PGA DFS Guide + DraftKings & FanDuel Cheat Sheet | Travelers Championship ⛳

Everything you need to know about this week's PGA tournament!

By: @Ryan_Humphries on Twitter & LineStar Chat

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Tournament & Field 🏆

The PGA Tour rolls into Cromwell, Connecticut where TPC River Highlands will play host to the Travelers Championship. Many top golfers would often choose to take the week off following a grueling U.S. Open Major championship, but thanks to the Travelers Championship receiving Signature Event status, we’ll see a ton of big names back in action and ready to tee it up again this week.

This 72-player field will be headlined by star golfers such as Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, and Collin Morikawa, to name a few. Like the majority of Signature Events, the reduced field will mean that there will be no 36-hole cut rule in play this week. So, barring an injury withdrawal or disqualification, every golfer will be guaranteed four rounds and a handsome paycheck! It should be a fun week at a long-standing event with plenty of history. Best of luck!

The Course Preview

TPC River Highlands

Par 70 | 6,841 Yards

Greens: Bentgrass/Poa Annua Mixture

Course Difficulty Last 5 Years: 41st, 43rd, 22nd, 22nd, 32nd

Winning Score Last 5 Years: -22, -23, -19, -13, -19

First Tee: Thursday, June 19th at 8:00 a.m. ET

 

TPC River Highlands has hosted this event every year dating back to 1984, so it’ll be a great week to reference some course history. This is the shortest Par 70 course on the PGA Tour circuit which will give a large portion of the field the ability to compete for a high finish since bombers won’t necessarily have any built-in advantage. Instead of elite distance, precision over power will be the name of the game. TPC River Highlands was redesigned by famous course architect Pete Dye back in 1982. As is the case on most Pete Dye designs, golfers will be visually intimidated off of the tee and forced into finding the correct landing zones in order to set up a more advantageous approach shot. There are a total of 69 bunkers that players will have to navigate, as well as four water hazards that come into play on a third of the holes. Topflight ball strikers should thrive on this layout.

The fairways at TPC River Highlands are average in width, if not a couple of yards above average, but they begin to narrow considerably around the 300-yard mark. Many players will opt to club down to avoid the rough, which isn’t too troublesome so long as a ball lands in the first cut. However, that rough gets thicker and more problematic the further away a golfer misses from the fairway. Golfers tend to prioritize hitting these fairways and we can expect the average driving distance to be only around 285 yards with the field averaging a fairway accuracy percentage around 65%, which is roughly 5% higher than the PGA Tour average. Over the last few years, a missed fairway on this course led to an average of about half a stroke lost per hole.

A sharp mid-iron game is vital on this course as approximately 45% of approach shots will come from a distance of 125-175 yards to the pin. The mixed bentgrass/poa annua green complexes average around 5,000 square feet, which is smaller than average by PGA Tour standards and will bring crafty around-the-green play into the equation since, inevitably, every golfer will miss hitting greens in regulation. These are softer, more receptive greens that play more like pure bentgrass and will run at moderate speeds (11-12 on the stimpmeter). Since this is a traditional Par 70 setup, there are only two Par 5s available to go along with four Par 3s. However, there are still plenty of entertaining birdie holes scattered throughout the course but many of those scorable holes are high risk/high reward in nature. We can expect to see some wild scorecards filled with plenty of birdies and bogeys alike.

This is sure to be another tightly contested, entertaining event that will likely come down to the wire with high-level competitors vying for the big Signature Event payout. Typically, a high-teens under-par score wins here but, given how stacked this year’s Travelers Championship field is, a winning score beyond the 20-under range would not be surprising in the slightest -- especially since this course will pale in comparison to the extreme difficulty of Oakmont Country Club that many golfers in this field competed on for last week’s U.S. Open.

Weather & Tee Times

For anyone new to PGA DFS, we take a look at the weather to see if there is an advantage for golfers either teeing up Thursday morning/Friday afternoon (AM/PM wave) or for the guys starting their rounds Thursday afternoon/Friday morning (PM/AM wave). Your top priority in PGA DFS is to get 6-out-of-6 golfers in your lineups through the cut line and into the weekend – from there, anything can happen! If there is an edge to be had for either wave, it is important to take advantage!

Click the images above to view the most up-to-date forecasts.

⚖️Weather Verdict: As a reminder, with a smaller field and no cut in play, weather plays less of a factor for DFS purposes. That being said, golfers will certainly be tested over the first couple of rounds as gusty conditions, reaching 20-30 mph at times, look to impact both Thursday and Friday rounds. Things look to calm down significantly over the weekend as sustained winds should stay under 10 mph both days with only the occasional ~15 mph gusts. Golfers who draw the earliest tee times on Thursday should see the best overall wind across the first couple of rounds, so if you want to give a bump to AM/PM golfers, that may not be a bad idea. However, PM/AM golfers should not be avoided strictly because of wind/weather.

 

Key Stats to Consider 📊

Each key stat is paired with a weighted percentage (based on stat importance) for DFS model purposes.

1. Strokes Gained: Ball Striking (SG: App + SG: OTT) | 25%

2. Par 4 Average | 20%

3. Birdie or Better % | 20%

4. Proximity 125-175 Yards (Mid-Iron Accuracy) | 15%

5. Strokes Gained: Around the Greens | 10%

6. Strokes Gained: Putting | 10%

Travelers Championship DFS Model Standouts 🏅

Below are the top 25 ranked golfers in both my overall model and my key stats model. Below that are the top 25 leaders in average finishing position over the last five and last ten starts. The players ranked on these lists do not necessarily mean they are the top golfers I’m targeting for this week's event, but many of these guys should no doubt be favorable DFS options.

Overall Model Rank: A golfer’s ranking (within the current field) in my personal DFS model, which weighs all of the key stats listed above in this newsletter, as well as factors like course history, recent form, recent average fantasy scoring results, and odds to win.

Key Stat Rank: Provides a golfer’s overall rank (within the current field) in my "key stats only" model, which considers only the key stats listed in the section above with the specified percentage weights allocated towards each statistic.

Travelers Championship DFS Cheat Sheet📑

Click the Cheat Sheet above for the higher-quality direct image link

 

That will do it for our PGA preview! Best of luck this week and, once again, feel free to hit me up in the LineStar chat or on Twitter @Ryan_Humphries with any questions.