RotoWire Staff/Expert League Results

Scottie Scheffler not only was the top golfer in this year's RotoWire annual staff/expert golf league, he went for a maximum amount only seen in the heydays of Tiger Woods. Scheffler went for $92 out of a $100 budget each manager has in the league that includes the full season of PGA Tour events.

RotoWire held its annual staff golf league draft Monday, Jan. 6 and the results are a good guide for those who have a season-long golf league and spend a fixed budget on golfers. 

Scheffler dominated the golf world and the staff/expert golf league with seven wins, one major win and earnings in our format that were 60% more than the runner up. He was such a dominant force that our league debated whether to change the rules to divide Scheffler into parts where a manager would only acquire his earnings for a single month or quarter. Our league used such a rule from 2008-2010 when Tiger Woods was divided into months for bidding in the auction. Woods was so dominant that the auction became a race to see who could put forth a maximum bid to win Woods (the maximum bid this season is $92 since you are required to roster nine golfers). If Scheffler repeats his performance the league may have to spit him into parts next season.

Our rules base winners on total earnings in PGA Tournaments from The Sony to the final FedExCup event (we skipped The Sentry with its winners-only field), excluding alternate-field events (such as the Puerto Rico Open). We also use only a fraction of the TOUR Championship event money since it's massive relative to the other tournaments.

Our format also includes bonus points for the four majors. As a result, some European and LIV players may be ranked higher than your league. If a European or LIV golfer plays in just the four majors, he'll still have a lot of value in our league (such as Bryson DeChambeau who won a major and earned $6.9 million the majors alone). LIV golfers in particular pose an issue for the league. How much do you pay for one of the top players in the world who may play in only a few majors and no other PGA Tour events? Our format also has risk that a golfer could move to the LIV tournament during the PGA Tour season, as Tyrrell Hatton did last year shortly after our draft.

Our league had 15 members, a budget of $100 per team and each team starts five golfers per week with a total roster of nine golfers. There's weekly free agent pickups as well. The league has been around since 2000 and was once featured in the New York Times.

Despite Scheffler suffering a hand injury that will keep him out until at least late January, the bidding on Scheffler reached the high $70s and then low $80s before Greg Vara decided to just end the drama and go for a max bid. After Scheffler, it was a significant drop-off to Xander Schauffele who went for $61. Still, that's in the ballpark of last year's top golfer when Scheffler went for just $69. Five golfers did top $50 with Ludvig Aberg ($57), Rory McIlroy ($53) and Collin Morikawa ($53) joining the ranks. Still, the max bid on Scheffler did alter the top of the market as just 14 players cost more than $30, down from 18 last year.

I went into the draft willing to pay a max of $50 for a top-five projected golfer but mis-read the market as the Scheffler max bid didn't depress the top of the market as much as hoped. McIlroy went for just $53, which put him tied for fourth most expensive in our draft when he's usually a consensus top two or three player despite his recent inability to win a major. I instead decided to take two of RotoWire's top-ten projected earners at decent prices as the core for my team with Wyndham Clark at $35 and Sam Burns at $34. That left me with little budget left and I likely overpaid for J.T. Poston at $11 which cost me in the end game.

Among the golfers the league was higher on than projections were Justin Thomas, who at $40 was the eighth most expensive golfer despite a second-straight year without a victory. Akshay Bhatia went for $29, which was 15th most despite him ranking 28th in RotoWire's projections. The league brushed aside injury concerns for Will Zalatoris ($31), who went a surprising 14th overall. Several managers were high on Aaron Rai who was bid up to $23 despite him ranking 44th in RotoWire's projections. Other buzzy sleepers who went for more than anticipated were Robert MacIntyre ($23), Nick Dunlap ($15), Max Greyserman ($14) and Thriston Lawrence ($3). 

Davis Thompson ($16) may have been the best value among the top golfers as he went for the 32nd most despite being 16th in RotoWire's projections. I hopefully got a value on Taylor Pendrith ($12) who went 38th overall despite listed at 17th in RotoWire's projections.

LIV players DeChambeau ($6) and Jon Rahm ($6) still went for significant money due to their spot in the majors, but they'll be hard to hold on the roster in between. I paid $1 for Dustin Johnson hoping to catch lightening like I did last year with a $1 purchase of DeChambeau.

While these dollar values may not exactly fit your league's rules, this should be a good benchmark for your draft preparation.

Here are the participants:

Greg Vara - RotoWire golf writer
Len Hochberg - RotoWire golf writer
Kevin O'Brien - RotoWire golf editor
Jeff Ritter - Managing Director of SI Golf
Jeff Erickson - RotoWire senior editor
Peter Schoenke - RotoWire president (and worst real golfer in league)
Tim Schuler - RotoWire COO (and the league's best actual golfer)
Scott Pianowski - Yahoo! fantasy writer (and league's defending champ)
Ryan Pohle - RotoWire DFS Product Specialist and golf writer
Scott Jenstad - RotoWire NFL DFS podcast host and high-stakes baseball champ
Mike Regan & Daryl Shevin - friend and former RotoWire staff contributor, respectively
Josh Ross - former RotoWire staff contributor
Justin Green - former RotoWire staff contributor
James Ybiernas - former RotoWire staff contributor
Joe Sheehan - baseball scribe of the Joe Sheehan newsletter and elsewhere