GOLF

For the fourth consecutive year, we conducted a fantasy golf draft on our weekly FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER program on SportsTalkNetwork.com on January 31, 2008 as a means of demonstrating to the readers, viewers and listeners of FDH content how to take their enjoyment of golf to the next level with a pool to be enjoyed among friends.  As with any sports that we cover, we furnish suggested league guidelines for your convenience.  So we'll start with that, then furnish our draft board.

SUGGESTED LEAGUE GUIDELINES

^ A standard serpentine-style draft serves as the best place to begin.  The only exception to this rule would be that the owner selecting Tiger Woods would only get a subsequent pick at his or her normal spots in the 4th and 6th round, owing to the dominance of Woods and the extent to which his presence in such a league skews the overall balance.

^ The ideal distribution of talent would be as follows: 6 teams drafted by 7 owners.

^ Because there are only a handful of tournaments that include a cross-section of the world's best golfers, we urge you to use only these events for your league's scoring system.  In so doing, the emphasis is kept on the skill level of the golfers as opposed to rewarding those golfers who thrive in the majority of events with the weaker rosters of competitors.  This method uses the four major tournaments and the eight "near major" tournaments.  These are the events utilized, in the order that they appear on the schedule, with the major tournaments in bold: AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (February 7-10), WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship (February 20-24 -- NOTE: award these points as follows -- players eliminated in the quarterfinals get 8th place points based on the below scoring system, players eliminated in the semifinals get 4th place points, the player eliminated in the finals gets 2nd place points and the player who wins the championship gets 1st place points), Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill (March 13-16), WGC-CA Championship at Doral (March 20-23), The Masters (April 10-13), The Players Championship (May 8-11), Memorial Tournament (May 29-June 1), U.S. Open (June 12-15), The British Open (July 17-20), WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (July 31-August 3), PGA Championship (August 7-10), The Tour Championship (September 25-28).

^ Scoring for the 8 "near major" tournaments is as follows: 90 points for 1st  place, 76 points for 2nd place, 60 points for 3rd place, 50 points for 4th place, 40 points for 5th place, 30 points for 6th place, 26 points for 7th place, 20 points for 8th place, 16 points for 9th place and 10 points for 10th place.  These points should be awarded also to the Top 10 finishers in the final Fed Ex Cup standings.

^ Scoring for the 4 major tournaments is as follows: 135 points for 1st place, 114 points for 2nd place, 90 points for 3rd place, 75 points for 4th place, 60 points for 5th place, 45 points for 6th place, 39 points for 7th place, 30 points for 8th place, 24 points for 9th place and 15 points for 10th place.

DRAFT BOARD DECODER

^ The FantasyDrafthelp.com draft board contains all the relevant information you need right at your fingertips.  Players are color-coded by their value by round in a 6-team draft.  1st round is gold, 2nd round silver and 3rd round bronze.  Golfers are underlined every time one tier of value ends and another one begins.  "1X" next to a golfer means that you want to have your first golfer drafted no lower than that point on the board, "2X" means that you want to have your second golfer drafted no lower than that point, etc.

^ The "Stat" column demonstrates how players performed according to our standard deviation from the mean statistic in 2007 (explanation provided with point #2 here).  The next column to the right ranks them according to this stat.  The next column lists the age of the golfer in 2008, then the number of events played in 2007, then the number of times the golfer made the cut in 2007, then the percentage of cuts made per events played, then the ranking based on that percentage, then the number of Top 10 finishes in 2007, then the ranking based on that number, then the number of tournaments won in 2007, then the ranking based on that number, then the number of Fed Ex Cup points earned in 2007, then the ranking based on that number, then the amount of money earned in 2007, then the ranking based on that number.