PGA DFS Core Plays: Shriners Children's Open
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.
Shriners Children’s Open
The Sanderson Farms Championship was a week of close calls for yours truly, but ended up being in the green. I hope it was a good week for many of you out there. We are always trying to improve our content here at RotoGrinders and have made a few adjustments to the LineupHQ offering. Our projections model has been tweaked a bit and you can now build lineups straight from the Noto Ratings. As always, you can download my model, adjust the weights to your liking, and create your own ratings that can be used to build lineups in LineupHQ.
This week we turn our attention to the Shriners Children’s Open. We have plenty of course data to work with, as it has been held at TPC Summerlin for many years. The course is a Par 71 that measures 7,255 yards. The event is played at elevation, which means every golfer will be hitting the ball a little farther than usual. This helps explain why the averaging driving distance here is much higher than tour average, yet shorter hitters have been able to contend on a regular basis. I’m not looking for distance off the tee this week and would actually prefer accuracy if choosing between the two. It’s likely safest to rely on strokes gained off the tee, which is a blend of accuracy and distance.
The fairways here are tough to hit on average, yet the greens are extremely easy to hit. The rough isn’t overly thick, but missing the fairway can create some issues. It can give you bad angles into the greens and potentially bad lies in the native areas. The greens are large and feature bentgrass, while the fairways feature bermudagrass. The greens aren’t overly tricky when it comes to putting. Ultimately, this is a very easy course and one that is routinely in the bottom three in difficulty on tour. The main defense is how tough it is to get the ball up and down if you miss greens. We can look at this in two ways — we can bump up the good scramblers or we can bump up the good ball strikers (fewer scrambling opportunities).
I’m not looking to complicate my process this week. I’m looking for golfers that are decent enough off the tee, good with their irons, good around the green, and have a decent track record putting on bentgrass greens. From a roster construction standpoint, this week screams balanced when it comes to cash games and single-entry tournaments (at least that’s the route I am taking). As always, reach out to me on Twitter or Discord with any questions that you have regarding this event, my process, or contest selection. I don’t have all the answers, but love to help out in any way that I can.
Cut Rule:
- Top 65 and ties (144 golfers in the field)
Key Statistics for the Week
- Strokes Gained Approach
- Bogey Avoidance
- Strokes Gained Around the Green
- Strokes Gained Off the Tee
- Strokes Gained Putting (Emphasis on Bentgrass)
Weather Forecasts
Hole Yardage Specialists (based on holes at TPC Summerlin)
- Charley Hoffman
- Corey Conners
- Paul Casey
- Webb Simpson
- Abraham Ancer