Richard Masana 
The Range is a course breakdown for the upcoming PGA tournament with a DFS perspective. This week the tour lands in California as the players face off at The American Express.
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The Basics
Course(s): La Quinta CC, Nicklaus Tournament Course, and Stadium Course
Par: 72
Length: All three courses play under 7,200 yards.
Greens: Bermuda
Architect: Pete Dye (Stadium)
For a hole by hole breakdown, please visit the PGA website here (Stadium).
With this being a Pro-Am, each golfer will play three rounds for The American Express. Each golfer will play the three courses on different days and after the cut, the remaining players will play the Stadium Course on Sunday, again.
Course Breakdown
The American Express is set up to be a birdie fest with the greens and pins in a position for the celebrities to play well. La Quinta and Nicklaus have been the easiest two of the three courses, in recent years. Final scores tend to be in the mid-’20s. The only real defense for this course is the wind, as of this writing though it looks to be rather calm the four days in California. The three-course rotation also allows all types of golfers to be looked at.
With a barrage of birdies from the pros expected, let’s look at the players who perform well on easy scoring courses.
With the fairways being easier to hit and missing them not being penalized as much, I wanted to look at golfers who have a better Ball Striking essence to their game. Ball Striking incorporates both Off the Tee (OTT) and Approach (APP). Here are the top 10 golfers who excel in Ball Striking on easy to average to hit fairways in the last 12 rounds.
As you’ll see being on the west coast you generally deal with Bermuda greens. This week at The American Express, it’s no different. Here are the top 10 golfers who have gained the most strokes putting on Bermuda over the last 12 rounds.
Here are the combined course features into one grouping and the golfers that gained the most strokes total over the rounds.
Player Fit – Back End
Between the three courses, the hardest holes at the American Express are the Par 4 between 450 – 500 yards. There are other tough holes on each course but this is the biggest similarity.
On the flip side, the easiest holes are Par 5 between 500 – 550 yards. Six out of the nine east holes fall in this range. Players must be able to score on these holes to keep pace.
As mentioned in the course breakdown Ball Striking is a key piece to the golfers game that we want to focus on.
Opportunity Gained will always be part of the player’s game that I want to focus on. With any tournament where birdies are a necessity, BOB will always be important. With the stats evenly weighted here are the top 10 golfers over the last 12 rounds.
Final Recap at The American Express
The weather seems to be calm at this point but always check to see if the wind picks up. There has been a lot of talk about where the golfers are starting on each course and how it relates to the winners. Pick the golfers that you like over the four days and roll with them. When it comes to showdowns though it might be best to pick golfers that are playing on the La Quinta and Nicklaus over the Stadium Course.
Course Setup
Easy scoring
Easy to average difficulty in hitting fairways
Bermuda Greens
Player Efficiencies
Par 4 Scoring: 450 – 500 yards
Par 5 Scoring: 500 – 550 yards
Ball Striking
Opportunities Gaines
BOB
Thanks for reading and I hope this article is a great starting place for your DFS research. Look out for the Insight Sheet dropping Wednesday. It will include my personal player pool and reasoning why each golfer was chosen. Also Wednesday night you can find me in the Win Daily Discord helping members with their lineups and last-minute questions.
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Stats source: FantasyNational
