Arnold Palmer Daily Fantasy Blog

Sunday March 18th, 2016

7:30PM

Day closes it out…
So much for Jason Day not playing well in Florida or being rusty after playing only four events since mid-October. As far as his ability to close, he had answered that question with five victories last year, and provided more evidence at the Arnold Palmer as he made a 12-foot birdie putt at the difficult par-3 17th hole of the final round and got up and down from a bunker on the closing hole. That one-two punch turned a one-stroke deficit into a one-stroke victory, as Kevin Chappell finished par-bogey.
Day entered the final round with a two-stroke lead, but let the field back into it by playing the first six holes in 1-over. It was a sloppy start as he bogeyed both par 5s on the front nine, one with a short-game misadventure and the other with a second shot in the water and missed 5-foot putt. He settled down, though, and went 3-under the rest of the way for a 70 and a win in what was a four-player dogfight in the final round.
The victory sends Day into next week’s WGC-Dell Match Play on a high note and stamps him as one of the favorites for the Masters. Day closed out 2015 on a roll, playing better than anyone in the world over a two-month stretch. We’ll see if the Palmer win leads to another run.
Here are some key numbers for Day at the Palmer:

• 69 feet – Length of the chip-in for birdie on the second hole of the final round, without which his start would have been even worse.
• 14 inches – Distance from the hole of his 168-yard approach from the rough on the ninth hole, which got him back to even par for the round.
• 4th and 6th – Rankings in strokes gained tee to green and strokes gained putting for the week in a strong overall performance.
• 305.1 yards – Average driving distance, ranking sixth.
• 5 – Number of victories for Day in the last eight months.
• 2 – His new position in the World Rankings.

Join us tomorrow when we will start our Dell Match Play blog, along with that we will have a special “Sal’s Fantasy Golf Chat” on Facebook so that we can all talk with each other during the week of the Match Play.

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8:00PM

Stenson looking solid…
It should come as no surprise that excellent ball-striking has Henrik Stenson in contention at Bay Hill, in a tie for second through 54 holes two strokes behind leader Jason Day. The man who led the Tour in greens in regulation and was second in strokes gained tee to green last year ranks 1st and 3rd in those two categories through three rounds at the Palmer.
It’s a sign that Stenson is fully recovered from meniscus surgery on his right knee last December. The Swede took six weeks off, then finished T-3rd and T-6th in Abu Dhabi and Dubai on the European Tour in February despite saying he wasn’t yet 100 percent physically. Returning to the States, he finished a mediocre T-28 in the limited field WGC-Cadillac, but was more solid last week in a T-11th at the Valspar, so we shouldn’t have any more worries about Stenson’s physical soundness or his form.
Of course, there’s always putting to worry about. Stenson did have a good year with the putter in 2015, but typically he hovers around 100th in strokes gained putting. He putted well through two rounds at Bay Hill, but slipped into negative strokes gained (-0.606) on Saturday when he took the lead by playing the first six holes in 4-under but ultimately settled for a 2-under 70, despite supplementing his 14 greens in regulation with two par-5s hit in two (making a 13-foot eagle putt on the sixth).
Last year, Stenson had a two-stroke lead entering the final round of the Palmer and ended up losing by one to Matt Every. This year, he’s two behind, and his fate will probably depend on how well he does on the greens.
Stenson is passing up next week’s WGC-Dell Match Play, the only healthy player to skip it (Jim Furyk is out after wrist surgery). He says it’s simply because of where the event falls on the schedule. He wanted to play three straight weeks on the Florida swing and didn’t want to stress the knee by playing four weeks in a row. Also, he wanted to play in Houston the following week to prepare for the Masters the week after that. It’s an unconventional decision, but it makes Stenson a player to keep in strong consideration at Houston and the Masters as his preparation will be exactly the way he wants it and his form looks good.

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12:00PM

Explaining some of the reasons for Rory doing things…
The New York Times Karen Crouse is a great writer and I just saw a story that she did two weeks ago worth reading.
It talks about how Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy have kept their long time teachers, but it gives us some insight on some of the things that McIlroy has gone through in changing his putting.
I have always been a firm believer in the Jack Nicklaus philosophy in which you have to own your swing and be able to fix the little things that go wrong with it.  That is the way Spieth, Day and McIlroy feel and some of the reasons we see McIlroy struggling with his putting.  When I worked with Sky Sports I would be with Butch Harmon a lot and you would be surprise on how many calls he got from Phil Mickelson and anything.  Mickelson is the type of guy that no matter how little some problem is, needs his coach to help him through it.  So it’s easy in these days of of high purses and earnings to see players with an entourage of folks.  One other thought on this while I am still at it.  Anybody remember Ty Tryon?
He turned professional in 2001 at the age of 16, which caused some controversy as typically American golfers attend college before turning pro. As an amateur in 2001, he made the cut at the PGA Tour’s Honda Classic, making him, at the time, the third youngest player ever to make the cut in a PGA Tour event (16 years, 9 months, 7 days).  At the age of 17 Tryon made it through PGA Tour qualifying school and got his card, to become the youngest player to earn exempt status.  Following his qualification, he signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Callaway, estimated in the several millions of dollars so the kid was basically rich before his 18th birthday.  He struggled for a couple of years and in 2002 couldn’t play much because he was battling mononucleosis.  In 2003 I was still working for ABC Sports and was at the Western Open, just outside of Chicago.  I was with a couple of friends in a very expensive steak house and was surprised that Tyron and his “entourage” got a table next to us.  I found out the next day but Tyron’s entourage included a manager, a swing coach, a psychiatrist, a work out coach that was also a nutrition manager, a caddie and a person that ran errands for those in the “entourage.”  We were all shocked that it took six people to run team Tryon and that they traveled with him around the PGA Tour.  Tryon is 31 today, hasn’t played on the PGA Tour since the 2011 U.S. Open or the Web.Com Tour since the 2013 Albertsons but that evening in the steak house has always had me wondering what Jack and Arnie thought of big “entourages”.

Update 3;00PM On Saturday Rory had another dreadful day, shot another 75 with three birdies and three double bogeys.  He found the water twice on 3 and 18 as he hit 10 of 14 fairways, 11 of 18 greens.  But the putter wasn’t working, he lost 3.145 shots on the greens.  The bottom line is that right now McIlroy is a mess and needs to sort things out for his defense of the Match Play and the Masters.

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11:00AM

Bradley gains confidence…
Last week was a disaster for Keegan Bradley, who missed the cut at the Valspar after leading through 18 holes, so he needed a bounceback this week to prove to himself that he’s on the right track with a new teacher. He got it with rounds of 69-70 to make the cut, and a strong start to the third round that had him nudging into the top 10 in late morning.
Golfweek has a good story chronicling Bradley’s recent changes. After a lackluster year in 2015 (64th on the money list), no PGA Tour wins since 2012, and missed cuts in his first two starts of calendar year 2016, Bradley decided to leave teacher Chuck Cook. He briefly went back to his original teacher, Jim McLean, but quickly moved to Darren May of The Bear’s Club in Bradley’s hometown of Jupiter, Fla. Bradley made the cut in Phoenix (T-24), but since then had missed three in a row to make it one for his last six. So, making the cut at Bay Hill has Bradley feeling like he has turned the corner. That could make him a good fantasy pick in coming weeks if his price remains low—though we’d still like to see him answer questions about his consistency and his putting.

Update 3:00PM: After playing the front nine of the third round in 3-under 33, Bradley shot a 4-over 40 on the back nine to finish with a 73 and is T-30. So he still has consistency issues even while showing some positive signs.

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Friday March 16th, 2016

1:00PM

Guess I was wrong (and many others) on Jason…
Nothing like eating a little crow.  When am I going to realize that these guys are really good and some of the elite players can do anything at any time.
Jason Day is a perfect example.  I couldn’t really justify taking him this week because of his past record in Florida events and what does he do, shot 66-65 and is the second-round leader.
I can say in 76 previous rounds in Florida events he has shot 66 just twice and that was in 2008 at Disney. He did shoot 65 in the third round of the 2011 Valspar, so he has shown that he can go low in Florida.  In the Palmer at Bay Hill it’s his lowest score as in 14 previous rounds he only shot in the 60s three times.  In a way maybe we should have seen this coming, last year at the Palmer he finished T-17th, but shot consistent rounds of 69-71-71-68.
Making Day look even more unbeatable is that after making double bogey on nine yesterday to shoot a front nine 35, Day has played his last 27 holes bogey free and in 12 under par.
Both rounds have been good as he has gained 6.694 shots from tee to green.  He has missed only nine fairways and 11 greens but what is working is his putting.  He has gained 5.209 shots on the green.  He has played the par 5s in eight under par, only making one par but making an eagle to help his cause.
For many that think Day is a slam dunk, that won’t be the case.  The weather for Saturday is not looking good, with 50% chance of thunderstorms and winds from 12 to 20 mph.  It’s lunch time and the PGA Tour hasn’t announced it but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them tee it up early on Saturday to beat the weather.  As for Sunday, it’s going to be cloudy with only a 10% chance of rain, but winds up to 20 mph are predicted so it will be an interesting day.
So for Jason, yes things are looking great for him, but he still has to continue the good play over the weekend.

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11:00AM

Jose Maria Olazabal to skip the Masters…
Associated Press is running this story on how Jose Maria Olazabal will not be at the Masters due to health problems.  Olazabal won the Masters in 1994 and 1999 but hasn’t played a tournament since he shot 71 in the second round last year at Augusta and missed the cut.  Jose Maria has had a long history of health problems with chronic rheumatic problems including arthritis in the mid-90s.  He battled back from those problems to win in 1999. As for this year Phil Casey for Press Association is saying:

his ongoing arthritis problems are the reason.

It’s a shame when you consider that Olazabal only turned 50 last month and instead of enjoying life and playing on the Champions or European Senior Tour, he is stuck in his home in Hondarribia, Spain.

A real shame

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9:30AM

So what happened to Rory?…

You would of thought that everything was lining up for a good week for McIlroy.  It was St. Patrick’s Day and McIlroy had a green shirt on.  But something is amiss in his game.  From tee to green his game seemed spotless as he is 4th in strokes gained tee-to-green for 2016 and in ball striking he is ranked 18th.  His putter has been a problem, in strokes gained putting he ranks 148th as he is a dismal 162nd in putts inside ten feet.  At Doral two weeks ago putting on Sunday was the problem as he just couldn’t make those key putts that would have kept him in contention  So conventional wisdom was that he was working on the putting and things would improve right?
That wasn’t the case for Rory on Thursday.  Right off the bat, McIlroy tugs his opening tee shot left into the driving range out of bounds and with the double bogey he is in trouble early.  Still one thinks that he is Rory McIlroy and will bounce back.  At three he tugs another tee shot left into the water and after taking a penalty shot hits a 197 yard shot to within 18 feet and makes the putt for a par.  But the pulls continue, on 4 he hits it left into a fairway bunker and again scrambles to make par with an 8 footer.  He goes with an iron at 5 and gets it into the fairway and makes par, then hits two great shots at the par 5, 6th hole.  His second shot lands 12 feet away and it looks like a possible way of picking up the two shots dropped at one, but McIlroy misses.  He also misses from 21 feet at seven before having more driving problems at eight.  He tugs another shot left into the fairway bunker and from 144 yards pulls another shot into the water next to the green.  This leads to another double bogey, then at nine instead of pulling another driver he shoves one right and from there has to make a 25 footer to save par and shot 39.  Things didn’t really improve on the back, his tee to green game was still sloppy and McIlroy again had to rely on his putting to save par.  A big save came at the par 5, 16th hole when he hit another poor drive left and decided from 237 yards in the rough to try and get it home with a 4-iron.  That didn’t work out as again he found the water short and left.  After taking his penalty shot, he wedged it six feet away and made the putt for par.  He made routine pars at 17 and 18 to shot 75, his highest PGA Tour opening round since he shot 78 in the 2013 BMW Championship.
“Yeah. Felt like I grinded okay there and I scrambled a good about it. I had some good things on the back-9,” McIlroy told media after the round. “It probably could have been a few worse.”
Yes it could of been worse when you consider he hit three balls into the water, hit a drive out of bounds, only hit 4 of 14 fairways and 8 of 18 greens.  From tee to green he lost 4.325 shots and gained 0.758 on the greens.  He made four putts of 8 feet and longer and the only good thing out of the day his two birdies came on par 5s.
So we just don’t know what to say after this round.  It was back on the driving range for Rory, but he just can’t seem to have that great round from tee to green and on the greens on the same day.  Of course just one little tweak for a player like Rory could be the difference from a 75 and a 65, but we have to be very careful in choosing Rory since he is so expensive in all fantasy golf games.  The next three rounds will be important as they will be his last stroke play rounds before the Masters.

Wednesday March 16th, 2016

12:30PM

Draft Kings for this week…

Time for this week’s Draft Kings picks. . .
This week’s game has a cut but with only 120 in the field this is a good week to avoid missing cuts.
Again David and I are in the $100k Hybrid, which has a $3 entry fee. It’s a game that will have just over 38,000 players entered, with first place paying out $5,000, which is $5,000 less that past games but the difference is that before the top 7,000 got paid, this week 12,220 players will get paid with last place getting $5.
Here is my picks for the week:

Henrik Stenson – $11,100

Ryan Moore – $9,800

Paul Casey – $8,700

Scott Brown – $7,400

Ian Poulter – $7,100

Zac Blair – $5,900

A weird week because sometimes picks are a struggle but this week everyone seemed to pop in perfectly. I like Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott and Henrik Stenson, but there was no way to take two of them, they were just two much. So I took Stenson and was left with a lot of middle picks. First off was Paul Casey, his record isn’t that great in the Palmer, missed cut last year. But I like what he can do and in his last start finished 7th at Doral.
Next was Ryan Moore, when I was deciding not to take two of the top-three, I had Moore on my mind. He plays good on tough courses, was T-4th at Bay Hill in 2012. But his record on tour is great, with four top-11 finishes in his last six starts including a T-10th in his last stop at the Northern Trust.
I wrote about Ian Poulter yesterday and when I saw him at only $7,100 jump on him. I like that he has finished in the top-25 the last four years in a row at the Palmer. On the PGA Tour it’s not that great, but still like him.
Scott Brown was also an easy choice, only $7,100 and he finished T-10th last week.
Zac Blair was a weird pick that came about by accident. Going through the database I saw Blair’s name finishing T-21st at last year’s Palmer and since he was only $5,900 it was an easy pick.

David’s strategy is a bit different:
My strategy this week was to go with three strong players supplemented by three in the $6,100 to $6,600 range who I have some degree of faith in. The low-end players should be helped by the fact there are only 120 in the field, so there will be fewer than usual missed cuts. I passed on the two highest priced guys, Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott, in order to fit three upper echelon guys instead of two.
It happened that I didn’t really like anybody in the $8,000s anyway. I did have to pass over some decent players in the $7,000s, but I think my low-end guys still give me a shot.

Henrik Stenson, $11,100. It looked like his game was coming around last week (T-11th), and he’s been top-10 at the Palmer the last three years (second last year).
Justin Rose, $10,500. While he hasn’t set the world on fire this year, he’s done well enough not to lose faith in (T-6th, T-16th, T-17th last three starts).
Matt Kuchar, $9,400. Ditto for Kuchar (T-8th, T-28th, T-11th last three starts).
Patrick Rodgers, $6,600. Reverse psychology; he’s missed three straight cuts, don’t think he’ll make it four. Also a case of jumping on a promising young player before his price goes up when he has success.
Hudson Swafford, $6,300. Has made eight of 12 cuts this season, with four top-25s. For good measure, was T-11 at the Palmer last year.
Jim Herman, $6,100. Has made eight of 12 cuts this season, with four top-25s. Sound familiar? That’s a good record for guys in this price range.

Last week…

David Barrett and I gave you our picks for the Cadillac. Both of us had terrible weeks as the best David could do was a T-11th, but he had three players miss the cut. My best finish was T-18th and I had four players make the cut
had cut problems, four of my guys missed the cut while two of David’s missed the cut.
David did pick the winner, but the rest of his picks didn’t help him much. Here is his results:

Player                       Price      Finish    FPts
Jordan Spieth       $12,800      T-18      66.5
Matt Kuchar $           9.800      T-11      67.5
Martin Kaymer         $7,500      Cut        23
Daniel Berger          $7,300      T-11      58.5
Francesco Molinari $6,900      Cut        17
Ricky Barnes           $5,700      Cut        23

Total FPts 255.5
24,436 out of 38,315 in 100K Hybrid, didn’t come close to winning

My picks were good enough to cash a check as I picked the winner and runner-up. Too bad that the rest of my picks prevented me from making a lot of money.

Player                      Price        Finish     FPts
Jordan Spieth        $12,800       T-18      66.5
Luke Donald           $8,300        T-22       55.5
Kevin Streelman      $8,200        Cut          9
Vijay Singh              $7,200       T-64        47.5
Colt Knost              $6,700        Cut         20.5
Thomas Aiken        $5,600         T-42         50
Total fantasy points 249
Placed 26,308 out of 38,315 in 100K Hybrid, didn’t come close to winning anything

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Tuesday March 15th, 2016

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4:30PM

So why was Bubba at Bay Hill last Friday…
Little did we know that Bubba Watson decided not to play the Arnold Palmer invitational because of some tightness in his lower back. According to Associated Press writer Doug Ferguson,
Watson made the decision on Friday before the deadline, then put his 4-year-old son Caleb into a auto and drove over to Bay Hill to tell Arnold Palmer personally about his decision. many thought that Watson wasn’t playing because he has a terrible case of allegories and had a attack of them back in 2014 after shooting 83, but that wasn’t the case.

Watson said he noticed something wrong after a 4-iron he hit out of divot during the third round at Doral, and another shot out of a divot with a 5-iron on the 18th hole. “It was right after impact the tightness was happening and pain where I could feel it,” Watson said.
So unfortunately with the schedule being the way it was and Watson playing next week at the Match Play he felt not playing this week was the right thing to do.
“You have to look at the big picture,” Watson said. “The big picture is the Olympics, the Ryder Cup. … A lot of therapy and a week of rest, I thought that would be the best for me going forward.”

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2:10PM

The ins and outs of being in the top 50 and possible problems for Ian Poulter…
Since joining the European Tour in 2000, Ian Poulter has led a dream life. He has won 14 times around the world with two of them coming in World Golf Championship events.  In Poulter’s first five years on the European Tour he won six times but the most important thing was getting into the top 50 of the world ranking in 2003.  He ended the year 42nd and it opened up a new door for him in which he was able to play all the WGC events and majors. He finished T-5th in the 2004 WGC-Match Play Championship and was able to get temporary membership to the PGA Tour, which turned into a full membership for 2005.
By playing in the three WGC and four majors, those seven events counted on both tours so that he could play seven less events in Europe. 2005 was a temporary setback, for the first time he didn’t win and he dropped out of the top 50 at the end of the year.  He had to work hard in 2006 but when he won the Open de Madrid, it set himself up for close to nine years.  The victory climbed him to 29th in the rankings, but more importantly allowed him to move to America and devote most of his time to playing on the PGA Tour and his clothing business.
Since 2007 Poulter has played in 232 events around the world but has only won seven times.  He has only had 38 top-tens, but more importantly he found a way to finish high in enough really big events to help him maintain his top-50 ranking.

In 2008 he was runner-up in the British Open, in 2009 it was a second in the Players Championship.  In 2010 he won twice, and one of them was the WGC-Dell Match Play.  In 2011 he won twice, once on the European Tour at the Volvo Match Play Championship and the Australian Tour’s JBWere Masters.  At the same time Poulter’s side business in clothing was thriving and he was a very wealthy man.  In 2010 he became a mainstay and hero in the Ryder Cup, thanks to his skills at match play and his team enthusiasm.  In 2012 he continued his winning ways with a victory in the WGC-HSBC Champions.  2013 could have been one of his best years, but he didn’t have a victory.  He was runner-up in the WGC-HSBC and DP World Tour Championship and also was T-3rd in the British Open and 4th in the WGC-Dell World Match Play.  He struggled in 2014 but finished the year with a T-6th in the WGC-HSBC Champions and 2nd in the Turkish Airlines Open.  2015 was the start of a slide in which he started the year 27th in the world rankings but slid to 51st on the week that the cut-off had come for the WGC-HSBC Champions.  Without being in the field for that event, it meant that he wouldn’t have enough total events on the European Tour to keep his card for 2016.  The first ramification of this was he wouldn’t get to play in the Ryder Cup.  Poulter was lucky because the European Tour helped broker a deal for him to get into the Hong Kong Open so that he would keep his European Tour card for 2016.
But things haven’t gotten any better.  He ended 2015, 56th in the world ranking, so that means he wasn’t going to play in WGC events and majors.  Poulter did have a T-6th in the 2015 Masters so that gets him into this year’s Masters, but when he didn’t get into the top-50 in time for the WGC-Cadillac, he missed that important event (first time he missed a WGC event since 2004).  Then he finished 75-75 at the Valspar to drop him into a tie for 67th and went down to 67th in the world ranking, which meant he won’t get to play in the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship—the second time he has missed a WGC by one spot.
Here is the problem for Poulter now that he is no longer in the top 50.  By not playing in the Cadillac and the Dell, those are two more events he will have to play on the European Tour.  Not playing in these two non-cut events mean that Poulter loses easy Ryder Cup points, right now he is 32nd in both the points and European Tour ranking so he will probably need a wild card pick from captain Darren Clarke.
So as Poulter tees off at the Palmer, his whole golfing life is drastically different.  Each event in which he doesn’t get a top-25 finish will drag him down the world ranking.  For each WGC event or major he doesn’t play, it means he has to add another event to be played in Europe.  So the future for Poulter looks very cloudy. It will be interesting to watch him in the coming months to see if he will play any better to improve his ranking, and, if not, what that will mean to his schedule.  I can’t think of anyone that has a better life than Poulter, he has a great family life and loves spending time with them in Orlando.  He has more money than he knows what to do with and at 40 it may be very difficult for him to change his routine to work his butt off on his game.

Only time will tell what happens, but 2016 is a serious year for him in which he has to make some tough decisions about his golfing future.

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2:00PM

May want to take a pass at Day for this week...
Jason Day talked with the media today and the topics ranged from how much he is worried that Jordan Spieth may have overextended himself, to the state of his game. Steve DiMegilo does a good job in this USA Today story on Day.
But the big topic for us as we look if we want to back him this week is if he can play well in Florida.  He has played in 25 events in Florida and only finished once in the top 10, a T-6th in the 2011 Players Championship.  Day says it’s got nothing to do with Bermuda grass or the design features of Florida courses, but more to do with the timing and he just is more focused to the majors coming up instead of worrying about the Florida events.  Day still feels that he can change things around this week, guess we have to see.
But if you go off past experiences, just look at the chart below and you will not feel like backing him this week.

One other item from Day’s press conference, he gave us his Masters plans.  He is playing in the Match Play next week, then taking the next week off but he will go to Augusta on Thursday, a week before the start of the tournament and will work hard the Thursday through Sunday before the week.  Have to say that even though he may not be playing well, he will be good for the Masters.

This is a look at all of the Florida events he has played in:

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11:00PM

This week’s Arnold Palmer…
The tour moves a hundred miles up Interstate 4 to Orlando and the Arnold Palmer Invitational.  Played on another great resort course, Bay Hill is the love and joy of Palmer, who fell in love with the course in 1965 when he played exhibition match on it with Jack Nicklaus.  Soon after, he got a group of investors and they leased the course until they bought it in the mid 70s.  The Tour had an old tournament in Orlando called the Florida Citrus Open and relocated the tournament to Bay Hill in 1979.
The key to the course is that for over 30 years Palmer would make changes and updates so the course was always up to date.  Even over the last year, Bay Hill went through some renovation with its greens, fairways and tees being re-grassed.  Palmer may not personally be hands on with these changes anymore, but he still is involved in the changes to improve Bay Hill.
Lot’s of storylines for this week, first you have Adam Scott back and looking to win his third straight start.  Looking back to 1970 nobody has ever won three times on the Florida swing, the closest was Tiger Woods in 2013 when he won three events in Florida, the WGC-Cadillac, Arnold Palmer and then, in May, The Players Championship.
Also in the field is Rory McIlroy and he will give fantasy golf players something to think about, he played well for three rounds in his last start at Cadillac, but fell flat in the final round.  With a week off to think and work out the kinks, McIlroy could be strong this week and take care of business.  Henrik Stenson is also playing, on the surface he could be the player to watch because of his string of good finishes in the Palmer (2nd last year, T-5th in 2014 and T-8th in 2013) plus his T-11th finish at the Valspar.
We also have Justin Rose playing, he was runner-up in 2013 but his last couple of starts his game has been sloppy.  He did finish the Cadillac with a 67 so maybe he has found some secret.  One person looking for some secrets is Jason Day, who has struggled on this course by not finishing in the top ten in his five starts, but mostly because he hasn’t played well since his win at the BMW Championship back in September.
One negative of this week is due to the PGA Tour scheduling the WGC Dell Match Play to the week after the Palmer.  With the change it forced a lot of players to look at their schedule and make changes.  Marquee names like Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson have taken this week off.  With Tiger not playing due to his surgery, the field is not as stellar as past years.   Have to also think that the withdrawals of Kevin Na and Patton Kizzire has something to do with them playing in the match play and needing the week off.
The course is in great shape, the only problem could be the weather, thunderstorms are predicted for the weekend, with Sunday possibly getting hammered.