An Awesome Week In Fantasy Sports

Sunday's Ford 400 was the last race of the real and fantasy NASCAR season for 2011. My team had been stuck in 5th place in my league for a few weeks but still in striking range of a top 3 spot.

Fortunately, I switched my lineup Sunday morning and started Carl Edwards. That move earned me enough points to take 3rd place for the season! The league competition was tough this year. After 36 weeks of racing, the difference between 3rd and 4th place was only 10 points!

Then both of my fantasy football teams won their games. It's always a good week when that happens. Even better with an upset win over a higher ranked team. As a bonus, I had the highest point total of the week in a league that awards for that. First time this season I've gotten it.

One more thing to be thankful for this week.

Fantasy Golf: Missing the Cut

It seems every major pro sport has a fantasy equivalent now. Football and baseball are the most well known but basketball, hockey, auto racing and even golf all have their own fantasy game. Fantasy Golf? Yup.

I've played fantasy football and fantasy NASCAR for years. For some crazy reason I decided to try fantasy golf this year. My reason was to see if I could use a similar strategy as I do in fantasy NASCAR, which has a similar format, to win in fantasy golf. (I need a better hobby)

I enjoy playing real golf but can't watch more than 5 minutes of it on TV. Golf news doesn't interest me and I don't follow the tour. For example, I'm such a PGA dunce that I didn't know the season had already started when I registered (did you know the tour starts in January?) and I had missed the first 4 tournaments! Fortunately there's not a draft and new players can join at any time.

But I like a challenge so I stuck with it. Despite earning 0 points for those first 4 tourneys and not following the sport at all (not easy given the news media's obsession with Tiger this year) I still finished the season in the top 37% of all Yahoo! fantasy golf teams!

That's not great but better than I expected. I'm guessing the bottom 50% probably quit updating their roster during the season.

In fantasy golf you should check your roster the day before and every day during a tournament. Every golfer doesn't play in every tournament so you have to make sure they're entered that week. Even then they might chicken out at the last minute...I got burned by a couple late withdrawals. Some of your starters might miss the cut before the final two days so make sure you at least check then...and hopefully your back up made the cut.

At the start of the season I picked my roster based on Yahoo's so called expert picks. They sucked. This caused some grief because I wanted to use the same strategy that works for me in fantasy NASCAR. That is to use the expert picks to fill my roster, then adjust as needed based on my knowledge and player starts remaining. I had to abandon that strategy after 4 or 5 weeks of lousy scores.

Next I switched to starting the scoring leaders who were entered that week. That worked a little better. By the middle of the season I realized that the biggest thing costing me points (other than not following professional golf) was players missing the cut...and me missing that they had missed the cut because I didn't check my roster Saturday morning.

So I looked at the ratio of a player's starts to their missed cuts (MC). If a player had 12 starts and 1 MC, he'd get the start over a guy with 11 starts and 3 MCs...even if player #2 had a higher average score. Since I didn't check my roster every day during a tournament, it was more valuable for me to have players with a higher likelihood of playing and scoring something versus a high scorer with a habit of missing cuts and scoring zero.

This approach worked well for me in the 2nd half of the season, my weekly scores got more consistent and I climbed in the rankings. If you follow golf regularly and are willing to dedicate the time to check your roster frequently then I don't recommend this strategy for you. But if you're someone with only a slight interest in golf that got roped into a fantasy league with your buddies, it could be worth a try.

Will I continue playing fantasy golf? No. This season was an experiment. None of my friends play it and I'm not interested in following the PGA tour. So there's nothing to justify the time cost...I'd much rather spend that time with my family or doing something productive.

But if you're into golf and fantasy sports...give fantasy golf a shot.

Fantasy NASCAR Mid-Season Update

Yesterday's Coke Zero 400 was the 18th race of the NASCAR season and the end of the season's first half. My fantasy NASCAR team finished the first half in the 85th percentile of all Yahoo! teams. Overall rank is 50,219 which means there are approximately 335,000 fantasy NASCAR teams playing in Yahoo! this year.

Within my league, I've been stuck in 6th place (out of 12) for weeks. Everyone ahead of me is in the 92nd percentile or better (1st place is in the 99th percentile). I'm only 51 points out of 4th place in the league. That gap could be made up in a single week. My team is doing well and the hope for a championship is still alive so I'm psyched about the 2nd half.

Yeah, I know, 85th percentile overall and 6th place in my league don't sound so great. Here's the kicker...I barely follow NASCAR at all. I've watched maybe 30 minutes of racing this season and I'm still leaving serious fans in the dust. This isn't the first time I've done it...my team has finished in the top 3 of my league the last two seasons. And I play with some hardcore NASCAR fans.

How do I do it? Luck...and I pay attention to my team. Fantasy NASCAR could be the easiest fantasy sport to play. There are many variables that can change the outcome of a race. You never know when a wreck or car trouble is going to take out a driver. Skim through Yahoo's weekly previews, pay attention to your driver starts and you'll do fine.

Looking ahead to the 2nd half, I have some challenges. I used up my last start for Junior this week and only have 1 left for Kyle Busch who has been on fire this year. The times I started him were usually when he didn't win. I'll try to use that last start wisely. They're the top two drivers in the B class. Hopefully a lot of other fantasy teams have maxed out their starts for those guys.

In the C class, I have 2 starts left for Brian Vickers who is the top C racer. I've been spreading out the A class starts so I'm in good shape there. I need to make up a 312 point gap to win the league championship and 18 races to do it. That's just over 17 points a race, definitely doable.

Good luck in your 2nd half!