Core Plays for NineToFiveSports have a made cut % of 84% over the past year. During that time span the Core Plays have won 7 times, finished runner up 6 times, top 10 32% of the time, and 49% have finished top 20%.
Last week's Core Plays for the Sony Open were a little bit hit or miss with Christian Bezuidenhout missing the cut, but Andrew Putnam finishing T4, and Corey Conners finishing T12 made up for it! Two weeks ago we gave you Jon Rahm as a Core Play who ended up winning the Sentry Tournament of Champions.
Here are the top picks for this week's American Express.
1) Jon Rahm
As we can see Jon Rahm has just been playing extremely well recent with his worst finish over his last 5 starts being 4th. He has won 3 times in his past 4 starts as well. He is coming into the tournament with great event history finished 14th, and 6th. I typically love the idea of continue to roster golfers until they let me down, and that is what I am going to do with Rahm this week as well as the next two golfers. Now betting Rahm outright is up to you at 6.5/1.
2) Patrick Cantlay
Ideally, Patrick Cantlay as a a Core Play / Outright bet at this price point would be a little bit better of a stat fit, but his Course History (9th, 2nd, and 9th) + his recent form (8 of his last 9 starts being top 16 or better finishes) is good enough for me to overlook him not being an ideal stat fit. He also ranks out as the 2nd best Specialist in the field making up for his stat rank. Overall Cantlay is the 2nd best play this week and makes for an excellent starting point for someone's Betting Card. The question in whether or not you can fit him and/or Cantlay into your DFS builds this week.
3) Andrew Putnam
Andrew Putnam is currently 925's most rostered golfer thus far this season, and this might be an event in which he projects the best he has all year. It will be very difficult not to love Andrew Putnam this week. The biggest issue with Putnam will be stat fit, but I think we can push that aside with his great course history finishes 14th, 21st, 10th, and 34th over his past 4 starts at this event. Putnam now has two top 5 finishes in his last 6 starts, proving that he on paper is both a safe play and an upside play.
4) Brian Harman*
* = I do not believe that he is a "Core Play" but someone I could easily see placing an outright bet on.
Brian Harman has great course history, and I love the fact that his course history has gotten better at each start over the past 4 years from a missed cut 4 years ago to a 3rd place finish last year. Heck if he does any better he could end up winning this event.
I like the fact that Brian Harman ranks out top 11 or better in 3 out of my 4 key stats this week (Which are - SGTTL, Effective Scoring, Greens Gained, and BOB %).
The biggest reason why I like these 4 golfers other than the fact that they rank out well is that they have all made a start in the last 2 weeks. We see that the more time off golfers have the more "random" their starts can be. I think last week was a perfect example of that. Harman is now making his 3 straight start, and although some might be worried about fatigue setting in I am not.
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