Daily Fantasy Golf Tips
After you gather some insights from this article to elevate your fantasy golf picks for the 2020 Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship, I advise that you check out FantasyData’s PGA Optimizer to elevate your daily fantasy lineups. All the best this week!
Wow, what a very tough test of golf we witnessed last week for the U.S. Open at Winged Foot – we saw some hole in ones, lots of triple bogeys and worse, and world-class players grinding hard to just make pars. Huge congrats to Bryson DeChambeau for winning his first major tournament with a score of -6, some 6 full strokes clear of Matthew Wolff who gave up his 54 hole lead but managed to pin down the runner up finish at least. This week is a week off for most of the best players on the PGA Tour as it heads south to the Dominican Republic for a low key event. This tournament first started out on the Web.com Tour in 2016 and moved to the PGA Tour in 2018 – the winners at it include last year’s champ Graeme McDowell, 2018 saw Brice Garnett reign supreme, Nate Lashley won in 2017, and the first year in 2016 saw Dominic Bozzelli hoist the trophy.
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Tournament purse: The purse is a very modest $4M for this year’s tournament but it’s up from $3M last year, the winner gets $540K in prize money and earns himself the usual 500 FedEx Cup points.
Course and key stats: This tournament will again be played at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club, the course is a very lengthy 7,666 yards, is a par 72, and the greens are paspalum – a rarity on the PGA Tour. We will be going back to birdie fest this week as the winning score is typically around -20 for this tournament. Some of the key stats to consider this week are Strokes Gained: Approach, Proximity Gained from 200+ Yards, Par 5 Scoring, Greens in Regulation, and Scrambling.
The field: We again nearly have a full field event this week with 144 players set to compete at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. On a scale ranging from A to D, I rank the field strength to be a D and that’s nothing new for this event, especially with the best players at the U.S. Open last week and needing a break this week. The top 65 plus ties after round two will get to play the weekend in rounds three and four, on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Notable storylines: This tournament officially became a PGA Tour event in 2018, and the course is one of the longest that players will encounter anywhere, really. This event was one of the first canceled in March and got moved to September as a result of the global pandemic so it has been a year and a half since it was last played in March 2019. MacKenzie Hughes is the highest finisher (14th in the standings) from last season’s FedEx Cup that’s in the field this week, and he was runner up last year so consider him a top threat to win this year, especially with an even more polished golf game this time around.
Betting strategy this week: With the weak field on tap and the relatively large size of it, I suggest going balanced this week with the goal of getting as many players into the weekend as possible. If you play a few lineups then by all means deploy stars and scrubs configurations as well, but know that the scrubs are pretty rough looking and most can’t be trusted to make the cut on Friday.
Best of luck for securing some contest wins this week – here are my 15 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
MacKenzie Hughes (Salary: DraftKings – $10.3K, FanDuel – $11.5K) – Before last week’s U.S. Open, where he missed the cut, Hughes was on a tear playing the weekend in 9 straight events and 5 of those were top 13’s. He was runner up here a year ago in his debut start and I can’t help to think that the Canadian will seal the deal this year.
Will Zalatoris (Salary: DraftKings – $10.9K, FanDuel – $11.8K) – Zalatoris was so impressive last week at the U.S. Open where he finished T6 behind only Schauffele, English, Oosthuizen, Wolff and DeChambeau. The Korn Ferry standout has 11 straight top 20’s going now – a record on the tour. He’s playing on a sponsor’s exemption this week and could have another big week providing his consistency holds true which I believe it will.
Corey Conners (Salary: DraftKings – $10.6K, FanDuel – $11.9K) – The tee to green specialist missed the cut last week at the U.S. Open by just a single stroke, no thanks to his 6 over par scorecard in round 2. He was 15 for 22 last season, had 10 top 25 finishes, and one top 10. He was a cut here a year ago but finished T13 in 2018, and I see a finish similar to what he did two years ago.
The $9K Range
Charles Howell III (Salary: DraftKings – $9.7K, FanDuel – $11.3K) – Howell III is coming off a very solid T30 last week at the U.S. Open where his consistent scores were between 72 to 74. He was 14 for 20 last season, had 6 top 25’s, and 3 top 10’s. He hasn’t played in this tournament before but should handle himself very well this week and even has the skills and experience to win it all.
Henrik Stenson (Salary: DraftKings – $9.5K, FanDuel – $10.8K) – Stenson is the biggest name you will find in this tournament – it’s not even close. He’s not the same player we are used to seeing over the years but he did win last season at the Hero World Challenge and should play his way into contention this week.
Kristoffer Ventura (Salary: DraftKings – $9.2K, FanDuel – $10.6K) – The Mexican-born Ventura is coming off a T7 at the Safeway Open two weeks ago and finished off his 19-20 season with just one cut missed in his final 5 events and three of them were top 21’s. I think he’s poised for a good season and will carry his T7 momentum forward this week and secure another top 25 finish.
The $8K Range
Henrik Norlander (Salary: DraftKings – $8.6K, FanDuel – $9.7K) – Norlander had a nice stretch of golf late last season where he made 6 straight cuts and finished T6 at the Memorial Tournament mid-way during that stretch. He’s one of many rookies at this event this week but his ball striking should shine through to catapult him into a nice finishing position.
Luke List (Salary: DraftKings – $8.7K, FanDuel – $11.0K) – List is another recognizable name in the field this week and comes into it with half-decent form. Dating back to last season he has made 5 of his last 6 cut lines and he was T10 at the Memorial Tournament with a stacked field to go up against. He hasn’t seen this track before but he can surely play it well and I see a top 30 coming for the long bomber.
The $7K Range
Will Gordon (Salary: DraftKings – $7.6K, FanDuel – $8.4K) – Gordon ranked 14th in the Strokes Gained: Tee to Green stat category last season, was 4th in Greens in Regulation hitting 71.7% of them, and was 17th in driving distance at almost 309 yards. He was 7 for 11 last season, 4 of them were top 25’s and 2 of them were top 10’s. He is coming off a T61 at the Safeway Open two weeks ago, and I do believe he will show off his emerging talent this week with a great finish.
Graeme McDowell (Salary: DraftKings – $7.8K, FanDuel – $9.0K) – McDowell hasn’t really been all that good lately, but the reality is that not many of the players in the field this week have been either. McDowell is the defending champ at this venue and should have a decent finish this year too.
Seamus Power (Salary: DraftKings – $7.5K, FanDuel – $8.2K) – Power had a decent season in 19-20 with 5 top 38’s to close out his campaign in his final 6 starts. He failed to make the cut at the Safeway Open recently but had some impressive stats last season including being 5th in birdie average, 8th around the greens, and was 34th in greens in regulation percentage. He was T44 here last year and had a T5 in 2018 in the event’s debut.
The $6K Range
Akshay Bhatia (Salary: DraftKings – $6.9K, FanDuel – $8.2K) – I absolutely HATE the $6K range this week on DK but don’t mind Bhatia who finished T9 at the Safeway Open thanks to his -10 on the weekend. He missed the cut in all 7 events last season but this season he’s off to a good start and should keep it rolling in the DR this week.
Tim Wilkinson (Salary: DraftKings – $6.7K, FanDuel – $8.6K) – Wilkinson is coming off a T36 at the Safeway Open and made three of his last four cuts last season finishing no worse than T53. He also made 9 of 16 cut lines last season overall, so given the field and his price he’s not a terrible option.
Martin Laird (Salary: DraftKings – $6.6K, FanDuel – $7.8K) – Laird hadn’t played any professional golf before the Safeway Open two weeks ago since February so he was rusty and missed the cut. I do think he will make the cut this week though with some of the rust gone. He was 7 for 12 last season and had one top 10 finish.
Recapping my 15 pick’s finishes from last week’s U.S. Open
The $10K+ Range
- Dustin Johnson – T6
- Jon Rahm – T23
- Collin Morikawa – Missed the cut
The $9K Range
- Webb Simpson – T8
- Daniel Berger – T34
- Tony Finau – T8
The $8K Range
- Patrick Reed – T13
- Tyrrell Hatton – Missed the cut
- Adam Scott – T38
The $7K Range
- Brendon Todd – T23
- Kevin Kisner – Missed the cut
- Matthew Wolff – 2nd
The $6K Range
- MacKenzie Hughes – Missed the cut
- Kevin Streelman – Missed the cut
- Ryan Palmer – Missed the cut
