PGA DFS Core Plays - DraftKings & FanDuel: The Genesis Invitational
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.
The Genesis Invitational
The WM Phoenix Open was an incredible as always, but I didn’t have a great week. After a nice start to the year, I feel like I’ve gotten a little too cute with my picks over the last few weeks. I spend so many hours on my golf model that I should trust it once in a while. My goal moving forward is to go with my gut less sparingly when it comes to my main lineup each week. As for the event, Scottie Scheffler was incredible. You can say that he got a number of good breaks, but he made putts when it mattered most and put away the tournament for the second straight year.
We now turn our attention to Tiger’s event, aka The Genesis Invitational. The host will actually be in the field this week, so you know I am excited. While I won’t be playing him in DFS, I will be watching every shot and will be rooting him on more than any golfer that’s actually in my lineups. I also sprinkled a bet on him to make the cut (+200 on DraftKings with the boost) to give me a little sweat on the GOAT. Now, let’s get back to the course. Riviera Country Club is a Par 71 that measures 7,322 yards. It features three gettable par fives and a tricky drivable par four where golfers can just as easily make bogey as they can birdie.
Riviera is a classical golf course. The fairways are uneven and tree-lined, making them very difficult to hit on average. Even the most accurate drivers of the ball will be playing from the rough a lot this week. The rough isn’t overly penal, which makes distance a tad more relevant than accuracy. Ultimately, focusing on strokes gained off the tee and/or total driving is the best way to approach driving metrics this week. The greens are very large (7,500 square feet on average) and still difficult to hit on average. They are even more difficult to putt on, as the poa annua surfaces cause a lot of three-putts. This course has one of the highest miss rates inside of 10 feet on the PGA Tour. Whether this benefits good or bad putters is still up for debate. Golfers will need to be solid around the greens.
Ultimately, this is a course that is going to test all aspects of a golfer’s game. Experience here is a big advantage, both on and around the greens. We’ve seen a lot of correlation between winners at Riviera and winners at Augusta National, Torrey Pines South, Quail Hollow, and Muirfield Village. I certainly don’t mind looking to those four as course comps and have actually included that as a weight in my model this week. Experience on the West Coast and experience on poa annua is also a positive.
I love this course, I love this event, and you know I love Tiger Woods. It’s shaping up to be a great week.
Model Video & Download Link for the The Genesis Invitational
Tournament Info
Field Size:
- 134 golfers
Cut Rule:
- Top 65 and ties move on after the first two rounds
Weather Forecasts
Core Plays
Xander Schauffele
DK: $9,900 — FD: $11,700
SG: OTT — 16
SG: APP — 4
Bogey Avoid — 5
SG: ATG — 29
SG: Putting — 14
Noto’s Rating — 93.8