PGA DFS Core Plays: BMW Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges for this week’s tournament. Who should you be building lineups around? Find out below!
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for the BMW Championship
We are back for the second event of the FedExCup Playoffs. While the playoff between Justin Rose and J.J. Spaun was great television, my heart aches for Tommy Fleetwood. He carried the lead into Sunday, he lost the lead on the front 9, he got the lead back with a charge on the back 9, and then he lost it over the last few holes. It’s the same thing that happened earlier this year when he lost to Keegan Bradley. He’s still searching for that elusive first PGA TOUR win. Perhaps he can pick one up in the next 2 weeks.
We now turn our attention to the BMW Championship, which rotates to different courses in the Northeast. This year, it will be held at Caves Valley Golf Club for the first time since 2021. In that event, Patrick Cantlay won with a winning score of -27, and all 50 golfers in the field finished under par. However, the course has gone through some major changes since then. We should expect it to play a lot tougher this time around, at least relative to par (we’ll get to why that’s the case here shortly).
Editor’s Note: For more tournament and course notes for the BMW Championship, check out this week’s PGA DFS First Look. To get access to Noto’s PGA DFS Model Breakdown & Download link, which allows you to create your own projections, click here.
Since the renovation in 2023, Caves Valley is now a par 70 instead of a par 72. They turned two of the par 5s into two long par 4s. Despite losing 2 strokes on the scorecard, the course is actually longer than it was in 2021. It measures over 7,600 yards. Additionally, they replaced all of the turf on the golf course, making it a firmer golf course. They also changed the layout of the course, making many of the holes slightly more difficult.
In 2021, golfers hit driver on nearly 80% of tee shots at this course. Given the length of the course and width of the fairways (40 yards), this course sets up extremely well for bombers of the golf ball. Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, and Bryson DeChambeau all finished in the top 6 at this event in 2021. While I do like the distance angle this week, shorter hitters can make up for a lack of distance by being elite long iron players (i.e., Russell Henley).
The greens here are small (5,200 square feet) and feature pure bentgrass. They should be tougher to hit in regulation than they were in 2021. Ultimately, I expect a strong tee-to-green player to come out on top this week. If there’s one Strokes Gained statistic that I won’t be weighing as heavily this week, it’s putting. In terms of other filters that I am looking at in the Rabbit Hole, SG: Very Long Courses and SG: Northeast Courses both make a lot of sense to me.
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Core Plays
Patrick Cantlay
DraftKings: $10,100 / pOWN%: 13%
FanDuel: $10,800 / pOWN%: 13%
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 15
Strokes Gained: Approach: 3
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 42
Strokes Gained: Putting: 31
Birdie or Better %: 14
Bogey Avoidance: 15
Cantlay won this event at this course in 2021 with a score of -21. While the course has undergone a renovation, its core remains the same. Cantlay should have plenty of positive vibes coming back to this place. He’s coming off a T9 finish at the St. Jude Championship, where he gained 6.4 strokes ball striking. He’s long off the tee and is one of the best iron players in the field. His upside largely depends on his short game. If it shows up, I think he can win again.
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