Fantasy Golf Picks-2015 Hyundai Tournament of Champions

Aloha! Welcome to 2015 and our weekly dose of Fantasy Golf Picks starting this week with the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.  The PGA Tour’s winners from last year tee it up at The Planation Course at Kapalua Resort in Lahaina starting this Friday.

Just a quick reminder, in the new format the PGA season officially has been going on for a few months now, but 2015’s schedule of tournaments starts this week.  It’s also the first week of the Yahoo! fantasy golf game which you can play for free and be sure to join our FanSided group. Details to join and a brief scoring overview can be found by clicking here.

This week’s tournament isn’t quite the headline event, but it counts for the same fantasy points as the Majors, so getting your roster right to get off to a fast start is essential.  The Hyundai is a nice return to golf after the holidays for the PGA with no cut and the second-smallest field of any tournament-34 golfers are scheduled to compete. The course itself is unique since it’s the only par-73 on this year’s schedule and features the trademark elevation changes and stunning Hawaiian views PGA fans have come to expect for the first couple weeks of every calendar year while much of the country remains locked in the grasp of winter.

You’ll enjoy the views much more if your fantasy players are in the hunt coming down the stretch. There are so many ways to play fantasy golf with daily fantasy sports getting into the act, the PGA’s own game on their site, and other salary cap options.  For the purposes of my weekly fantasy golf picks, I’m going to sort the picks into the lists used in the Yahoo! game and pick eight golfers each week.  These are the players I expect to perform well this week, so you can modify them to fit into your roster whatever format you choose to play this season. However you’re playing this year, get your roster ready with the help of these fantasy golf picks for this year’s Hyundai Tournament of Champions:

A-List

Bubba Watson: With only eight options from the A-list teeing it up this week, Watson get my pick from the limited pool.  He won three times on tour last year including his last PGA start at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in November. While Watson starts will be important, I don’t expect to max out my ten for the season, so I’ll go ahead and use one this week at Kapalua. Watson didn’t play this event last season, but he had a strong t4 in 2013 in his last trip to this event.

J.B. Holmes: For my second A-list spot, I’ll roll the dice on Holmes who hasn’t played this event since 2009 but did finish in the top five in 2007.  Holmes qualified for this event with a win at the Wells Fargo Championship in May of last year and since then has three top-25’s as well as four missed cuts. Since there is no cut this week, both Holmes and Watson are guaranteed to play all four rounds meaning you can totally swing for the fences with your bench plays since they can’t come back to haunt you by missing the cut and leaving you with no one for the weekend.

B-List

Matt Kuchar: The B-List is full of good options this week including top-ten machine Kuchar who won last year’s RBC Heritage as one of his 11 top-ten finishes.  One of those finishes was at the Hundyai where he tied for sixth giving him four straight top ten’s in his last four trips to Kapalua.  He has not won this event, but he’s always a safe play and a good bet to be near the lead on Sunday.

Jimmy Walker: Last season, Walker started the year on fire winning three times by mid-February. He followed that up with seven top ten’s the rest of the year and had a top five in the Fall Series as well.  Walker is another safe pick who I’ll use often this year, but I think he is a good pick to challenge for the win this week at The Plantation Course.

Jason Day: I thought Day would be a breakout star last year, but much of his season was derailed by a number of injuries.  He was my pick to win the Accenture Match Play Tournament which he did in order to qualify for this event to kick off 2015. Day also finished the season strong with top-ten finishes in three of the last four tournaments of the season.  Day also performs well in Majors, and I think there’s a very good shot he will finally get a Major win this season.  He’s one of my favorites on tour and will be on my team a lot again this season, so I’ll start him on the bench to save one of his ten starts if he isn’t challenging for the win.  In his only previous trip to this event he finished in the top ten in 2011.

Billy Horschel: Horschel posted the lowest score of the weekend last year at the Hyundai finishing tied for sixth. He can be very hard to beat when he gets his game going as he proved by closing out last season with a win at the BMW Championship and the TOUR Championship after a co-runner up finish at the Deutsche Bank Championship the week before.  He’s a streaky golfer, and his current form is unpredictable due to the holiday layoff.  However, he’s worth a gamble in your last roster spot on the B-list this week.

C-List

Ryan Moore: Moore claimed a win this season at the CIMB Classic and he has a pair of top tens in the past at Kapalua.  Moore is a steady option who tends to do well on specific courses, so consider him a horse for the course and go with him this week from a C-List with plenty of options all of which are a risk for one reason or another.

Sang-Moon Bae: Bae has also already has a win out Tour this season since he claimed the Frys.com Open in October. He also notched a top-five finish in the CIMB Classic in early November, and he’s one of the few C-List players who played in the Hyundai last year finishing t21.