PGA DFS Core Plays - DraftKings & FanDuel: AT&T Byron Nelson
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS plays at various salary ranges for the coming week’s golf tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
Wells Fargo Championship
This year’s Wells Fargo Championship will not be played at Quail Hollow, as that course is prepping for the upcoming Presidents Cup. Instead, it will be played at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farms. This is not a new venue for the PGA Tour, as the Quicken Loans was held here in 2017 and 2018. Since then, this Par 70 course has been lengthened to 7,160 yards. It only features two par fives and only one will be reachable by the majority of the field. A course measuring less than 7,200 yards may not seem long, but there are quite a few holes that will require long irons into these greens.
The course is fairly generous off the tee (32 yard wide fairways on average), but this isn’t a place that can be overpowered off the tee. Accuracy is much more important than distance here and there are a number of forced layups, so this is far from a bomber’s course. The greens are very small (4,300 square feet on average), which really places an emphasis on the second shot. Iron play is important every week, but even moreso at TPC Potomac. With three long par threes and a number of par fours that measure over 450 yards, we will see a lot of approach shots hit from 175-225 yards.
With the greens being so small, they are tough to hit on average. We aren’t dealing with the biggest sample size, but in the last two events at this course, scrambling was fairly difficult on average. When greens are tough to hit and when scrambling is far from easy, targeting golfers with solid around the green play isn’t the worst idea. The greens themselves feature bentgrass, but we likely don’t need too big of a weight on strokes gained putting this week. The two winners at this course have been Kyle Stanley and Francesco Molinari, who are much better ball strikers than putters.
In terms of difficulty, we should be able to expect a fairly tough test of golf. In 2017, this played as the fourth hardest course on tour. It was a little easier the next year, but still played as the 18th most difficult. There are fewer scoring opportunities than we see on most courses, which makes those that can avoid bogeys a little more appealing than the ones that rely on a high birdie rate. Ultimately, I’m looking for strong ball strikers and strong tee to green golfers that don’t rely on distance off the tee. I’m not putting much emphasis into course history, as the data is four and five years old and quite a few in this field have never played the course.
Noto’s Downloadable and Customizable Model for the Mexico Open
Tournament Info
Field Size:
- 156 golfers
Cut Rule:
- Top 65 and ties
Key Statistics for the Week
- Strokes Gained Approach
- Strokes Gained Off the Tee or Good Drive Percentage
- Bogey Avoidance
- Strokes Gained Around the Green
- Strokes Gained Putting (Emphasis on Bent)
Weather Forecasts