PGA DFS Picks
The Honda Classic
Digest the information you need from this article to enhance your fantasy golf picks for The Honda Classic, and check out our PGA Lineup Optimizer to make more informed player selections for your DFS lineups. Best of luck this week!
Recap from last week: It was an emotional win at The PLAYERS Championship for Justin Thomas, it appeared that his mind went right to his Grandpa once it was confirmed he won the tournament. Congrats to JT, it was great to see him win after a tumultuous past few weeks and everything was wearing on his mind he said. It was also incredible to see Lee Westwood secure another runner-up finish making it back-to-back for him at two significant events – The PLAYERS Championship and the Arnold Palmer Invitational. One of the biggest tournaments has just wrapped up, but not too worry as lots of big events lie just ahead, most notably, The Masters in just three weeks’ time.
Preview for The Honda Classic: This is week four of four for the PGA Tour’s Florida swing – we have been treated to some excellent golf over the last month in the sunshine state. It’s a bit hard to get back up for this week after coming off The PLAYERS Championship last week, but many of us fantasy golf users are actually happy to move on from that tournament since so many elite and highly owned golfers missed the cut and ruined many lineups. The Honda Classic dates back to 1972 when it was originally named Jackie Gleason’s Inverrary Classic – Honda has now been behind this event since 1982, however. This tournament is now known as one of the very toughest on the PGA Tour since arriving on this track in 2007 – just three times has the winner got into the double digits to secure his victory over the last 14 years. The past five winners of this event include Sungjae Im in 2020, Keith Mitchell in 2019, Justin Thomas in 2018, Rickie Fowler in 2017, and Adam Scott in 2016.
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Tournament purse: The prize money for this year’s event is set at $7M, which is less than half of last week’s $15M at The PLAYERS Championship but $7M is typical on the PGA Tour, the winner receives $1.26M and also earns himself 500 FedEx Cup points.
Course and key stats: PGA National Resort and Spa – Champion Course, is fairly short at just 7,125 yards in length, is a par 70, and the greens are again Bermuda. The winning score over the past decade here ranges from -6 to -12 – last year’s winning score by Im was -6 and we could see something similar this year depending on the weather and how tough the track is setup/plays. The tournament record on this course is -13 by Camilo Villegas in 2010 when he won handily by five strokes over Anthony Kim. Some of the key stats to put into your custom models this week are strokes gained: approach, driving distance, driving accuracy, strokes gained: around the green, and strokes gained: tee-to-green.
The field: The field consists of 144 golfers, and as per usual, the top 65 players plus ties will get to play rounds 3 and 4 on the weekend. The field isn’t very impressive but we get defending champ Sungjae Im, past number one in the world and champ here, Adam Scott, former star and champ here also, Rickie Fowler, Florida-native, Daniel Berger, and others. Nobody in the field has won this event more than once, but a few guys might change that this week should they reign supreme on Sunday evening. On a scale ranging from A to D, I rank the field strength to be a C-.
Lineup construction strategy this week: There are ten fewer golfers in the field this week compared to last, so your chances of getting 6/6 into the weekend are slightly better. I would recommend going with hybrid or balanced lineups this week as stars and scrubs doesn’t seem so good because the stars don’t shine very bright to me and the scrubs are not very impressive by any means. I’m sure you had lots of mediocre lineups from last week too, so you will likely want to get as many of your lineup’s players into the weekend as possible to try to recoup some losses. If you were profitable last week then I give you full props on your selection skills and/or the amount of luck you received.
All the best in your quest to win some contests 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, as well. I consistently provide recent and seasonal finishes for each of my picks, their performance at this event over the last 5 years, and add in some helpful pieces of information, also.
The $10K+ Range
Sungjae Im (Salary: DraftKings – $11.0K) – Im is a consistent performer on a weekly basis and always seems to play very well on Florida tracks. He backdoored a T17 last week at The PLAYERS Championship thanks to his -6 on Sunday, and has only finished outside the top 30 once in his last six starts, and the one outside was a T32. He’s the defending champ at this event and certainly has the makeup to repeat this week. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – Won and 2019 – T51.
Daniel Berger (Salary: DraftKings – $10.8K) – After Berger’s two-over par in round 1 last week, it looked like he might miss the cut but he came back strong in round 2 with a -4 and ended up finishing T9 when all was said and done. The Florida-native loves him some golf in his home state and tends to play well as a result. He’s solid in all of the major stat categories – if his putting rebounds from last week then expect another top 10 for him with the upside to win for the second time in four starts. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T4, 2019 – T36, 2018 – T29, 2017 – Cut, and 2016 – Cut.
Lee Westwood (Salary: DraftKings – $10.6K) – Lee f&*king Westwood, wow! He strides into this week coming off of consecutive runner-up finishes over the past two weeks – he just needs a better round 4 and could be in the winner’s circle as early as this week. Everything seems to align for him this week as he’s super hot gaining more than 13 strokes total over the last two weeks, and had a strong finish here a year ago. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T4.
The $9K Range
Talor Gooch (Salary: DraftKings – $9.3K) – Gooch tied for the most birdies in the field last week with 22 – also a season-high for him, to finish T5. He now has 3 top 10’s this season in 14 starts and he has only missed one cut in his last six starts. His off-the-tee game was weak last week but he gained in all of the other major stat categories, and if he does something similar this week he should finish top 10 once more. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T38, 2019 – T20, and 2018 – Cut.
Shane Lowry (Salary: DraftKings – $9.2K) – Lowry picked a great week to have his first top 10 of the season as he was T8 last week thanks to a strong weekend of play. The reigning Open Champion winner also has a pretty decent record at this event, nothing is spectacular but each finish has gotten better than the last – if the trend continues he should have a top 20 this week. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T21, 2018 – T49, and 2016 – T53.
Chris Kirk (Salary: DraftKings – $9.0K) – Kirk was heading towards a top 10 finish last week after round 2 when he had a -7, but Sunday’s round of +7 derailed that completely and he settled for a T48. Nonetheless, he has only missed one cut in his last ten starts, has two top 10’s, and five top 20’s during that stretch. If Kirk can get his putter working this week then he should have another solid finish this week – he lost 4.43 strokes with the flat stick last week. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – Cut, 2018 – T33, and 2016 – Cut.
The $8K Range
Brendan Steele (Salary: DraftKings – $8.7K) – Steele has now made seven consecutive cuts finishing anywhere from T4 to T43. The streak could come to an end this week if he has to depend on his putter like he did last week after losing on approach, ball striking, and tee-to-green, but I think he gets his iron play back under control to have a good finish – his track record at this event is superb too, so that doesn’t hurt. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T4, 2019 – Cut, 2017 – T14, and 2016 – T14.
Doug Ghim (Salary: DraftKings – $8.8K) – Ghim was looking like a real threat to win his first PGA Tour event last week after round 3, but his final round was all nerves as he shot a 78 and dropped to T29. He goes from being a $6.2K player last week to $8.8K this week, albeit in a much weaker field and he is now on everyone’s radar. He has only missed three cuts in 14 tournaments this season, and that record should improve this week as long as his approach play and ball striking stays solid. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – Cut.
Byeong Hun An (Salary: DraftKings – $8.0K) – An had made five cuts in a row before blowing his brains out last week and finishing second last with a +18, ouch! Fortunately for Byeong, he arrives to a track that he’s had a huge amount of success at over the last three years including two top 5’s. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T4, 2019 – T36, and 2018 – T5.
The $7K Range
Jhonattan Vegas (Salary: DraftKings – $7.3K) – Vegas is 5/6 over his last six starts and was runner-up two starts ago at the Puerto Rico Open where he made 25 birdies. He has also made the cut at this event over the last four years and had a solid finish four years ago. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T27, 2019 – T16, 2018 – T72, and 2017 – T4.
Patton Kizzire (Salary: DraftKings – $7.5K) – I wasn’t too big on Kizzire last week but he still managed to finish T35 thanks to his best approach game in years. He is now 12/13 this season with two top 10’s, and he should be able to extend his strong play this week, especially if his long irons stay hot. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T68, 2019 – Cut, 2018 – Cut, 2017 – T66, and 2016 – T26.
Ryan Moore (Salary: DraftKings – $7.3K) – Moore is slowly starting to get back into the swing of things, no pun intended. He has back-to-back top 35’s including his T35 last week where he righted the ship after his opening round of 75. The only knock against Ryan from last week was his approach game, so if he can get that back on track then he should have a top 30 finish this week. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2018 – T49.
The $6K Range
Jim Furyk (Salary: DraftKings – $6.9K) – Furyk is 4/4 in his PGA Tour starts this season, his last two starts have gone for a T21 and a T26, and he has two wins on the Champions Tour, as well. Shorter tracks are more of his thing, so this week should be kind to him and his accurate drives, plus he’s almost always a positive in the approach category so his game sets up fairly well this week. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – Cut, 2019 – T9, and 2018 – T46.
Cameron Percy (Salary: DraftKings – $6.9K) – Percy is 8/12 this season with two top 10’s, and he has only missed one cut in his last five starts. I expected a missed cut from him last week but he surprised me and lots of others with a T29 and was positive across the stat board. His approach is his best stat so far this season, and that’s exactly what you want this week where approach matters more than on most other courses. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2020 – T61 and 2017 – Cut.
Wesley Bryan (Salary: DraftKings – $6.8K) – I had a hard time finding one more player for the $6K range but settled on Bryan who actually leads the field in approach for the season. He has also made his last two cut lines and has been putting up the birdies which is always a great aspect for DK scoring. He had a top 5 here four years ago, so that’s a positive element working for him this week, as well. Honda Classic finishes over the last five years: 2018 – Cut and 2017 – T4.
Recapping my 15 pick’s finishes from last week’s PLAYERS Championship
The $10K+ Range
- Dustin Johnson – T48
- Rory McIlroy – Cut
- Xander Schauffele – Cut
The $9K Range
- Webb Simpson – Cut
- Collin Morikawa – T41
- Bryson DeChambeau – T3
The $8K Range
- Scottie Scheffler – Cut
- Jordan Spieth – T48
- Jason Day – T35
The $7K Range
- Joaquin Niemann – T29
- Tommy Fleetwood – Cut
- Carlos Ortiz – Cut
The $6K Range
- Brian Harman – T3
- Ricky Werenski – Cut
- Andrew Putnam – Cut
