Daily Fantasy Golf Tips
Before you benefit from this article’s insights to improve your fantasy golf picks for the 2020 World Golf Championships – FedEx St.Jude Invitational, I encourage you to check out FantasyData’s PGA Optimizer to enhance the builds for your daily fantasy lineups. Good luck this week!
Last week’s 3M Open featured a weak field so it should have been a great opportunity for the best golfers to finish high and cash in, right? In theory, yes but the likes of Paul Casey, Brooks Koepka, Bubba Watson, Tommy Fleetwood, and other superb players missed the cut and screwed over many DFS lineups in the process. Congrats to Michael Thompson for winning last week’s 3M Open with a score of -19. The great aspect of this week is that we have a WGC event where every player gets to play all four rounds, barring withdraws, of course. The PGA Tour moves from Blaine, Minnesota, to Memphis, Tennessee, for the WGC-FedEx St.Jude Invitational – an event that has taken over from the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational which was held from 2006 to 2018. Much like last week’s 3M Open, this week’s tournament will be just the 2nd installment of the WGC-FedEx St.Jude Invitational – last year’s champion was Brooks Koepka who won by three strokes over Webb Simpson.
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Tournament purse: The purse is way up from last week’s 3M Open at $10.5M with the winner getting just under $1.8M in prize money and earning himself 550 FedEx Cup points.
Course and key stats: This event will be again played at the TPC Southwind course in Memphis, TN – the track is 7,238 yards, is a par 70, and the greens consist of Bermudagrass. Some of the key stats to focus on this week are Strokes Gained: Approach, Good Drives Gained, Scrambling Gained, Proximity Gained: 150-200 yards.
The field: We have a world-class field on tap for this week with many of the best players on the globe competing. On a scale ranging from A to D, I rank the field strength to be an A even though the field size is small. 78 golfers are in the field this week for this prestigious event, and as previously mentioned, every player will play all four rounds and collect a paycheck.
Betting strategy this week: The nice thing about WGC events is that you can be riskier with your lineups as each one is guaranteed 432 holes to be played between your 6 players. With that being said, be open to a stars and scrubs approach by going after two or three elite players and adding solid low-cost depth players to your arsenal.
Best of luck for capturing some lucrative 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 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
Bryson DeChambeau (Salary: DraftKings – $11K) – DeChambeau was on an absolute tear before missing the cut at The Memorial two weeks ago by securing a win and seven straight top 8’s along the way. With him now capable of bombing balls more than 400 yards he’s making long courses look awfully short now, and I sense at least one more win coming this season. He finished T48 here a year ago but his game is at a whole new level now and is the top threat to win in my opinion.
Justin Thomas (Salary: DraftKings – $10.7K) – Thomas already has two wins on the season and has 9 top 10’s in 14 starts. He was T12 at this event last year and I see no reason why he’s not a regular on the leaderboard this week.
Rory McIlroy (Salary: DraftKings – $11.2K) – Ousted from being the world’s top golfer two weeks ago at The Memorial by Jon Rahm, McIlroy will be hungry to get back his top golf ranking back ASAP. It’s shocking that he doesn’t have a top 10 since the PGA Tour has returned from action, but I don’t expect that to last much longer – it should come to an end this week. He was the leader after 3 rounds last year but faltered in round 4 to settle for a T4. He shot a 62 in the third round a year ago so he knows how to attack this course and I fully expect him to go after it hard this week.
The $9K Range
Webb Simpson (Salary: DraftKings – $9.9K) – Simpson has been one of my favorite golfers to use in DFS this season and why not as he has two wins and 7 top 10’s in 10 starts. He’s coming off a missed cut at The Memorial but was runner up here last year thanks to his best round of the week in the final round where he scored a field low 64.
Tyrrell Hatton (Salary: DraftKings – $9.7K) – Hatton has been guns-a-blazin’ this season with 5 top 6’s in just 6 starts and his other finish was a 14th. His game is better than ever and I expect a massive improvement on his T43 from a year ago at this tournament.
Tony Finau (Salary: DraftKings – $9.1K) – Finau has been stripping the ball very well the last couple of tournaments with a T8 at The Memorial and a T3 last week at the 3M Open. He has 6 top 10’s in 16 starts this season and finished T27 here in last year’s edition – moving up 10 spots in the final round where he closed out with a 68.
The $8K Range
Patrick Reed (Salary: DraftKings – $8.8K) – Reed is an absolute grinder and plays hard every time he tees it up. He’s coming off a T10 at The Memorial, has 7 top 10’s this season, and was T12 here in 2019.
Gary Woodland (Salary: DraftKings – $8.6K) – Woodland has seen his golf game return to fine form over his last two starts with a T5 and a T22 at Muirfield Village. He has 7 top 10’s this season and should see a big improvement on his T55 from a year ago.
Billy Horschel (Salary: DraftKings – $8.5K) – Horschel sharpened up his game at Muirfield Village with a T7 and a T13 at the Workday Charity Open at The Memorial, just in time for the most important stretch of the season with the playoffs coming up next month. Billy-Ho was T12 here last year and I believe will see a similar result this time around as well.
The $7K Range
Matthew Wolff (Salary: DraftKings – $7.9K) – Wolff has been howling lately with a 2nd, a T12, and a T22 over his past four starts. He finished T24 here last year and shot a 65 in round 3 so he can certainly score on this track.
Marc Leishman (Salary: DraftKings – $7.7K) – Leishman won the Farmers Insurance Open this season, has a runner up finish, and a 3rd. He consistently scored well here last year and those efforts propelled him into a solo 3rd finish.
Ian Poulter (Salary: DraftKings – $7.4K) – Poulter finished 5th two starts ago and is consistently in the 20’s and 30’s for finishes at tourneys. He missed a rare cut at The Memorial in his most recent start but his game plays well on this track and finished solo 8th here last year.
The $6K Range
Brendon Todd (Salary: DraftKings – $6.6K) – I don’t really recommend digging too far into the $6K range but do like Todd at his price, especially considering he has two wins this season.
Kevin Streelman (Salary: DraftKings – $6.9K) – Streelman has a runner up finish and a T7 in his last three starts, so he makes for a decent value play this week. He has 4 top 10’s this season and the rookie at this event should fare just fine this week.
Ryan Palmer (Salary: DraftKings – $6.7K) – My final pick for the $6K range was challenging but I got to go with Palmer as he’s coming off a runner up finish at The Memorial and has 4 top 10’s this season.
Recapping my 15 pick’s finishes from last week’s 3M Open
The $10K+ Range
- Dustin Johnson – Withdrew after round 1 with a sore back
- Paul Casey – Missed the cut
- Tony Finau – T3
The $9K Range
- Lucas Glover – Missed the cut
- Matthew Wolff – T12
- Harris English – T18
The $8K Range
- Henrik Norlander – T23
- Sam Burns – T32
- Doc Redman – Missed the cut
The $7K Range
- Sepp Straka – T18
- Scott Stallings – T62
- Richy Werenski – T3
The $6K Range
- Jason Dufner – T32
- Stewart Cink – T46
- Seamus Power – Missed the cut
