PGA DFS Core Plays: Black Desert Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various salary ranges for this week’s tournament. Who should you be building lineups around? Find out below!
While I liked Kevin Yu’s course fit last week at the Sanderson Farms Championship, I certainly didn’t see a win on the horizon. He picked up his first win on the PGA TOUR and nearly $1.4 million in the process. The FedExCup Fall continues this week, and for the first time in a long time, the event will be held in my neck of the woods. I’m technically about a 4-hour drive north of St. George, but I love that we have a PGA TOUR event in Utah.
The course is brand new and stunning. You don’t often see the combination of the red rock in the background, the lava rock on the course, and the green grass. I played this course in the spring and it immediately became one of my favorites. While I didn’t play particularly well, it was nearly as difficult as I expected. I didn’t play from the tips or anything, but my general sense was that the course was very playable if you kept your ball out of the lava rock. I’m interested to see how the professionals dissect this place.
I do have some exciting news for those who use my PGA DFS model or my Noto Ratings when building lineups. One aspect that I feel all models are lacking in the industry is a way to equalize playing fields. For instance, let’s look at Matthew McCarty, who just graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour. If you look strictly at strokes gained per round metrics from all tours, he’s going to be one of the best in the field. If you look strictly at PGA TOUR data, he’s going to be outside of the top 80 because he’s only played in one event. One way to combat this is my field strength metric. My model looks at strokes gained per round over different time frames and also accounts for the quality of fields that golfers are playing in. The metric is included in this week’s model if you want to check it out. In addition to the model, you can use the PGA optimizer here at RotoGrinders to put you on the path to success.
Noto’s PGA Model Download & Video for the Black Desert Championship
Black Desert Resort is a Par 71 that measures 7,371 yards. It was designed by Tom Weiskopf and features bentgrass throughout — the fairways, rough, and greens. The fairways are 30 yards wide on average, but that doesn’t tell the whole story off the tee. There are some extremely wide fairways on the property. The greens are 7,000 square feet on average, which is certainly on the larger side compared to TOUR average.
Given the unknowns of a new course, I’m fine being a little different with my player pool this week. If we get a good sense of who the chalk will be, I will be making quite a few stands against the popular plays. As far as course fit, we really don’t know what type of golfer will excel here. In these situations, I like to lean heavily on ball strikers. I want golfers who will keep the ball in play off the tee (total driving) and hit a bunch of greens in regulation (strokes gained approach or greens in regulation).
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PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for the Black Desert Championship
Field Size:
- 132 golfers
Cut Rule:
- Top 65 and ties
Weather Forecasts
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Black Desert Resort
- Location: St. George, Utah
- Par 71 — 7,371 yards
- Designer: Tom Weiskopf
- Green type: bentgrass
- Green size: 7,000 square feet
- Fairway width: 30 yards (TOUR average: 34 yards)
- Holes with water hazards: 2
Event and Course Notes
- We have a new course on tap this week and it’s in Utah (not my neck of the woods, but I am still excited)
- I played this course in the spring but can’t offer much of a breakdown other than where not to hit it (the rocks)
- The course is beautiful and perfectly manicured, and you also get unlimited snacks with your green fee
- The fairways, greens, and rough are all bentgrass
- There’s twice the amount of acres of fairway than there is of rough
- If golfers are too far offline, they will find themselves in the lava rock
- We don’t know exactly how the course is going to play, but good drivers of the ball should be able to take advantage of the 3 par 5s and 2 short par 4s (322 and 320 yards)
- Since we don’t have a strong course fit, I’m focusing on recent form, tee-to-green play, and bentgrass putting
What to Look For
- Strokes gained tee to green
- Strokes gained putting (emphasis on bentgrass)
- Bogey avoidance
- Recent form
Core Plays
Chan Kim
DraftKings: $8,900 / pOWN%: 14%
FanDuel: $10,800 / pOWN%: 23%
Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 17
Strokes Gained Approach: 15
Strokes Gained Around the Green: 10
Strokes Gained Putting: 86
Birdie or Better %: 17
Bogey Avoidance: 16
Kim rates out as the 3rd-best golfer in my model this week, yet he’s the 12th-most expensive golfer on DraftKings and the 8th-most expensive golfer on FanDuel. He can be the first golfer or the third golfer into your lineup, which means he fits all types of roster construction. He’s finished T12 or better in 3 of his last 6 starts and is top 15 in this field in total driving, strokes gained approach, greens in regulation rate, strokes gained around the green, birdie or better percentage, and bogey avoidance. The putter can be a weakness at times, but even bad putters have a good week on the greens every now and then.
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