PGA DFS Core Plays: Genesis Scottish Open
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges on DraftKings and FanDuel for the Genesis Scottish Open. Which golfers should you be building your lineups around? Find out below!
There was a lot of good and bad at the John Deere Classic. Blades Brown, Jackson Suber, and Kevin Yu all played great, but I had way too much exposure to Jackson Koivun. While I am going to bet him again at this week’s ISCO Championship, we should expect some volatility here in the first part of his career on the PGA TOUR.
This week we head to Scotland for the Genesis Scottish Open. It’s the week before The Open Championship and a chance for all of the PGA TOUR regulars to get some reps in on a links-style course. The PGA weather is typically the biggest story in this part of the world, but the forecast looks awfully calm for an event in Scotland. Weather can change quickly, so I recommend checking the forecast all the way up until lineup lock. Historically, this has been a good event for tee time stacks.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament notes, recent form, and course notes for the Genesis Scottish Open, check out this week’s PGA DFS First Look.
The Renaissance Club is located in North Berwick, Scotland. It’s a par 70 that measures 7,282 yards. The layout is unique in that it features 3 par 5s (all over 575 yards) and 5 par 3s. Purists will say that this isn’t a true links course, but it’s certainly going to feel like a links course for most of the Americans in the field. The turf is the same, there are pot bunkers, and there is long fescue if you miss the fairway.
We typically don’t see Driving Distance play a big factor on links courses, but it has certainly been beneficial at this event. Golfers hit driver on 72% of their non-par 3 tee shots here last year, and the average distance was 300 yards. Both of those were well above TOUR average. The fairways are fairly narrow (32 yards) and difficult for everyone to hit, which could be why distance is more important than accuracy.
The greens here are large (7,000 square feet on average) and feature fescue grass. They are extremely slow (usually 10 on the stimpmeter) because lightning-fast greens aren’t an option with the wind in Scotland (which may not show up this week). The Greens in Regulation rate is very close to TOUR average, but we can expect that to go up if the current forecast holds. Scrambling is very difficult here, but again, it might not be as important as usual if the wind doesn’t show up.
The next 2 weeks can pay big dividends if you do a little extra research. There are a lot of LIV and DP World Tour golfers in the fields, and most DFS players rely on stat engines and projection systems that only look at the PGA TOUR. Finding those low-owned value plays could make a huge difference in tournaments.
Top PGA DFS Picks on DraftKings & FanDuel for the Genesis Scottish Open
Core Plays
Ludvig Aberg
DraftKings: $9,600 / pOWN%: 20%
FanDuel: $11,600 / pOWN%: 19%
Course History L5 Years: 8, 4, MC
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 18
Strokes Gained: Approach: 8
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 33
Strokes Gained: Putting: 40
Weighted Proximity: 4
Expected Hole Performance: 3
My model doesn’t love Scottie Scheffler this week (at least relative to his DFS salary and odds), and I’m not in love with the $6,000 range on DraftKings. I prefer the balanced build at the Genesis Scottish Open. Aberg hasn’t found the winner’s circle this year, but he’s been in contention at a ton of events. In his last 11 starts, he has 5 top-5 finishes. A player of his caliber and skill level is going to pick up some wins if he keeps putting himself in the mix. He rates out extremely well in my two new metrics (Weighted Proximity and Expected Hole Performance), and he’s finished T8 and T4 at this event in the last 2 years.
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