Top PGA DraftKings & FanDuel Plays | The PGA Championship 🏆

Written by Ryan Humphries

Follow me on Twitter @Ryan_Humphries or tag me in LineStar chat @N1TRO for any questions!

Tournament & Field 🏆

It wasn’t a journey without its fair share of obstacles and set-backs, but we have finally arrived at the first Major of the season! The PGA Tour sets out to San Francisco, California where TPC Harding Park will host the 102nd edition of the PGA Championship. This is a full 156-player field with 91 of the world’s top 100 golfers in attendance. The level of competition obviously doesn’t get much higher than it will be this week. Due to the fact that about 30 of the golfers this week are older, past champions as well as PGA club professionals who earned an invitation by winning a qualifying tournament, you can trim this field down to around 120 or so golfers who have a realistic shot at being relevant in DFS this week. Maybe one or two of those guys can make some noise simply by getting past the cut line, but they will almost certainly not be a factor come Sunday. Speaking of the cut, it seems the PGA Championship is using the old cut rule where the top 70 (and ties) will make the 36-hole cut. Odds are that we will see a higher number of 6/6 lineups than what we have been accustomed to in most weeks since the restart. As with any Major, DFS pricing is pretty soft, so there is a strong chance that we’ll see a lot of duplicated lineups. To help avoid that, don’t be afraid to leave $300-$1,000 worth of salary on the table.

The Course Preview ⛳

TPC Harding Park is a Par 70 that will play anywhere between 7,240 and 7,400 yards this week, depending on pin placement. Due to this course sitting right at sea level, along with cooler temperatures and thick coastal air, we can expect golf balls to fly a little shorter than what we’d typically be used to in a summertime golf tournament. As such, this course is likely going to play sneaky long. However, perhaps the primary course defense will be the thick, gnarly rough. Linked below, you can see Ian Poulter go in-depth (literally) on the rough at TPC Harding Park in a video he tweeted out during a practice round on Tuesday morning.

Another major defense here is likely to be tough pin placement on the Bentgrass greens, which will probably run about as fast as the PGA can get them to run. The green complexes themselves are fairly large, by PGA standards, and are mostly flat without a ton of undulation, but they’ll certainly be tough to tame. Fairway and green-side bunkers are prevalent throughout the course but other than that there isn’t much water that will come into play. Ultimately, there are a lot of unknowns about how TPC Harding Park will truly play. It hasn’t hosted a PGA event in several years and, like any Major, courses for these types of tournaments get set up differently (to be more difficult). It’s doubtful that this course will play as difficult as, say, a US Open would. Winning scores at the PGA Championship have ranged anywhere from 8-under to 20-under in the last ten years, so my best guess is we’ll see an eventual champion win with a score around 15-under. Weather will also have a say-so in how this plays out, but more on that below. This should be an awesome event to watch, so let’s get into some potential plays!

Weather ⛅

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!

Temperatures will hover in the high 50s and low 60s all week with plenty of sunshine and no threat of rain, but as is the case every week, the main concern is wind (especially at courses near the coast) so let’s look at that more closely.

Thurs. AM: Little to no wind to start off the day up until around noon.

Thurs. PM: Sustained winds pick up to around 15 mph and could reach near 20 mph, with 30 mph gusts.

Fri. AM: Sustained winds around 10 mph, gusts slightly higher than that.

Fri. PM: Winds increase a bit from in the morning -- up to about 15 mph sustained with slightly stronger gusts.

Weekend: Winds are currently forecast to be under 10 mph both Saturday and Sunday mornings, increasing to around 15 mph both afternoons.

Conclusion: As always, run a final weather check as close to the tournament teeing off as possible (forecast page is linked to images below). This current forecast could easily change. But *if it doesn’t* I have to give a pretty noticeable advantage to the guys in the AM/PM wave. Thursday afternoon is projected to have the highest winds of the tournament right now so obviously avoiding those conditions would be ideal. Would I completely write off all the PM/AM guys? Definitely not. But for now, I would lean most favorably for the AM/PM golfers.

Closer look at Thursday's current projected wind progression

Top Stats to Consider* 📊

1. Strokes Gained: Tee to Green (SG: T2G) | 35%

2. Par 4 Average (P4 AVG) | 25%

3. Birdie or Better % (BoB%) | 25%

4. Driving Distance | 10%

5. Driving Accuracy | 5%

*These are key stats in which I focus on in my personal PGA model – weighted percentages included. Depending on the tournament and how long it has ran at the same venue, “course history” along with “current form” are usually the top two ‘stats’ to consider most weeks and are almost always factored in my model.

High-Priced Targets

Brooks Koepka | DK: $11.1k, FD: $11.4k

Odds: 10/1 | Custom Model Rank: #26

Cash Rating: ★★★☆☆ | GPP Rating: ★★★★★

Key Stat Ranks*: 37th in SG: T2G, 102nd in P4 AVG, 64th in BoB%, 13th in Driving Distance, 102nd in Driving Accuracy

*All key stats are in relation to the field for this week.

When it comes to Brooks Koepka and Majors, you pretty much just have to throw logic and stats out of the window. He has been anything but consistent this year but he can seemingly turn it on once a Major comes around the corner -- evidenced by his T2 last week in which he led the field on strokes gained on approach (+8.44) and was 3rd in strokes gained tee to green (+10.95). In the seven Majors that Koepka has competed in over the last two years, he has SIX top 10s including three wins. He is, of course, the back-to-back winner of the PGA Championship and has finished no worse than 15th in this tournament over the last six years. Perhaps you don’t need to force him into a cash lineup, but he has to be one of the top GPP plays on the board. A third consecutive PGA Championship victory would surprise exactly zero percent of golf fans who have even remotely kept up with the sport for the last few seasons.

Xander Schauffele | DK: $10k, FD: $11.1k

Odds: 20/1 | Custom Model Rank: #3

Cash Rating: ★★★★★ | GPP Rating: ★★★★☆

Key Stat Ranks: 6th in SG: T2G, 5th in P4 AVG, 13th in BoB%, 19th in Driving Distance, 56th in Driving Accuracy

X has to be one of my favorite plays on the board, especially from a cash game perspective since he so rarely posts a disappointing result. Besides his one missed cut this season (Farmers Insurance Open) and a T64 at the RBC Heritage, Schauffele has finished inside the top 25 every other week. While he hasn’t had immense success at the PGA Championship, he did post a T16 last year and has four top 10s in his last eight Majors. He’s a great anchor for cash game lineups and, despite the likely high ownership, I have no problem rolling him out in GPPs either.

Mid-Priced Targets

Jason Day | DK: $8.4k, FD: $9.9k

Odds: 40/1 | Custom Model Rank: #27

Cash Rating: ★★☆☆☆ | GPP Rating: ★★★★★

Key Stat Ranks: 23rd in SG: T2G, 89th in P4 AVG, 48th in BoB%, 50th in Driving Distance, 78th in Driving Accuracy

Due to his unpredictable injury issues, Day is normally one of the biggest PGA DFS wildcards around. But, as he has shown recently, when he’s on his game and stays healthy, he genuinely looks like a top 10 golfer. He enters TPC Harding Park on the heels of three consecutive finishes of T7 or better. Day has made 8/10 cuts at the PGA Championship, including five top 10s and a win (2015). If Day can keep up the strong iron play, he is normally one of the best guys on Tour playing around and on the greens (1st in SG: ATG, 29th in SG: P - Bentgrass). I would still have to see more long term consistency from Day to let him touch my cash lineup, but he’s a clear-cut option for GPPs.

Abraham Ancer | DK: $7.7k, FD: $9.4k

Odds: 66/1 | Custom Model Rank: #11

Cash Rating: ★★★★☆ | GPP Rating: ★★★★☆

Key Stat Ranks: 21st in SG: T2G, 21st P4 AVG, 42nd in BoB%, 53rd in Driving Distance, 29th in Driving Accuracy

If you look at Ancer’s round-by-round performance last week, he scored 67, 75, 65, and 66 -- ultimately landing at 7-under which was good for a T15 finish. Say you take that 5-over round of 75 that he had on Friday and hypothetically turn it into an even par day. Do that, and he is right in the mix with Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas late on Sunday. Aside from a lackluster T58 at the Memorial, Ancer has landed inside the top 15 in all four of his other tournaments since the restart. His iron game is super dialed in right now and he can hit it fairly long off the tee (300ish yards) while maintaining solid fairway accuracy. I’m on board with him once again this week.

Low-Priced Targets

Scottie Scheffler | DK: $7.3k, FD: $8.8k

Odds: 100/1 | Custom Model Rank: #41

Cash Rating: ★★★☆☆ | GPP Rating: ★★★★☆

Key Stat Ranks: 22nd in SG: T2G, 13th P4 AVG, 10th in BoB%, 7th in Driving Distance, 59th in Driving Accuracy

You’re always going to have some really talented golfers priced on the cheap during the week of a Major. Big Scottie Scheffler is a name that intrigues me in this range. After a shaky beginning to the season restart when he landed an underwhelming T55 at the Charles Schwab Classic, then went on to miss three consecutive cuts, he enters this week coming off of a T22 at the Memorial and a T15 at last week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational -- two quite difficult events. For these salaries, he is one of the guys that stands out a lot on paper -- ranking 22nd or better in my top four weighted metrics. We’ll see if he can show up and keep the strong tee to green game rolling as he competes in his second career Major.

Matthias Schwab | DK: $6.9k, FD: $7k

Odds: 200/1 | Custom Model Rank: #101

Cash Rating: ★★☆☆☆ | GPP Rating: ★★★★★

Key Stat Ranks: N/A

Disregard the model rank here, as Schwab doesn’t have enough rounds played on the PGA Tour to qualify for stat rankings. If Schwab shows up and does well again this week, I think I’m going to officially take him as “one of my guys.” When he was in the field at the 3M Open, it was really the first time I looked into him. I liked the high amount of upside he had exhibited on the Euro Tour and it seems that he is starting to flash his skills on American soil now after finishing T32 at the 3M Open and then T3 at last weeks alternate PGA event (Barracuda Championship). At the 3M Open, Schwab actually led the field in SG: T2G gaining +11.04 strokes on the field. If it wasn’t for a terrible week putting (-6.8 SG:P), he could have easily competed for a win. Unfortunately, the Barracuda Championship used the Modified Stableford scoring system, so there are no strokes gained stats to check out. But Schwab has now risen to the No. 79 ranked player in the world and is a super intriguing value play this week -- especially on FanDuel, where he seems to be blatantly mispriced at the bare minimum $7,000.

Quick Hits | Others to Consider

I’m on vacation right now and have limited time to expand on the quick hits at the moment, so I’m just going to list off some other guys I’m liking for this week. I may come back later to add some thoughts on each guy.

- Justin Thomas | DK: $11.3k, FD: $11.6k

- Webb Simpson | DK: $9.7k, FD: $10.9k

- Patrick Cantlay | DK: $9.4k, FD: $11k

- Rickie Fowler | DK: $8.3k, FD: $10.1k

- Adam Scott | DK: $7.8k, FD: $10k

- Chez Reavie | DK: $7.4k, FD: $8.5k

- Henrik Stenson | DK: $7.3k, FD: $9.3k

- Harris English | DK: $7.2k, FD: $9.3k

- Christiaan Bezuidenhout | DK: $7k, FD: $8.1k

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That will do it for our PGA Championship preview! Once again, hit me up in the LineStar chat or on Twitter @Ryan_Humphries for any questions. Good luck this week!

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