This article is part of our Golf Draft Kit series.
For those of you who have a golf auction and bid a fixed budget on your golfers, the following is meant to be a guide.
These are the actual dollar values from our RotoWire staff golf league, which took place on Jan. 8. Our rules base winners on total earnings in PGA Tournaments from the Sony Open to the final FedExCup event (we skipped the SBS Tournament of Champions due to scheduling conflicts for the draft and also didn't use the fall portion of the 2016-17 wrap-around schedule), excluding those PGA Tour events held the same week as the World Golf Championship tournaments and the British Open.
Our format also includes bonus points for the four majors. As a result, some European players may be ranked higher than your league. If a European golfer plays in just the four majors and WGC tournaments, he'll still have a lot of value in our league. Our league had 14 members, a budget of $100 per team and each team starts five golfers per week with a total roster of nine golfers. The league has been around since 2000.
The 2016 draft had three players go for $70 or more after dominant 2015 seasons from Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day. Spieth was the top golfer at $80.
However, the 2017 auction was a bit more balanced with those three golfers plus Dustin Johnson going for between $61 and $66. Spieth was the top golfer again, but considerably cheaper than last year
For those of you who have a golf auction and bid a fixed budget on your golfers, the following is meant to be a guide.
These are the actual dollar values from our RotoWire staff golf league, which took place on Jan. 8. Our rules base winners on total earnings in PGA Tournaments from the Sony Open to the final FedExCup event (we skipped the SBS Tournament of Champions due to scheduling conflicts for the draft and also didn't use the fall portion of the 2016-17 wrap-around schedule), excluding those PGA Tour events held the same week as the World Golf Championship tournaments and the British Open.
Our format also includes bonus points for the four majors. As a result, some European players may be ranked higher than your league. If a European golfer plays in just the four majors and WGC tournaments, he'll still have a lot of value in our league. Our league had 14 members, a budget of $100 per team and each team starts five golfers per week with a total roster of nine golfers. The league has been around since 2000.
The 2016 draft had three players go for $70 or more after dominant 2015 seasons from Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day. Spieth was the top golfer at $80.
However, the 2017 auction was a bit more balanced with those three golfers plus Dustin Johnson going for between $61 and $66. Spieth was the top golfer again, but considerably cheaper than last year at $66.
I had a strategy to take younger golfers on the upswing of their career, but many went for more than I expected including: Justin Thomas ($29), Emiliano Grillo ($28), Daniel Berger ($28), Jon Rahm ($22), Si Woo Kim ($16) and Harris English ($19).
My team included Kevin Chappel (at $19 maybe overpriced), Matt Kuchar ($28) and Adam Scott ($33). I tried a more balanced approach after a star-and-scrubs approach last year with Speith at $80 resulted in a near bottom finish.
While these dollar values may not exactly fit your league's rules, this should be a good benchmark for your draft preparation.
$66 Jordan Spieth
$64 Dustin Johnson
$62 Rory McIroy
$61 Jason Day
$51 Patrick Reed
$50 Hideki Matsuyama
$41 Brooks Koepka
$38 Rickie Fowler
$33 Adam Scott
$31 Bubba Watson
$31 Brandt Snedeker
$29 Justin Thomas
$28 Emiliano Grillo
$28 Daniel Berger
$25 Russell Knox
$24 J.B. Holmes
$23 Matt Kuchar
$22 Jon Rahm
$22 Kevin Kisner
$21 Sergio Garcia
$20 Ryan Moore
$20 Paul Casey
$20 Jimmy Walker
$19 Kevin Chappel
$19 Harris English
$19 Henrik Stenson
$18 Justin Rose
$18 Jim Furyk
$16 Phil Mickelson
$16 Bill Haas
$16 Si Woo Kim
$15 Zach Johnson
$15 Tiger Woods
$14 Kevin Na
$13 Gary Woodland
$13 Jason Dufner
$13 Charl Schwartzel
$12 Scott Piercy
$11 Branden Grace
$11 Billy Horschel
$10 Tony Finau
$9 Charley Hoffman
$9 Chris Kirk
$9 Cody Gribble
$9 Byeong-Hun An
$9 Louis Oosthuizen
$8 David Lingmerth
$8 William McGirt
$8 Shane Lowry
$8 Roberto Castro
$8 Rafa Cabrera Bello
$8 Bryson DeChambeau
$8 Daniel Summerhays
$7 Luke Donald
$7 Jamie Lovemark
$7 Graeme McDowell
$7 Brian Harman
$7 Keegan Bradley
$6 Charles Howell
$6 Wesley Bryan
$6 Ryan Palmer
$6 Webb Simpson
$6 Jhonattan Vegas
$5 Russell Henley
$5 Harold Varner
$5 Marc Leishman
$5 Brenden Steele
$5 Smylie Kaufman
$5 Pat Perez
$5 Martin Kaymer
$4 Patrick Rodgers
$4 Hudson Swafford
$4 James Hahn
$4 Danny Lee
$4 Fabian Gomez
$4 Jonas Blixt
$4 Martin Laird
$4 Ollie Schniederjans
$4 Danny Willett
$3 Ben Martin
$3 Cameron Smith
$3 Cheng-Tsung Pan
$3 Jason Kokrak
$3 Kyle Reifers
$3 Bobby Wyatt
$3 Soren Kjeldsen
$3 Aaron Baddeley
$3 Matthew Fitzpatrick
$3 Kevin Streelman
$3 Patton Kizzire
$3 John Huh
$3 Robert Streb
$2 Hunter Mahan
$2 Peter Malnati
$2 Alexander Noren
$2 Adam Hadwin
$2 Sean O'Hair
$2 Tyrrell Hatton
$2 Thomas Pieters
$2 Bryce Molder
$2 Andrew Johnston
$2 Luke List
$2 Mackenzie Hughes
$1 Shawn Stefani
$1 Seamus Power
$1 Chris Wood
$1 Jason Bohn
$1 Gonzalo Fernandez Castano
$1 Fredrik Jacobson
$1 Jon Curran
$1 Anirban Lahiri
$1 Kyle Stanley
$1 Nick Watney
$1 Bud Cauley
$1 Jim Herman
$1 Derek Fathauer
$1 Graham DeLaet
$1 Trey Mullinax
$1 Grayson Murray
$1 Cameron Tringale
$1 Lucas Glover
$1 Ryan Blaum
$1 Cameron Tringale
$1 Colt Knost
$1 Billy Hurley
$1 Willy Wilcox
$1 Bernd Wiesberger
