PGA DFS Core Plays: FedEx St. Jude Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges on DraftKings and FanDuel for the FedEx St. Jude Championship. Which golfers should you be building your lineups around? Find out below!
We have the first of 3 FedExCup Playoff events this week in Memphis, Tennessee. The top 70 in the FedExCup Standings are set to tee it up in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. There’s a lot on the line this week. The top 50 in the standings after this week will not only move on to play the PGA Championship but also lock up full PGA TOUR status, which guarantees them a spot in every Signature Event in 2027.
With only 70 golfers in the field, we don’t have a cut this week. This means that every golfer is guaranteed to play 4 rounds, so we don’t have to worry about prioritizing cut-making in our builds. Scottie Scheffler is always the biggest decision point for DFS lineups when he’s in the field. He’s cheaper than usual, and we aren’t giving up any made-cut equity by rostering him (since there is no cut). After garnering low ownership by his standards in his last few events, I expect him to be very popular this week.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament notes, recent form, and course notes for the Wyndham Championship, check out this week’s PGA DFS First Look.
Let’s talk about TPC Southwind. This has long been one of my favorite stops on the PGA TOUR. I’ll never forget the year when Will Zalatoris beat Sepp Straka in a playoff. I had an outright on him and had a great week of DFS. This is a course where you can go low, but only if you are hitting the ball well. If you stray too far offline, big numbers can rack up quickly. The wide disparity in scoring on a round-to-round basis makes the sweating experience a lot more fun.
The course is a par 70 that measures 7,288 yards. This isn’t an overly difficult course, yet it’s not an extreme birdie fest either. The scoring is typically very close to TOUR average. The fairways are narrow (25-28 yards wide) and tree-lined. The rough is extremely difficult to play out of, and there are water hazards on 11 of the 18 holes. While this is a fairly driver-heavy course (78% Driver Usage in 2025), Driving Accuracy is more important than Driving Distance.
That’s not to say we should only focus on the extremely accurate drivers of the ball, but it’s a huge benefit playing from the fairway. In fact, the Greens in Regulation rate from the fairway was 40% higher than it was from the rough last year. Good Drive Percentage, Total Driving, and Strokes Gained: Off the Tee are my favorite driving metrics this week.
The greens at TPC Southwind are small (4,500 square feet) and feature pure bermudagrass. They will run around 12 on the stimpmeter, which is a pretty average speed for a PGA TOUR event. If you like to do a deep dive into the course stats like me, you’ll see that 56% of approach shots at this course come from 150-225 yards, which is much higher than TOUR average. My Weighted Strokes Gained: Approach metric in my model (which you can download) takes all of this into account.
Ultimately, I’m looking for golfers who can drive the ball well (more so with accuracy than distance), elite iron players, and good bermuda putters. A tidy short game can come in handy too, as the average Greens in Regulation rate is much lower than TOUR average. As far as the weather goes, we have some wind in the forecast for Thursday and Friday (so be on the lookout for a potential wave edge). It’s also going to be close to 100 degrees each day of the tournament (put away those tan pants, Lucas Glover).
Top PGA DFS Picks on DraftKings & FanDuel for the FedEx St. Jude Championship
Core Plays
Scottie Scheffler
DraftKings: $13,500 / pOWN%: 33%
FanDuel: $14,200 / pOWN%: TBD
Course History L5 Years: 3, 4, 31, MC, 14
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 3
Strokes Gained: Approach: 6
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 3
Strokes Gained: Putting: 9
Weighted Proximity: 10
Expected Hole Performance: 1
It’s usually extremely tough to roster Scheffler, especially in small-field contests. He’s so expensive that it limits what you can do with the rest of your roster, and getting all 6 golfers through the cut with a Scheffler lineup feels impossible. However, his price is down this week, and this event doesn’t have a cut. I want as much exposure to Scheffler as possible. Since his last win, he’s had 5 solo runner-up finishes and 5 more top-5 finishes. He’s been as elite as ever; he just doesn’t have as many wins to show for it. He’s accurate off the tee, the best iron player in the world, an elite scrambler, and an excellent putter. He’s finished 3rd and 4th here in the last 2 years.
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