PGA DFS Core Plays: BMW 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 around? Find out below.
Lucas Glover picked up another win last week. That’s his second in as many weeks and his fifth top six finish in his last six events. It’s hard to put into words the transformation his game has gone through over the last few months. The new broomstick/LAB putter has been the big story, but we shouldn’t overlook his incredible ball striking numbers during that stretch. He is now the 14th most expensive golfer on DraftKings and the 13th most expensive golfer on FanDuel. If he burns me for the third week in a row, so be it.
We now turn our attention to the BMW Championship where the top 50 in the FedExCup standings will tee it up at Olympia Fields Country Club. The last time we saw this course on the PGA Tour was at the 2020 BMW Championship where Jon Rahm beat Dustin Johnson in a playoff. Everyone expected it to be a birdie-fest, but that was not the case. It played as the fourth most difficult course on tour that year and only five golfers finished under par for the week.
The course is a Par 70 that measures 7,366 yards. The two par fives are both over 600 yards and seven of the par fours are over 450 yards. If you look back at the 2020 edition of the event, golfers were only able to hit 48% of fairways and 58% of greens. The average driving distance that week was 311 yards, so we can expect a lot of drivers to be hit off the tee. Much like the U.S. Opens that have thick rough, bombers could have a major edge here. If everyone is missing fairways, we might as well target those that will be closer to the hole.
The fairways and greens here feature a mix of bentgrass and poa annua, while the rough features Kentucky bluegrass. The rough is expected to be around four inches thick and the course is expected to play tough once again. I will note that the course setup got easier every day when they played here in 2020 and we could have some rain early in the week, so it might be a little softer than the firm and fiery conditions we saw a few years ago. Regardless, it would be a big surprise if this turned into a birdie-fest.
Field Breakdown Video & Model Download Link for the BMW Championship
More often than not, the more difficult the course, the more golfers need to lean on their tee to green play. When we have these birdie-fests where everyone is hitting greens and fairways, it often turns into a putting contest. When the winning score is in the single digits, tee to green play is paramount. For this week, I’m looking for golfers that are good tee to green, golfers that have played well on major championship venues, and golfers that can hit greens in bunches.
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for BMW Championship
Field Size:
- 50 golfers
Cut Rule:
- No cut this week
Weather Forecasts
- Kevin Roth’s Forecast (link coming soon)
- Windfinder
- Accuweather
Golf Course
- Olympia Fields Country Club
- Located in Olympia Fields, Illinois
- Par 70 — 7,366 yards
- Difficulty: 4th (2020), only five golfers were under par
- Green size: 6,000 square feet
- Grass type: bentgrass/poa greens and fairways, kentucky bluegrass rough
- Water is in play on three holes
- 2020 averages: distance (311.4 yards), accuracy (48%), GIR (58%)
Event Notes
- Only 50 golfers in the field this week, top 30 in the standings will move on
- Classical, tree-lined course that hosted the 2020 BMW Championship
- Both par fives are over 600 yards
- Seven of the par fours are over 450 yards
- Two of the par threes are over 215 yards
- Difficulty this year will depend on how they set up the course
- Might see an easier setup than we did in 2020, but still tough
- The tougher the setup, the more it favors the best golfers in the field
- In 2020, four of the top five in GIR finished in the top six of the event
What to Look For
- Strokes gained approach
- Strokes gained off the tee
- Greens in regulation
- Strokes gained around the green
- Bogey avoidance
- Strokes gained putting
Core Plays
Patrick Cantlay
DK: $10,500 — FD: $12,000
SG: OTT — 3
SG: APP — 15
Greens in Regulation — 6
Bogey Avoidance — 8
SG: Putting (Bent/Poa) — 9
Stat Rank — 2
Noto Rating — 91.1
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