PGA DFS Core Plays: RSM Classic
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.
RSM Classic
The fall swing hasn’t been the best run for the core plays or my bets, but I’ve managed to keep my head above water thanks to some nice showdown slates. If your teams aren’t looking great heading into the second round or into the weekend, be sure to check out the showdown content that we offer here at RotoGrinders. My projections include in-tournament data and I will highlight any potential tee time wave stacks in my daily showdown article (for rounds two through four). This should be a good week for showdown, as there could be a potential course edge in each of the first two rounds. One final note before we get into the picks, we need to give a huge shoutout to premium member Warren Straub. He took down over $120,000 at last week’s Houston Open.
This is the final PGA Tour event of the year, which means we will have about seven weeks without any golf to sweat. The Hero World Challenge will take place some time in December and I’m sure there will be DFS contests, but it’s essentially an exhibition with less than 20 golfers in the field. The RSM Classic is held at Sea Island each and every year and is played at two different courses — the Seaside Course and the Plantation Course. The Seaside Course will host three of the four rounds and features Shot Tracker, while golfers will only play the Plantation Course one time (on either Thursday or Friday). This is the largest field we have had in the swing season, which could lead to a very low 6-of-6 percentage in DFS lineups.
The Seaside Course is a Par 70 that measures just over 7,000 yards. It is fairly short by PGA Tour standards and also fairly easy relative to par. The biggest defense for the course are the many water hazards that golfers will have to avoid. With this being a shorter course, many will opt to club down on a lot of the holes and that’s evident in the data from past editions. Driving distance here is about 10 yards shorter on average compared to other PGA Tour events. The fairways are easy to hit, the greens are easy to hit, and scrambling doesn’t present too tough of a challenge. The course features bermudagrass throughout and is really more of a plodder’s course than a bomber’s course.
The Plantation Course is a Par 72 that measures just over 7,000 yards. It is much shorter than the Seaside Course when you adjust to par and features four par fives. It has been the easier of the two courses over the duration of this event and it’s not a bad idea to load up on the golfers playing the Plantation Course if you are playing showdown contests in either of the first two rounds. This course’s main defense is the wind. Based on the early week forecast, Thursday should provide perfect conditions, while we could see 15-18 MPH gusts on Friday. We don’t have ShotLink data for the Plantation Course and we only have limited data to work with since only one round is played here each year. However, accuracy has been more important than distance off the tee in year’s past.
You will hear about the Sea Island Mafia and how many golfers live on the island, but that hasn’t exactly translated to the best course history. And if you go down the rabbit hole, you’ll find that about half the golfers in the field have ties to Sea Island. I’m not putting much stock into that narrative this week. I am looking for accurate drivers of the ball, golfers that are good with their irons, and golfers that can make putts on bermuda greens. The winning score should be in the 15-20 under par range. With the greens being so easy to hit, much of the event will come down to who putts the best. This is one of a handful of events each year where I manually bump up the likes of Kevin Kisner, Brian Harman, Matt Kuchar, and Charles Howell.