Casey Properly… Loves America?

Paul Casey is coming to America… again. You’ll recall the difficulties he had two years ago when an ill-timed remark about “properly hating” Americans during the 2004 Ryder Cup made him the most hated Brit this side of Colin Montgomerie. He claimed he was going to play full time in the States in 2005, but after four missed cuts and zero top-10s in his first six events, he tucked tail and played in only four more U.S. PGA events that season. He again spent last year in blissful anonymity amongst his fellow Europeans, but has now decided he needs to play in the U.S. full time to take his game to the next level.

“I want to play against Tiger (Woods), (Jim) Furyk and (Phil) Mickelson week in and week out,” he said. “I’ve got to test myself against those guys all the time. I want to win a major, at least one. And I think in order to raise my game, I’ve got to be here all the time.”

This is fantastic news for fantasy hackers. Casey ranks 21st in the Official World Golf Rankings and is generally regarded as one of the best young players in the game. In just 10 events a year ago, Casey carded four top-10 finishes on this side of the pond and played well enough across the Atlantic to finish 13th on the European Tour Order of Merit. It’s always tough to tell what, exactly, “full-time” means for professional golfers – my guess is he may play as many as 20 events, but not more – but Casey immediately became a top-notch fantasy sleeper the minute he announced his intention to challenge the American stars. In fact, I’m so excited about the possibilities here I’ve already moved him into the top 20 on my preseason cheat sheet.

2008 Fantasy PGA Golf Sleepers – Part I

I won’t get cute here. You know what a sleeper is, I know what a sleeper is, I know that you know what a sleeper is. Hence, let’s get started and check out some players you either don’t know about who might make an impact in 2008, or players you already know who might significantly exceed expectations.

Let’s start with a look at a handful of players who graduated from the Nationwide Tour to the Big Show this season.

Jason Day
Day, who has gotten so much pub recently that he only barely qualifies as a sleeper, was a decorated amateur in Australia before plying his trade a year ago on the Nationwide Tour. There, he became the youngest player ever to win a PGA-sanctioned event (yes, younger than Tiger) when he took the Legend Financial Group Classic Presented by Cynergies Solutions Niner Yadda Yadda Yadda in July. He followed that with three more top-five finishes in the next four events. His stated goal is to win twice on the pgatour this year (yes, just like Tiger), and everyone from fans to swing coaches to experts to yours truly has a serious crush on him. The kid can pound it off the tee, owns a deft short game, and can roll it in the cup on the short stuff. The only question is how much a wrist injury that befell him late last year will hamper him.

Nick Flanagan
Surprise, surprise – another Aussie. Flanagan would have been a shoe-in to lead the Nationwide circuit money list, only he was too good to stay on said Tour all season long. After winning his third Nationwide event of the season in August, Flanagan got a so-called “battlefield promotion” to the big leagues. He had to wait out the FedEx Cup Playoffs for a few weeks, then carded top-20 finishes in each of his first two events before finally running out of gas in October. The former U.S. Amateur champion has the game to thrive on Tour, and a victory in 2008 wouldn’t be surprising.

Richard Johnson
Troy Matteson, Zach Johnson, and Chad Campbell are among those who won the Nationwide Tour money title and went on to big things the following season on Tour. I’ll freely admit that I know next to nothing about Richard Johnson (I do know not to confuse him with “Little Richard” Johnson, the diminutive Swede who hasn’t amounted to much over the last several seasons on Tour), but the fact that he carded eight top-10 finishes and won two of his final four events a year ago is more than enough to convince me that he should factor into things one or way or another next year. Often, PGA Tour rookies are wildly inconsistent, but if you can catch them on a hot streak you can ride them for a month or more. I don’t know when that will happen for Johnson, but I’d be willing to bet that it will.

Jon Mills
Mills was having a solid campaign on the Nationwide circuit a year ago, then turned it into a great showing when he won the Albertsons Boise Open in late September, then followed that with three more top-10 finishes in his next four events. The Canadian native ranked second on the Nationwide Tour in All-Around ranking and third in scoring average, which may not impress you that much until you consider that Boo Weekley ranked first and fourth in those same categories in 2006, and he had a pretty amazing season last year. Also like Weekley, this will be Mills’ second season as a full-timer with the big boys, and his previous experience should suit him well.

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For more 2008 fantasy PGA golf sleepers, see Part II and Part III of the series.

Immelman Undergoes Surgery

Trevor Immelman underwent surgery to remove a growth from his diaphragm last week. Immelman came down sick during the South African Airways Open, and testing revealed the presence of a benign tumor on his diaphragm.

He is expected to miss six-to-eight weeks of action, but this news certainly isn’t good for Immelman’s fantasy prognosis. It was a mysterious injury in April of last season that sidelined Immelman for over a month and sapped much of his strength for another three months; that is, assuming we can attribute his four missed cuts and inability to card a single top 10 between the Masters and the PGA Tournament on his health issues. I’m not a doctor, but it seems like having surgery to remove a tumor from your diaphragm might hamper one’s ability to a) breath, b) maintain strength, and c) practice your golf swing. I was fully expecting a huge bounce back season from Immelman this year (especially after he won the Nedbank Golf Challenge in December), but now I’m not so sure.

Welcome to Fantasy Golf Weekly

Welcome to the Fantasy Golf Weekly blog. I have been writing about fantasy sports in general – and golf specifically, since 2004 for Fanball.com, one of the largest fantasy-only websites in the world. There aren’t a lot of us fantasy golf “experts,” but I have been recognized as one of the best; most recently as the champion of the 2007 pgatour.com experts rotisserie golf league. Above and beyond my qualifications as a writer and fantasy golf analyst, I am an avid golfer, fan, and I have participated in, and have familiarity with, just about every fantasy golf game on (and off) the internet.

Fantasy golf is just one tiny corner of the enormous fantasy sports universe, but I’ve found that its practitioners are both very passionate and very interested in digesting in-depth analysis and advice. To that end, my goal in this blog is to provide useful and entertaining advice on a weekly basis – from weekly previews and rankings to commentary about a specific player or trend. Feel free to ask questions or comments about what you like and/or don’t like.

-Christian Peterson