PGA DFS Core Plays: The PLAYERS Championship
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.
THE PLAYERS Championship
It was another solid week for the Core Plays at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The three picks were Rory McIlroy, Will Zalatoris, and Corey Conners. While I did untag Willy Z in LineupHQ, I still thought he was a strong play in all formats. The conviction play of Rickie Flower didn’t quite work out as well, as he made the cut but finished dead last of those that played the weekend. Bryson DeChambeau put on an incredible performance to take home the trophy. He made very few mistakes on Sunday and was able to hold off Lee Westwood and win by a single stroke. While I loved the tournament as a whole, watching Bryson’s reaction after clearing the water on number six was my favorite moment of the week. We need a Top Shot for golf.
This week we head to Jacksonville for the year’s fifth major. THE PLAYERS Championship is one of the best and most tilting events of the year. It usually has the best field of any event because the four majors different qualifications that allow veterans and amateurs into the field. This week we have 48 of the top 50 golfers in the world teeing it up. TPC Sawgrass is a Par 72 that measures 7,189 yards. It features four par fives that are all reachable with a good drive off the tee. The course was designed by Pete Dye and if you know anything about his courses, they are difficult to overpower. Most of them play as second shot golf courses and TPC Sawgrass is no different.
While course history is important here, you’ll see a lot of random missed cuts from even the best golfers in the world. This is due to the lurking water hazards on so many of the holes here. The iconic par three 17th is an island green with little room to miss. After that, you have a forced carry over water off the tee on the 18th hole and you can’t afford to miss right because you will be blocked from the green by a bunch of trees. A good round can quickly come apart on those two holes alone. The greens themselves feature bermudagrass and are expected to be lightning fast. Greens are tough to hit here on average and scrambling is difficult as well, so being able to save par will certainly come in handy this week.
If deciding between accuracy or distance off the tee, I’ll lean toward for the former. If you are a bomber that misses wildly, you will find yourself in serious trouble this week. Ultimately, focusing on strokes gained off the tee or total driving is your best bet. Iron play will be critical, as it is every week. I am also placing a large emphasis on around the green play. With this being in Florida, I am looking for golfers that have a good track record on bermuda and that have a good track record during the Florida swing. I am also looking for golfers that tend to play well on Dye courses. A good course history certainly doesn’t hurt, but there will be plenty of land mines that we won’t see coming. For the most part, I plan to be underweight on first-timers of this event.
As always, I will talk more about course fit and the statistics that I’m looking at this week in my model video that is posted on Wednesday.