Build-A-Golfer, created by the family of Aussie tour pro Cam Davis, is the next way of following the PGA Tour with an elevated level of interest.
We all know which tour players shine brightest in the various departments of the game. Rory McIlroy’s driver is the envy of anyone who’s witnessed the Northern Irishman wield the big stick. Scottie Scheffler is the firmly entrenched world No.1 largely thanks to his stellar iron play, while the PGA Tour is littered with excellent putters and short-game wizards.
Not all tour players do everything well, yet what if they did? What if a mythical golfer existed who possessed all the best skills? Imagine being able to combine McIlroy’s driving prowess, Scheffler’s irons, the short game of Shane Lowry and Russell Henley’s putting? How well would that golfer perform?
It’s no longer just a theory. In what is the next step in fantasy golf, the Australian-driven Build-A-Golfer website and app lets you assemble the various playing skills of your favourite players into a hybrid super-golfer who competes against the rest of the PGA Tour every week.
There’s another cool aspect to Build-A-Golfer. It’s been created by the brothers of Australian PGA Tour player Cam Davis. In fact, the idea behind it came from the family’s collective desire to follow Davis at each event in which he competes (even Davis’s grandmother plays Build-A-Golfer). His position in the game has also seen the PGA Tour provide officially licensed data for the concept. It also helps that two of Cam’s brothers – Ben and Austin – work as software engineers.
“You essentially create your own ‘Frankenstein’ golfer to play in the tournament against the pros,” explains one more Davis brother, Jason. “You are building a golfer to hit each of the four main shots… and you’re choosing the professionals’ skills in those areas and those skills are contributing to your own personal score.”
Build-A-Golfer is only in its early phases of development but is established enough to have several hundred players with more joining each week. You can create your own public or private league, play solely within the broader population of pundits or do both.
“We’re more like a second-screen product that you enjoy using while watching the golf because hopefully you engage during the golf,” Jason says. “It might be more fun following your six best mates on the leaderboard than following 500 people worldwide. The big thing about our game is it’s free to play and free to join – no strings attached.”
How it works
All participants create a new chosen super-golfer for each week. There is a $100 budget allocated across the four disciplines with players placed at different value levels depending on their rolling statistical records (you also must choose four different golfers). In the example pictured, the hybrid of Hideki Matsuyama, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka and Jackson Koivun gave us a mashup-named tour pro named “Brodeki Spoivun” [right] for the recent Wyndham Championship.
While the assembled player is set once the tournament tees off for the first round, each week offers a fresh opportunity to compile a new eclectic golfer, depending on who’s in the field and the skillsets favoured by the golf course being played.
The results then depend on how each of those four golfers – one selected for each of driving, iron play, short game and putting – performs using the PGA Tour’s vaunted Strokes Gained (SG) metrics. If your chosen driver thumps one 350 yards down the middle of the fairway, you’re in luck. Their SG number will be high and will stand you in good stead ahead of the next shot. When your chosen iron player reaches the same hole, the quality of their iron shot will then contribute to your SG number for the hole. And so on with short game and putting, until the respective SG numbers tally to produce a score for the hole that goes onto your personal scorecard. Then it’s a case of repeating that process for the 72 holes – and then going through the same process each week for the full season where points are earned based on results, as with the PGA Tour.
“My grandmother plays this game,” Jason Davis says of Build-A-Golfer’s simplicity. “So anyone can play. You can just drag four players in that you know and if they fit within the budget, which is very easy to determine, you’re probably going to have a good week because you know them for a reason – they’re good at golf.”
Once the tournament begins, you can track how your hybrid player is performing against the actual field on the leaderboard within the Build-A-Golfer website and app, much like you might follow the Australians in any given week. You can also track anyone you’re competing against in your league. And your following efforts can be as cursory as a quick score check or as deep as a shot-by-shot analysis. Because every player in the field impacts SG figures, it takes until the completion of each round for the scores to be locked in, but in-play checks will still provide indicative scores and positions.
For anyone who has engaged more deeply with golf or indeed other sports, this is fantasy fanaticism taken to a new level. Build-A-Golfer requires strategic and form-based selections, while also rewarding prior knowledge. Equally, a quick selection made when time is short might just yield a surprisingly good result. This is competing without betting, too, which feels more involved than simply placing a wager or two and sitting back and hoping for a good outcome.
For the Davis family, their initiative has turned a humble wish to follow the progress on tour of their brother/son/nephew/grandson into a modern pastime that golfers around the world can enjoy.
A new Build-A-Golfer league will begin with the “PGA Tour Fall” from September 17. Visit buildagolfer.com to join or for more information.
