PGA DFS Core Plays: BMW Championship
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.
BMW Championship
TONY FINAU!
WHERE HE BE NOW!
While I absolutely hated not having golf on Sunday, I absolutely loved having golf on Monday. Liberty National hasn’t gotten a lot of love from golfers over the years, but I enjoyed the course and thought it provided a tremendous finish. Jon Rahm held the lead for 67 holes last week (or something close to it), but was unable to walk away with the win. Tony Finau finally broke the Puerto Rico Open curse and took home his second PGA Tour victory. He’s gotten a lot of heat for not being able to finish on Sunday, so him shooting the low round of the day to win the tournament on Monday was poetic. I had him as a core play and had bets on him to finish in the top five and the top 10, while Justin Van Zuiden bet him outright. I saw quite a few Tweets from RotoGrinders members about their big weeks, so I hope it was a good week for you as well.
We now head to Baltimore for the BMW Championship, which is the second leg of the FedExCup Playoffs. Only 70 golfers have made it this far and only 30 golfers will advance to the Tour Championship. Patrick Reed was forced to withdraw this week with pneumonia, but the other 69 golfers will all tee it up at Caves Valley Golf Club. This course has never hosted a PGA Tour event, so we don’t have any course history to work with. The course is a Par 72 that measures 7,542 yards. Everyone is itching to call this a birdie-fest, but everyone said the same of Olympia Fields at last year’s BMW Championship. If you recall, Jon Rahm won the event with a score of three-under par. It ended up being one of the toughest courses on the PGA Tour that season.
While I’m not going to speculate on what the scoring will be like this week, we do know quite a bit about the course. It features very narrow fairways (25-28 yards wide) and smaller than tour average greens (5,200 square feet). Based on the GCSAA fact sheet, the rough will be about three inches. While that’s not unplayable, it certainly gives those in the fairway an advantage. With three par four measuring less than 370 yards and with four par fours on the scorecard that are all reachable, I have to think distance will be a premium this week. For my off the tee splits, I’m looking at strokes gained off the tee, good drive percentage, and driving distance. Iron play will always be critical and with so many unknowns, I will include stokes gained around the green in this week’s model. The greens are thin and feature pure bentgrass if you like to look at putting splits.
Ultimately, there is no cut this week and we want to take chances on birdie makers. I generally look to avoid a little more chalk than usual in no-cut events, especially when we have a new course on our hands like this week. As always, I am here to answer any and all questions. Shoot me a DM on Twitter or on Discord at any time.
Be sure to check out the downloadable PGA DFS model for the BMW Championship. You can adjust the weights, analyze ownership, read the player notes, and come up with your own set of ratings that you can upload directly into LineupHQ.
Cut Rule:
- No cut
Key Statistics for the Week
- Strokes Gained on Approach
- Strokes Gained Off the Tee
- Birdie or Better %
- Driving Distance
- Strokes Gained Putting (Emphasis on Bentgrass)
Weather Forecasts
Yardage Specialists (based on holes at Caves Valley Golf Club)
- Jordan Spieth
- Branden Grace (…!!)
- Abraham Ancer
- Jon Rahm
- Collin Morikawa