Play FantasyDraft's $20,000 Masters Tour Card Contest

If you love daily fantasy sports (DFS) and poker, then you’ll love the new FantasyDraft promotion designed exclusively for Card Player readers. Simply by playing in your usual DFS contests, you can earn your way into the Summer Poker Series freeroll, which will award an $1,100 poker tournament package for a $1 million guaranteed event this June in Las Vegas.

The package includes a $565 buy-in into the June 2 poker tournament, $535 for travel and accommodation, as well as a free lifetime digital subscription to Card Player magazine. Players will earn one point for every paid contest entry. Each time you accumulate 10 points, you’ll get a free entry into the April 6 Summer Poker Series freeroll.
-———————————————————————————————————————————

The Tournament

“Buddy, I think we’re collapsing.”

Those were the words Jordan Spieth uttered to caddie Michael Greller in the midst of his quadruple bogey on the par 3 12th hole during his 2016 final round. Spieth held a lead as big as five strokes on Sunday and seemed to be well on his way to his second consecutive green jacket, but that’s the legend of Augusta National. The course is designed for high drama. Whether it be Phil Mickelson making birdie on five of the last seven holes for his first career major, or Tiger’s incredible chip in on 16 in 2005, Augusta has provided the stage.

With the dramatic theater that is the Masters comes the incredible adrenaline rush provided by the sweat. What is the sweat? The sweat is the feeling you get when your finely constructed lineup of players is in contention on Sunday and you become part of the game. You start to feel every shot as if it was you holding the club, reading the green, hitting the putt. Nothing will make you tilt more than the sweat.

So where do you get to experience this incredible sensation? FantasyDraft.com. I’m sure you’ve seen or heard of some of the other DFS providers, but FantasyDraft is doing it right. While other sites are pricing golfers so incredibly soft that they almost force you to play them, the team at FantasyDraft believes in almighty strategy.

For the Masters, FantasyDraft is offering an awesome contest called the $20,000 Masters Tour Card. A $25 entry fee will provide you with the opportunity to take down your share of the $20,000 prize pool, with the winner taking home an awesome $2,000 top prize. Now there are only 919 spots available so be sure to get in early. Keep in mind you can edit your lineups up until 6 a.m. ET the Thursday of the tournament.

The Course

Unlike the other majors on the PGA Tour, the Masters is held at the same golf course every year, Augusta National. The 7,435 yard par-72 course is widely considered one of the toughest tests in golf. It’s large elevation changes, heavily undulated greens, and strategically placed collection areas will all challenge every facet of the golfers games. The fairways are heavily tree-lined but remain as some of the easier to hit on Tour at over 69 percent. Although it’s certainly helpful, being in the fairway doesn’t necessarily translate to having a clean shot to the green as ball position is vitally important to success here at Augusta.

Much of the trouble to be found around Augusta National comes from simply missing the green. Although there aren’t copious amounts of bunkers, they are strategically placed, many of them greenside. Hitting the green isn’t the end of the adventure for approach shots, as large undulations come into play, forcing the ball into neighboring collection areas. Landing the ball with precision on the correct tier of the green is what separates the contenders from the pretenders at Augusta.

The greens around Augusta are average in size when simply comparing square footage however the large undulations and aforementioned run-off areas make them play much smaller. The Bentgrass surface of the greens is kept nearly pristine and run at an amazing 13.5 on the stimpmeter, making them extremely fast compared to Tour average. Golfers who putt well here at Augusta typically find themselves near the top of the leaderboard on Sunday.

The Stats

To narrow down the field and find the guys who should perform well at The Masters, we’ll look at some stats that have correlated to success here in the past. All of these stats are current as of 3/27, preceeding the Shell Houston Open.

Strokes Gained: Tee to Green

SG:T2G measures how well a player has performed in a tournament, minus their putting performance. Although putting will be extremely important for success in this tournament, targeting golfers who put themselves in good position off the tee and on their approach shots will prove to be vital.

Bogey Avoidance

While the winning score typically approaches double digits, much of the strokes gained come on the par 5s; the only four holes on the course with a scoring average under par are the par 5s. Three holes at Augusta National finished inside the 50 most difficult that the Tour faced all of last season. Finding a way to simply make par and avoid big numbers will put golfers a distinct advantage of the rest of the field. On his way to victory last year Danny Willett made only eight bogeys the entire week.

Good Drive Percentage

Good drive percentage is the number of fairways hit, plus the number of greens or fringe hit in regulation when the drive was not in the fairway, divided by the number of holes played. Essentially what this means the golfer could get the ball on the green, or relatively close whether the drive was in the fairway or not. Willett won the green jacket last year despite only finishing 26th in Driving Accuracy out of the 57 golfers who made the cut.

Greens In Regulation

All of the golfers who finished the top 10 in GIR here last year brought home a top 34 finish, six of which were in the top 10. While GIR translates to more scoring opportunities, it also decreases the likelihood of a bogey. Being able to simply two-putt and make par is far better than being forced to get up and down from one of these tricky greenside bunkers. Willett finished tied for sixth in GIR last year.

The Golfers

Here I’ll be providing you with some of my favorite plays for the tournament. I’ll be taking into consideration the golfers stats, recent form, course history, and using their price to determine whether I think they can exceed their value or not. My goal here is to also provide you with what won’t necessarily be popular plays, or what we call “chalk”. I could easily tell you Dustin Johnson is a good play, but you would know that if you’ve turned on SportsCenter anytime over the last month.

Rickie Fowler — $18,100

With Henrik Stenson winning the Open Championship last year, Fowler enters the conversation of best player without a major championship. Currently the ninth ranked golfer in the world, Rickie comes in riding some great recent form. His six starts on the year have resulted in five top 25 finishes, three of which are top tens and also includes his victory just a few short weeks ago at the Honda Classic. Propelling Fowler through this successful portion of the year is his performance in our key stats for this tournament.

Strokes Gained: Tee to Green – 11th
Bogey Avoidance – 4th
Greens In Regulation – 32nd
Good Drive Percentage – 36th

Fowler has shown he can compete on the biggest stage, finishing inside the top five in all four majors during the 2014 season. When it comes to Augusta, Rickie has found moderate success with finishes of 12th, 5th, 38th, and 27th.

Rickie tends to go overlooked when it comes to tournaments featuring the elites of the world, making him somewhat of a sneaky play. While his salary of $18,100 has him near the top of the list, it comes at a considerable discount compared to D. Johnson, Spieth, and McIlroy. My only concern with Fowler is how awful a green jacket would look over a bright orange shirt and white pants.

Adam Hadwin — $14,500

2017 has already been an extraordinary year for Canadian Adam Hadwin. On top of getting married just last weekend (marriage swag), Hadwin collected his first career PGA Tour victory just a few weeks ago at the Valspar Championship. As incredible as getting married and winning your first title can be, Hadwin now gets to compete in his first ever Masters. Although the tournament hasn’t seen anyone win in their first appearance since the 70’s, there is reason to believe our friend from the Northland can compete.

On the season Hadwin has made 11 starts, bringing home a top 25 in six of them. His four top 10’s are already a career high and we’re only a third of the way through the season! On top of being one of the best putters on Tour, Hadwin has found himself near the top of many statistical categories.

Strokes Gained: Tee to Green – 33rd
Bogey Avoidance – 2nd
Greens In Regulation – 43rd
Good Drive Percentage – 33rd

Hadwin may find himself being a popular selection as the week rolls along, but his price is just far too good to pass up for a guy playing as well as he is. Canadian’s would love a strong performance as well so they could brag on something other than Mike Weir’s victory back in 2003.

Bill Haas — $14,400

As Haas heads to Augusta he’ll look to continue on what has already been a great season. He’s nine for nine when it comes to making the cut, with seven of those events resulting in top 25s. Despite playing extremely well, Haas’ strong season had been going somewhat under the radar before his third place showing at last week’s Dell Match Play. When looking at his performance in the key stats, it’s no wonder Haas was able to go toe-to-toe with the best in the World last week.

Strokes Gained: Tee to Green – 17th
Bogey Avoidance – 3rd
Greens In Regulation – 19th
Good Drive Percentage – 50th

Not only does Haas check the boxes of statistical performance and recent form, but he also marks off the course history box as well. He’s never missed a cut here in seven attempts, and the last five years here he’s finished 24th, 12th, 20th, 20th, and 37th. Haas’ recent performance leads me to believe he can improve upon those top 25 finishes and provide excellent value for his $14,400 price tag.

Kevin Kisner — $14,200

A graduate from the University of Georgia, Kisner heads back to the Peach State looking to build on what’s been a solid few weeks. Kisner held a share of the 54-hole lead at the Arnold Palmer Invitational but faltered coming down the stretch opening the door for Marc Leishman. The 10 starts that Kisner has made this season have resulted in six top 25’s and three top 10’s. Carrying “Kiz” to success has been his remarkable tee-to-green game; he currently ranks eighth on tour at 1.576 SG:T2G. Last year in his first career start at Augusta National, Kisner brought home a 37th place finish.

At just $14,200 Kisner provides major salary relief for any of the big guns you may want to put into your lineup. The recent form and statistical performance are both there and even the local narrative is there if you’re one to believe in those types of things. All things considered Kisner makes for a great, potentially low-owned, play.

This core group of golfers leaves you $38,800 worth of salary to play with, meaning you can round out your lineup with just about any two golfers you’d like.

For more information regarding the Masters and for the rest of your DFS needs check out DFSDatalytics. We’ve recently launched a new product called the DFSDash for both PGA and NASCAR which provides all of your DFS research in one place.

The top finisher in the Summer Poker Series PGA freeroll on April 6 will win the $1,100 package which includes a $565 buy-in into the June 2 poker tournament, $535 for travel and accommodation, as well as a free lifetime digital subscription to Card Player magazine.

With FantasyDraft’s daily fantasy contests players draft new teams daily and have the opportunity to win cash every time they or their friends enter a paid contest. FantasyDraft also limits the number of lineups players can enter and pays a minimum of 20 percent of all guaranteed contests. It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s GAMEDAY. FantasyDraft puts #PlayersFirst.

Related Articles

Win Big Playing NFL DFS On FantasyDraft

Win Big Playing MLB Daily Fantasy Sports Contests

Daily Fantasy Sports Strategy And Tips

Most Viewed Articles