The third stop of the 2018-2019 PGA Tour season will be in South Korea for the second leg of the annual Asia swing. Identical to last week, this tournament will be another limited field (78 golfers) and it’s also a no-cut event with all of the golfers guaranteed 72 holes of action.
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Storylines
There aren’t many storylines dominating the news in the fall schedule of the PGA Tour, but there is a surprising amount of quality talent in this field. Five players from the Ryder Cup will be participating, as well as Hideki Matsuyama and Jason Day, who have both been ranked inside the top five of the official world golf ranking in the past two seasons. Speaking of the OWGR, the biggest storyline heading into the week will be centered around Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka, who will both be vying for the world number-one ranking. And as a matter of fact, they will be paired together to start the week. Thomas has dominated the Asian circuit in the past two seasons, winning both the CIMB Classic as well as the CJ Cup in 2017. He finished fifth last week and posted the low round of 64 on Sunday. Given his recent success, he is the favorite this week.
The Course
First and foremost, this is a beautiful track. The 18th hole features an island green and is one of the most aesthetically appealing courses I’ve had the pleasure to research. I think one of the reasons why this field is more talented than most fall events on Tour is because of how scenic it is.
The Club at Nine Bridges plays as a Par 72 and stretches out to just under 7,200 yards. There is nothing overly tricky about the layout of this course. The fairways are more than generous and golfers found the green roughly 70 percent of the time. The greens are more undulated than most stops on Tour and golfers really struggled to putt here last season but I think that was more so based on how windy it was.
The winds were howling up to 20 MPH last season which is the reason why the winning score was only -9. If the wind cools down, you could see some of the top golfers approach -20 on Sunday.
Golfers to Target
Justin Thomas $11,600
His resume is simply too impressive to ignore here. I think he will be energized by the fact that he’s playing for the world number-one ranking as well. I know it’s chalk, but I think Thomas wins again this week.
Brooks Koepka $11,200
The best birdie-maker in the world arrives at a course that should yield A TON of birdie opportunities if the wind doesn’t play a major factor. Rostering these two won’t leave you with a ton of cap space left over, but there are a lot of value plays below $7,000 that are worth playing even in cash games.
James Hahn $6,200
Hahn is 1/1 in cuts made this season and has sustained the majority of his success on the PGA Tour in smaller events with less top-end talent.
Sung Kang $6,400
Kang was actually born in the town that’s hosting this event so he is very familiar with the course. He finished T54 here last season but has enjoyed more success on the two-leg Asian circuit than almost any other portion of the PGA Tour season. I would argue this is the most likely track for Kang to play well.
Michael Kim $6,600
Perhaps the most baffling PGA Tour performance of the 2018 season was put on by Kim at the John Deere Classic, where he carded an incredible -27 to win by eight strokes over Francesco Molinari. Kim has tapered off since that point but is from South Korea and he has historically played some of his best golf during this part of the season. Putting is one of the most important statistics to track this week if the wind picks up, and Kim is a lights-out putter when inside 20 feet. He ranks 12th on Tour from that distance.
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Shane Davies is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Shane, check out his archive and follow him @FantasySD1.
