PGA DFS Core Plays - DraftKings & FanDuel: WGC Dell Technologies Match Play
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.
WGC Dell Technologies Match Play
We have a quick turnaround this week, as the match play event starts on Wednesday. If you are interested in the Corales event, we have a little bit of content for you — the expert survey and potentially my downloadable model as well. The match play is one of my favorite events of the year, as it easily provides the best sweat of any outside of the majors. At least that’s the case in the first four days. By the time Sunday rolls around, most DFS lineups and most bets are dead because there are only four golfers remaining.
Austin Country Club is a Pete Dye design that measures just over 7,100 yards. It is a Par 71 that sets up perfectly for match play because there are a lot of risk/reward holes. We’ll see golfers go on streaks (I believe Brian Harman made eight birdies in a row in one match last year) and a lot of matches come down to the final couple of holes. The course doesn’t require a specific skill set, as you don’t need to be a bomber, a ball striker, or a short game specialist in order to have success here. In my opinion, experience here and experience in match is more important than any single statistic.
This week provides one of the biggest edges that we will see all season. Last year, over 30% of lineups weren’t build optimally in the main GPP on DraftKings. There are two simple rules to follow to maximize your edge this week — make sure to only target one golfer in each group per lineup (make groups of four in LineupHQ and set the max to one) and make sure to target between one and two golfers in each quadrant (make groups of 16 in LineupHQ and set the min to one and the max to two). You can take it a step further and make one final rule with groups of eight and set that max to one in order to avoid golfers playing each other until the final eight. If you have any questions about roster construction, shoot me a message on Twitter.
In addition to using proper roster construction, it’s important to consider the strength of each group when building lineups. I added a few new metrics to my model this week to help spot the golfers that have the best odds of making it through their group. For a full breakdown of the changes and the model, , watch the PGA DFS Model Breakdown Video and Download Link.
Tournament Info
Field Size:
- 64 golfers
Cut Rule:
- Group Stage followed by a 16-golfer bracket
Key Statistics for the Week
- Match Play Experience
- Strokes Gained Approach
- Birdie or Better %
- Strokes Gained Putting
- Good Drive %
Weather Forecasts
Hole Yardage Specialists (based on holes at Austin Country Club)
- Patrick Cantlay
- Jon Rahm
- Collin Morikawa
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Scottie Scheffler