PGA DFS Core Plays: 3M Open
Top-ranked grinder, Notorious, breaks down his favorite daily fantasy golf plays at various salary ranges for the coming week’s golf tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
Memorial Tournament Review
Last week was a nice change of pace from the birdie fests that we’ve seen since the restart. It was one of the few weeks where having 6-of-6 in your lineup wasn’t a guarantee to cash because there were a few golfers that actually lost fantasy points on Sunday. Congratulations to Jon Rahm for winning his fifth PGA Tour event and vaulting up to first in the Official World Golf Rankings. I didn’t love the penalty that they called on him after the round, as it just seemed to be in bad taste. Tony Finau did the exact same thing on Saturday and they never went back and added the penalty. Dedicated golf fans like ourselves won’t view Rahm in a different light, but once the word cheater gets out there, it sticks in the minds of many for a very long time.
For the second straight week, I was saved by a good weekend lineup. I really thought my full tournament lineups had a chance, but Paul Casey making an eight on a par three after being 30 feet away from the pin was the story of my week. If he would have made a seven, he could have made the cut and then played the weekend in the easier conditions (we saw Xander Schauffele make the cut on the number and finish 13th). I also had a lineup that was live in the Milly Maker, but the fantasy gods had different plans on Sunday. For the week, five of the seven core plays made the cut. While that’s improvement from previous weeks (TRENDING!), we are still looking for a breakout week of DFS. Luckily, we did have another solid week of betting, which we will cover later.
3M Open Preview
This week we head to Minnesota for the 3M Open. If you weren’t a fan of the stacked field and difficult course last week, you will be excited for Thursday to roll around. There are many similarities between this event and the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Both events were added to the schedule last year, they are both bomber’s tracks, and they are both birdie extravaganzas. If you are looking for a comp course since we only have a single year of course history here, a good place to start is Detroit Golf Club. As for this week’s course, TPC Twin Cities is a Par 71 that stretches over 7,400 yards. It features wide fairways and bentgrass greens.
When looking at last year’s data, fairways and greens were both easy to hit. The average driving distance was well above tour average, so golfers should hit plenty of drivers this week. When looking at strokes gained data, approach was the most important, followed by putting, and then off the tee. This was one of a few events last year where around the green game didn’t have much of an impact and that makes sense since golfers hit close to 75% of greens. I am looking for elite ball strikers that will give themselves plenty of birdie opportunities this week. I will also be placing a bigger emphasis on putting, specifically on bentgrass greens.