Fantasy Golf each week. It’s actually Sunday of the U.S. Open as I’m writing this. My balanced roster is performing quite well. I have Matt Kuchar, Tommy Fleetwood, Brendan Steele, Martin Laird, and Satoshi Kodaira still playing. D.J., Rory, and Day all missing the cut was probably terrible for the networks, but it probably guaranteed me a win in my pool. Quite a few of my friends asked me who I thought had the best chance of winning the Open. I told them either D.J., or Sergio Garcia. Day hasn’t truly been in top form this year, and I didn’t think Rory was fully recovered from injury. I still expected all of them to make the cut though. Well all of them except Day. Just goes to show you how unpredictable Golf can be.
So how about we try to develop a system that actually does predict Golf?
Fantasy Sports is all about winning after all!
