By: @Ryan_Humphries on Twitter & LineStar Chat

Tournament & Field 🏆

It’s a vital week in the PGA as the majority of the world’s best players are set to tee it up at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational hosted by TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee. There is also an alternate event for other PGA Tour members who didn’t meet WGC qualifications (Barracuda Championship in Truckee, CA). This is one of the last chances golfers will have to earn points to get inside (or stay inside) the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings and becomes eligible for the playoffs, which begin after next week’s Wyndham Championship.

Remember for this week’s WGC event, there will be a smaller field with no cut. In no-cut events, I usually advise playing mostly GPPs since a major edge in cash games (predicting reliable cut makers) is out of the picture. I also won’t be including my cash and GPP ratings for players this week as a result of the no cut format. In total, 57 of the world’s top 70 players are on site for this week, so the level of competition is clearly about as high as it gets.

The Course Preview ⛳

TPC Southwind

Par 70 - 7,237 Yards

Greens: Bermuda

Course Difficulty Last Five Years: 14th, 25th, 11th, 15th, 10th

First Tee: Thursday, August 5th @ 10:15 am ET

TPC Southwind is a sneaky long course that will certainly challenge the world’s best golfers this week. It has routinely ranked as one of the top 15 most difficult courses in recent years and possesses many course defenses. The narrow tree-lined Zoysia grass fairways (several doglegged holes) are very bouncy and hard to hit. The Bermuda grass greens are small, undulated, also hard to hit, and run firm and fast (12-13 on the stimpmeter). Additionally, bunkers and water hazards are a major threat. The water, which is in play on ten holes, is particularly dangerous, as more balls have found water at TPC Southwind than any other course since 2003… and it isn’t particularly close. It is inevitable that many big numbers will get written on scorecards this week. One attribute of this course that shouldn’t cause golfers *too* much stress is the rough, which isn’t going to be too gnarly or overly difficult to hit out of.

Many different types of golfers have had success here. Being super accurate off the tee isn’t necessarily of the utmost of importance, since the rough is reasonably forgiving. But with all of the hazards in play, you can’t exactly “bomb and gouge” this course and expect to come out unscathed. This is very much a second shot course, so strokes gained on approach will be my most heavily weighted metric. Also, with this being a Par 70 setup, Par 4 scoring is always crucial. Given the smaller green complexes, golfers are inevitably going to miss some of their approach shots, so gaining strokes around the greens will be necessary. An important distance for shots this week will be in the 150-175 yard range where nearly 30% of approach shots have historically come from at TPC Southwind. Finally, given the fact that most of these holes are going to play over par, I will look for golfers who excel at bogey avoidance. If TPC Southwind plays similarly to how it has in previous seasons, a winning score will be someone around 10-to-15-under, so definitely don’t go into this one expecting a ton of birdies!

Weather & Tee Times ⛅

Aside from the hot temperatures, there won’t be much for golfers to worry about in the way of weather this week. Wind speeds will pretty much be a non-issue and there is currently no rain expected either. Of course, a summertime pop-up storm could always come out of nowhere and cause a brief stoppage in play, but there’s no need to really worry about that when it comes to DFS decision-making.

WGC-St. Jude Invitational Tee Times

Top Stats to Consider 📊

1. Strokes Gained: Approach | 30%

2. Par 4 Average | 20%

3. Bogey Avoidance | 20%

4. Strokes Gained: Off the Tee | 10%

5.. Strokes Gained: Around the Green | 10%

6. Proximity 150-175 Yards | 10%

High-Priced Targets

Key Stats [Only] Rank; Provides a golfer's overall rank (in relation to the field) in my key stats only model, which takes into account only the stats listed above with those specific weights allocated towards each metric.

Overall Model Rank (OMR); a golfer's ranking (within the current field) in my personal model which weighs all the key stats listed above as well as things like course history, recent form, recent average fantasy scoring outputs, and odds to win.

Brooks Koepka | DK: $10.6k, FD: $12.2k

Odds: 12/1 | Key Stats Rank: #12 | Overall Model Rank: #4

Brooksy will be popular but tough to avoid. Comes in with great form with four top 6 finishes in his last five starts and has dominated at TPC Southwind with four top 3 finishes in the last six years, including a win here in 2019.

Jordan Spieth | DK: $10.4k, FD: $11.7k

Odds: 16/1 | Key Stats Rank: #10 | Overall Rank: #3

There should be a nice floor attached to Spieth considering he has played about as consistently well as any golfer on the PGA Tour this season. He’s riding a streak of 14 straight made cuts and has finished inside the top 20 in all but two of those events. There of course isn’t a cut to worry about this week, but that just goes to show his immensely solid floor + upside combination.

Louis Oosthuizen | DK: $9.6k, FD: $11.2k

Odds: 22/1 | Key Stats Rank: #11 | Overall Rank: #2

What a run the South African has been on down the stretch, eh? Unfortunately, a winning performance seems to constantly escape him, but it’s hard to knock on him following five top 8 finishes in his last six tournaments, including three runner-ups. Even though he isn’t the most elite ball-striker, Oosty’s short game is always reliable and he constantly picks up strokes both around the green and with the putter.

Daniel Berger | DK: $9.2k, FD: $10.9k

Odds: 25/1 | Key Stats Rank: #3 | Overall Rank: #8

Berger has won on this course twice (2016 & 2017) and finished T2 a year ago. He’s simply a reliable ball-striker who rarely makes any glaring mistakes. In this field, he ranks 2nd in Bogey Avoidance. He’s posted a top 10 finish in about 40% of his starts this season and will be competing on a course where he simply knows how to win. A lot to like with Berger this week.

Mid-Priced Targets

Webb Simpson | DK: $8.5k, FD: $9.9k

Odds: 35/1 | Key Stats Rank: #18 | Overall Rank: #36

Webb has not had his best season… and yet, a rough season for Webb still equates to 13-of-16 made cuts and a handful of top 10s. Simpson did show some nice form when we last saw him at The Open where he landed a T19 result. In the last two years at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, Webb carded a T12 and T2. If his ball striking continues to round back into shape, expect him to outperform these salaries.

Abraham Ancer | DK: $8.3k, FD: $9.5k

Odds: 50/1 | Key Stats Rank: #5 | Overall Rank: #11

Ancer almost always rates out well in my stat models and it is no surprise that he has had a ton of success this season having made 20-of-23 cuts with a slew of top 15 finishes. The top Mexican golfer in the world came away T15 at TPC Southwind a year ago, and I’d look for him to land a similar result come Sunday. He isn’t a bomber but does have the most accurate driver in the field and also ranks 3rd in Par 4 AVG, 4th in Bogey Avoidance.

Tommy Fleetwood | DK: $8k, FD: $9.2k

Odds: 50/1 | Key Stats Rank: #46 | Overall Rank: #35

Fleetwood has had a very forgettable season for a golfer of his caliber, but that should result in him being one of the lowest-owned golfers out of this salary range. He has been churning out some pretty nice results lately and at the Tokyo Olympics, he fired a round three of 64 (-7), showing what kind of scoring upside he is capable of. We’ll see if things continue to click for him at TPC Southwind, where he came away with a T4 finish two years ago. Sitting at #133 in the FedEx Cup rankings, Fleetwood is also one of the bigger names in the field who could really use a nice week to bump them into the required top 125 to be eligible for the playoffs.

Brian Harman | DK: $7.5k, FD: $8.7k

Odds: 70/1 | Key Stats Rank: #30 | Overall Rank: #27

Harman has missed only two cuts in his previous 11 starts. In the weeks where he didn’t miss the cut in that span, he came away with a top 20 finish every week. Considering there is no cut to sweat this week, and Harman is priced as the 30th (DK) and 31st (FD) most expensive golfer, any result inside the top 20 here would provide some solid value.

Low-Priced/Punt Targets

Billy Horschel | DK: $7.1k, FD: $8.1k

Odds: 80/1 | Key Stats Rank: #47 | Overall Rank: #48

Ian Poulter | DK: $7k, FD: $7.9k

Odds: 80/1 | Key Stats Rank: #49 | Overall Rank: #29

Kevin Kisner | DK: $6.8k, FD: $7.9k

Odds: 100/1 | Key Stats Rank: #45| Overall Rank: #32

Wilco Nienaber | DK: $6k, FD: $7k

Odds: 300/1 | Key Stats Rank: N/A | Overall Rank: N/A

Freeroll + LineStar Avatar

We host a weekly PGA freeroll on DraftKings. Remember to join!

Here is a link for this week’s LineStar PGA freeroll contest!

• 1st place: $10 via PayPal

• 2nd place: Your choice of one-month LineStar Premium subscription, t-shirt, or mug

• ⭐ BONUS ⭐ If you place 1st or 2nd in the LineStar Freeroll and you are using the LineStar avatar below, you will receive 2x that prize!

Please Note - While you may enter the LineStar freeroll as often as you’d like, you can only win each prize 1 time.

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

Let us know if you enjoyed the issue with a 👍/👎!

🚨 Get 3 Free Months of LineStar Premium 🚨

Get 3-months of LineStar Premium for new users to SuperDraft who deposit/play $10!

Terms: Partnership offers do NOT renew. See SuperDraft landing page for full terms and conditions. Must be a new user to SuperDraft and deposit and play a minimum of $10 to qualify. If you have an existing LineStar Premium subscription you get a Hat/Tee/Pen combo instead of the 3-months.