2016 Puerto Rico Open fantasy golf picks
Fantasy Golf & Golf Betting PGA Tour

2016 Puerto Rico Open fantasy golf picks

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Welcome back to Golf News Net's weekly fantasy golf picks. Each week of the PGA Tour season, we'll present our top picks for that week's tournament and make recommendations for DraftKings' one-week fantasy leagues.

Have you ever played one-week fantasy leagues? Give them a try with a free entry this week with your first deposit. (Be aware of the risks in playing daily fantasy sports tournaments.) You could take down our expert picks and win some big bucks.

We have two PGA Tour events this week.

One is the WGC-Dell Match Play, which is covered in a number of fantasy leagues and contests, but isn't covered in daily fantasy golf competitions, including on DraftKings. Picking the Match Play is also a total crapshoot with not much science behind it. So, we're offering a separate predictions post for the WGC-Dell Match Play.

The other event is the Puerto Rico Open, a full-field, stroke-play event that has been historically played opposite the World Golf Championships event at Doral. We'll give that our full analysis this week.

For GNN Plus subscribers, you can access our top-15 finish chart and season-long trends on DraftKings valuations. They'll be available at your disposal as part of a growing set of tools to help in your research. Going forward, GNN Plus subscribers will also get access to the last five years of leaderboards for an event, namely the top 15 and ties from 2011-2015, the data that we use to define our horses for courses each week.

Now, on to the picks!

1.  Scott Brown -- Brown is a former winner here and has three top-10 finishes here the last five years. He was T-10 last year. He also has a pair of Florida Swing top-10s.

2. Graham DeLaet -- DeLaet is eventually going to get his PGA Tour win, and it could be this week. Coco Beach (formerly Trump International P.R.) isn't really a putter's course so much as a ballstriker's paradise.

3. Boo Weekley -- Boo is cold right now, missing his last three cuts. However, he's got a great record in this event. His last PGA Tour cash, at Phoenix, was a fifth-place finish.

4. Freddie Jacobson -- Freddie Jac had a nice run of back-to-back T-4s earlier in the year but lost that momentum. However, he cashed in two of three Florida Swing events and is a class player in the field.

5. George McNeill -- McNeill is a former winner here as well, and he's hit and miss overall. He missed his first four PGA Tour cuts this year, then made two checks in a row, including a T-11 at Valspar. No top-15s here since 2012.

RELATED: 2016 Puerto Rico Open betting odds

6. William McGirt -- McGirt has cashed in four of his last five, including a T-8 at Honda, which we really like ahead of a week of potential windy golf.

7. Brendon de Jonge -- BdJ has mixed four cuts in a row. The only reason he's on our list here in three top-15s in the last five years. He's better than this event but not by much.

8. Patrick Rodgers -- With a T-20 at Bay Hill, Rodgers ended a three MC skid. When he makes the cut, he pretty much finishes highly. He's made eight cuts this season, with all but one in the top 20.

9. Sam Saunders -- Saunders had a chance here last year. More importantly, he did really well at The Honda Classic, a windy event.

10. Jonathan Byrd -- Just trust me on this one. J. Byrd has played some Web.com Tour this year, and been in the top five of two of three starts. He has an opportunity this week.

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My DraftKings team for this week:

1. Scott Brown -- $10,900
2. Jonathan Byrd -- $9,000
3. Sam Saunders -- $7,900
4. Will MacKenzie -- $7,400
5. Brendon de Jonge -- $7,300
6. Hao-tong Li -- $6,300

If you want to win at DraftKings daily fantasy golf, you have to figure out a way to find six golfers that play all 72 holes and earn roughly 85 points each.

You likely have to identify a couple of players in the top five, at least the top seven, and you'd ideally not have a player finish outside the top 20.

Doing that takes research, looking at a variety of factors, including:

  • Finish trends, both in recent weeks on the PGA Tour and at that week's event,
  • Salary trends, deciphering which players are showing value based on their performance, and
  • Statistical trends, identifying the common threads among winners in that week's event

That's what Golf News Net will deliver each week to GNN Plus members in this space, offering a complete research package which dives into these three areas to find the players that should be in your lineup for this week's Puerto Rico Open.

To access this research hidden below and MANY more fantasy golf tools, sign up for GNN Plus to gain access to the analysis!

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About the author

Ryan Ballengee

Ryan Ballengee is the founder, owner and operator of Golf News Net.

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