DFS Golf Picks
Take in information from this article to improve your fantasy golf picks for the 2020 ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD, and check out FantasyData’s PGA Optimizer to bring new life to your daily fantasy lineups. Best of luck this week!
Recap from last week: Last week we were treated to the beautiful track and scenery at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, plus the competitive golf was absolutely spectacular as well in a loaded field. Congrats to Jason Kokrak for winning his first PGA Tour tournament, and what great timing as he received a big fat paycheck of $1.75M, wow!
Preview for this week: This week will see the PGA Tour shift from where it has been the last two weeks in Las Vegas to a bit further west in Thousand Oaks, California. Last year saw the first installment of the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP where it was held in Toyko, Japan, and was supposed to again this year but due to the pandemic and with travel restrictions in place, the event will remain on U.S. soil. Tiger Woods makes his first start since the U.S. Open – he’s also the defending and only champion as he won the inaugural event last year in Japan by three strokes over Hideki Matsuyama in his native country, and will look to defend his title this year in Cali.
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Tournament purse: The purse for this year’s event is $8M – down from $9.75M last year, the winner takes home $1.44M in prize money and earns himself 500 FedEx Cup points.
Course and key stats: This year’s ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP will be played at the Sherwood Country Club, it’s a par 72, is a short 7,073 yards, and the greens consist of bentgrass. This private country club currently has or has had many famous members including Justin Timberlake, Wayne Gretzky, Sylvester Stallone, Will Smith. O.J. Simpson, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, and many other celebrities from Hollywood. Some of the key stats you should factor in this week are Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Par 5s, Strokes Gained: Par 4s (under 450 yards), and Birdies or Better Gained.
The field: This week again is a no cut event so all 78 golfers will play 72 holes barring a withdrawal or a disqualification of some sort. On a scale ranging from A to D, I rank the field strength to be an A – it’s pretty much a major-caliber field without the depth of a larger field size.
Notable storylines: The biggest story with regards to the event this year is that it had to be moved from Japan to the U.S. due to the global pandemic. Tiger Woods is back in action for the first time in a month since the U.S. Open and fortunately for him, he won’t have to worry about missing back to back cuts since he failed to play the weekend at last month’s major tournament, and is still looking for his historic win number 83 to top all other players. Sherwood CC hosted Tiger’s tournament, the Hero World Challenge, from 2000-2013, so a decent number of players in the field this week have experience on this track.
Some bold predictions:
- Tiger Woods won on this course at the Hero World Challenge 5 times between 2001 to 2011, and was runner up 3 times during those ten years – he’s a Sherwood CC dynamo. With that being said though, his form right now isn’t very good and I don’t think we see him crack the top 25 this week. He’s likely eyeing up The Masters the most right now in hopes he can defend his win from last year.
- Schauffele continues his hot play for his forth straight event and gets the job done this week to win. He could have won last week but was 2 over in round 3 and came up two shots shy of Kokrak.
- Matthew Wolff had a tough week last week, but I think with his local roots in the Sherwood CC area and immense confidence and skill he will find his stroke again this week and have a top 10 finish.
Betting strategy this week: The field quality is again very strong this week and with no cuts to be made you have full freedom to build lineups any which way you want – I’ll personally be deploying lots of stars and scrubs lineup configurations. You may also want to take on more risk than you normally would with players who could boom or bust and try to win yourself a big GPP tournament.
All the best for earning some contest wins this week – here are my 15 DFS golf picks which feature my top 3 players from each tier on DraftKings (DK) in no particular order, plus I include player salaries for DK and FanDuel as well. I consistently provide recent and seasonal finishes for each of my picks, their performance at this event over the last 5 years (when available), and add in some helpful pieces of information as well.
The $10K+ Range
Xander Schauffele (Salary: DraftKings – $11.2K, FanDuel – $11.6K) – Schauffele is on a heater at the moment going runner up – 5th – runner up over his past three starts. He has also finished no worse than T25 over his past 10 starts, so there’s that too. He’s both elite and consistent which makes for a dangerous combination. ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP finish last year: T10
Justin Thomas (Salary: DraftKings – $10.6K, FanDuel – $11.8K) – Thomas won on the PGA Tour 3 times last season and I suspect he will net himself at least two wins this season. Over his past three starts he has a runner up finish, a T8, and was T12 last week no thanks to his 2 over 74 on Sunday. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if JT puts it all together this week and wins for the first time this season. ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP finish last year: T17.
Tyrrell Hatton (Salary: DraftKings – $10.0K, FanDuel – $10.9K) – Hatton really surprised me last week, I thought he was going to come back cold from England after his win and just play all four rounds so he could collect an easy paycheck. He was very impressive and collected a T3 when all was said and done, and is officially heating up again in time for The Masters next month.
The $9K Range
Collin Morikawa (Salary: DraftKings – $9.8K, FanDuel – $11.1K) – Morikawa missed the cut on the number at both the U.S. Open and Shriners but played well last week to finish T12 in Vegas. This week sees the local player coming to a course he’s quite familiar with and should excel given his deep track experience and high-end talent. He won twice last season and could enjoy a couple more wins this season assuming he maintains his elite ball-striking and killer instinct. ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP finish last year: T22.
Webb Simpson (Salary: DraftKings – $9.7K, FanDuel – $11.3K) – Simpson isn’t a flashy player but his short game is fantastic and he racks up top 10’s because of it. He has 10 top 10’s in his past 17 starts and two of those were wins last season. He has finished no worse than T13 over his past five starts and I see no reason why that won’t be extended to six this week.
Patrick Reed (Salary: DraftKings – $9.6K, FanDuel – $10.8K) – Reed is a grinder who consistently puts up strong performances – he has 6 top 13’s over his past 9 starts and is coming off a T3 at the BMW PGA Championship two weeks ago in England. ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP finish last year: T17.
The $8K Range
Harris English (Salary: DraftKings – $8.8K, FanDuel – $9.8K) – English came back strong last week with a 10th and that was after a rusty first round where he shot a 75. He’s consistently in the top 25 and has 3 top 10’s over his last 6 starts. He’s essentially been fairly elite over the past year or so without having to pay a fairly elite price – I like using him for both cash games and GPPs.
Joaquin Niemann (Salary: DraftKings – $8.4K, FanDuel – $9.7K) – Niemann has really been showing us his elite ball-striking over his past five starts having finished no worse than T27, having a T3 and a 6th last week thanks to a strong closing round 66. ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP finish last year: T33.
Russell Henley (Salary: DraftKings – $8.1K, FanDuel – $9.2K) – Henley was in contention last week sitting in the top spot after three rounds with a score of -15, but could only muster up a -2 on Sunday to settle for a T3. He has three top 9’s over his past 5 starts and the other two finishes were in the 20’s.
The $7K Range
Sebastian Munoz (Salary: DraftKings – $7.2K, FanDuel – $8.7K) – Munoz has been playing great since the first event of the playoffs last season with two 8ths, a 9th, a 23rd, 27th, and he was 59th at the U.S. Open. His salary has been fairly flat though throughout this run except for the Sanderson Farms Championship where his numbers were high in a weak field. He’s a low salary player again, that didn’t change this week even though he had a top 10 last week in a similar quality field.
Lanto Griffin (Salary: DraftKings – $7.0K, FanDuel – $8.1K) – Griffin had his best finish in many months last week with a strong T7 finish in Las Vegas. He now has 4 top 19’s over his past 7 starts and much like Munoz, is a fantastic value play this week.
Brian Harman (Salary: DraftKings – $7.3K, FanDuel – $8.3K) – I’ve been riding Harman since mid-August and the investments have paid off since he has 7 straight top 38’s. He comes in this week with top 15 potential and will surely pay off his salary pricing once again.
The $6K Range
Harry Higgs (Salary: DraftKings – $6.7K, FanDuel – $7.7K) – I don’t really like the $6K range this week on DraftKings but don’t mind what Higgs brings to the table with 3 top 21’s over his past 5 starts and he was runner up three starts ago at the Safeway Open. He was T21 last week and if he puts up a similar result this week then he’s more than worth his low price points on DK and FD.
Tom Hoge (Salary: DraftKings – $6.4K, FanDuel – $7.1K) – Hoge was field average last week in terms of his finish and was only $6.1K on DraftKings, so he was a solid value play and with only a $300K bump in salary on DK this week, I suspect he will be again. His past four starts have been between T24 to T38 so he’s been consistent for the past month.
Kevin Kisner (Salary: DraftKings – $6.8K, FanDuel – $8.3K) – Kisner hasn’t been in the $6K range on DK in quite some time so I like what he brings at near basement level pricing. He had two top 4 finishes in August and has 7 top 25’s over his past 10 starts overall. ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP finish last year: T66.
Recapping my 15 pick’s finishes from last week’s CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK
The $10K+ Range
- Dustin Johnson – Withdrew after testing positive for COVID-19
- Justin Thomas – T12
- Jon Rahm – T17
The $9K Range
- Tyrrell Hatton – T3
- Tony Finau – Withdrew due to COVID-19
- Viktor Hovland – T12
The $8K Range
- Sungjae Im – T45
- Louis Oosthuizen – T48
- Scottie Scheffler – T52
The $7K Range
- Brian Harman – T28
- Sebastian Munoz – 9th
- Alex Noren – 76th
The $6K Range
- MacKenzie Hughes – T65
- Cameron Smith – 11th
- Ryan Palmer – T17
