Genesis Open Recap: A New No. 1

Bill Parcells was often quoted as saying, and it surely is the mindset of most NFL coaches and coaches in general, that the losses are worse than the wins are good, the losses stay with you longer than the wins do.

We in the fantasy golf world are not coaches, but we do win and lose every week, just like Parcells did. Heck, in some fantasy sports we win and lose every day. We even make player personnel decisions of sorts.

Some days you do your research, make good picks and it just doesn't work out. That's fantasy golf, that's fantasy sports. But sometimes you make dumb picks and well, that's on you. Or in this case, me.

In the RotoWire value picks for the Genesis Open at Riviera, I picked the winner, one of the runners-up, another top-5 finisher and a fourth golfer who was in the top-10. I finished first in my DraftKings cash game. Yet right now I can't stop thinking about some really bad player personnel decisions.

-- How in the world did I pick Jason Day over Adam Scott?
-- How could K.J. Choi not have a been one of the long-shot picks?

The answer is simple: I didn't follow the advice I prescribe here often: I tried to overthink things (and I succeeded masterfully).

The No. 1 golfer in the world, Day, at only $10,000? That's a steal, I thought. Except Day was the best golfer only in OWGR math and not really actual recent golf. Plus, he had never played well at Riviera. On the other hand was Scott, a former champion in Los Angeles, runner-up in 2015 and $700 cheaper. Scott tied for 11th, which maybe doesn't match up with his $9,300 price tag. But Day didn't break 70 and tied for 64th. In hindsight, this was a no-brainer.

Choi is like 87 years old but had made the Riviera cut all 87 of those years. We kid. Actually, he's 46 had played the tournament every year since 2001 and had made the cut every single year. Plus, he was at $6,400, the cheapest price in the entire field. Oh, he's old, had missed six of seven cuts overall and can't keep this going forever, I thought. Choi tied for 17th. Most times, current form trumps course history, but when you're spending only $6,400 on a long-shot gamble and the successful course history goes back almost two decades and not just two tournaments … I just overthought the whole thing.

There were some picks that were no-brainers that panned out: Dustin Johnson (winner), Seung-Yul Noh in Tier 3 (T11) and Thomas Pieters among the long shots (T2).

This was such a screwy tournament, because of the weather, that it threw a lot of research out the window. Some guys just don't play well in the rain, don't like the starts and stops and the long delays.

Maybe tuck that away in the back of your mind for next year's Genesis Open, that this tournament was a bit of an outlier because of the extreme conditions.

But also tuck away in the back of your mind that Adam Scott and K.J. Choi play well at Riviera.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Dustin Johnson

There's not much to say here. Johnson won the tournament by five shots to take over the No. 1 ranking in the world from Jason Day. He plays well almost every week, had played well almost every year at Riviera. He should be a lineup consideration every week he plays. And, while he won't win every week, it still would be hard to argue against picking him.

Jason Day

It seemed like Day was hanging on to No. 1 for a while now. He hadn't won since May, but no one guy had done enough to dethrone him. Well, now Johnson has done enough. Day tied for fifth the week before at Pebble, and was done in only by a few brutal holes in a third-round 75. But world No. 1s don't have many brutal holes. More importantly, Day, who had one of the greatest putting seasons ever in 2015-16, crushing the next best guy, Jordan Spieth, is 186th in strokes gained putting this season. That's not a No. 1-ranked golfer. That's not even a top-25.

Bubba Watson

If you think 186th in SGP is bad, Watson is 210th. Out of 213 ranked golfers. Watson is 15th in the world rankings, down from No. 10 at the end of 2016. He missed the cut at Riviera, where he had won the tournament two of the three previous years. This could get ugly.

Thomas Pieters

Most of us know Pieters from the 2016 Ryder Cup, one of Europe's lone bright spots. Now we know it wasn't just patriotism guiding him. The young Belgian tied for second at Riviera, where he had won the 2012 NCAA Championship for Illinois over the likes of Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and others. He's up to 33 in the world and is close to securing Special Temporary Membership on the PGA Tour. He should have it soon, maybe even after this week at the Honda Classic.

Justin Rose

After back injuries derailed Rose last season, he looks like a new golfer so far in 2017. He tied for fourth at Riviera, his third top-4 in four starts. Really, he's had only one bad round of the 16, and that poor Sunday led to a T39 at Pebble. If Rose is healthy, and he appears to be, he becomes part of the conversation in the majors and WGCs.

Wesley Bryan

Bryan entered the season last fall as one of the New Hot Golfers. He won three times on the Web.com Tour and was ready to take on the big boys. Through eight tournaments, however, Bryan had missed half his cuts without a top-40 cash. At Riviera, he tied for fourth, displaying all the skills many expected – and in by far the top field of 2017. So, is this the new norm? Not T4s every week, of course, but rather a turning point in his season? For now, the guess is that Riviera was an aberration, not because Bryan isn't good, but because it's just so dang competitive on Tour.

Martin Laird

Almost every week, someone comes out of the blue to have a good week and we wonder: Is this guy now good? More times than not, said guy goes back to where he came from the very next week. And maybe we thought that about Laird last month when he tied for ninth at the CareerBuilder. But he's now added T7 at Phoenix and T8 at Riviera to give him four top-10s in only eight starts. That's just two shy of his career best from 2011. Laird is no slouch; he's a three-time winner. He hasn't won in four years, but it's very possible he could do it again in 2017. Laird is not going back to where he came from.

Luke Donald

Donald has top-25s his past two starts, including T17 at Riviera, where he had a decent course history. And he basically gave away two shots the last two holes. Donald also has played well at the Honda, so the Englishman could be in for another good week. Fun fact that matters little: Donald held the No. 1 ranking for 56 weeks, while Day was toppled after 51.

Justin Thomas

Thomas has come down to earth after his Hawaiian Double. He missed the cut at Phoenix and tied for 39th in L.A. Thomas isn't as good as he was in Hawaii; nobody is. Those courses suited him better than most. At the Honda this week, he's at a course that suits him.

Scott Piercy

Piercy opened the season nine for nine in cuts, with two top-5s. But heading to L.A., he had run off four straight weeks without a top-40 showing. Clearly, he was leaking oil, and Piercy stalled at Riviera with a missed cut. Piercy plays a lot of tournaments, so it's probably a good thing he's sitting out the Honda. We'll need to see whether his brilliant run from last summer is fully in the past.

Brooks Koepka

Here's another guy to wonder about. Koepka trunk-slammed at Riviera and now has gone MC-T42-MC his past three starts. He will be at the Honda, where he's made three straight cuts, so we'll know a lot more about Koepka's game in short order.

RotoWire value picks

Last week: Winner (Spieth), four top-5s, eight top-25s, one MDF, three missed cuts.

This week: Winner (Johnson), runner-up (Pieters), four top-10s, six top-25s, four missed cuts, one WD.

We tabbed 16 value picks. Hideki Matsuyama was tops at $11,500 and he missed the cut. So that pick was an F. Johnson was gold at $11,400. Day, as mentioned above, was also an F (can it be worse, can it be a G?). And Sergio Garcia at $9,300 was also weak. Justin Rose at $8,400 headed Tier 2, and his T4 paid off nicely. Shane Lowry withdrew, Marc Leishman missed the cut and Keegan Bradley tied for 34th, so Tier 2 was also bad. We really made up ground in Tier 3 and the long shots, however. Seung-Yul Noh was T11 and Branden Grace was T22 in Tier 3, along with J.B Holmes (T34) and Brendan Steele (T39). The long shots were the best, with Thomas Pieters T2 and Ollie Schniederjans T8. Kelly Kraft and Luke List missed the cut.

We finished first in our DraftKings cash game, with a lineup of Johnson, Garcia, Rose, Holmes, Steele and Pieters totaling 530.5 points.