PGA DFS Core Plays: Sony Open
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges on DraftKings and FanDuel for the Sony Open. Who should you be building your lineups around? Find out below!
Ladies and gentlemen, we are back! We typically start the year with The Sentry, but the event was cancelled due to severe drought and water conservation issues on Maui. While that course is fun and visually stunning, I am happy to start the year with an event that features a cut. In addition to having a Friday sweat this week, we have a good field, Shot Tracker will be available for all 4 rounds, and we get prime-time golf. In between, we get to watch the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs. Life is good for sports fans right now.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament and course notes for the Sony Open, 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.
We have 120 golfers set to tee it up in Honolulu this week. With fewer golfers teeing it up, a larger percentage of the field will stick around and play the weekend. This is an important note, because it does make the value plays more appealing than they might seem on paper. As far as the course goes, Waialae Country Club is a Par 70 that measures 7,044 yards. The winning score is typically in the -16 to -23 range, so it’s not difficult by any means, but it’s not one of the easiest courses on TOUR.
The fairways are average in width (36 yards wide), and the greens are large (7,100 square feet on average). While this isn’t the tight, technical track that it was 10 years ago, this isn’t a course that can be overpowered off the tee. If you look at the most important metrics that lead to success here, it’s basically everything but off the tee. Approach play, scrambling, putting, and Par 4 Scoring are all good statistics to look at this week.
With this being the first event since the short winter break, we don’t really know the state of everyone’s game. In theory, this increases the variance of a sport that’s already tough to predict. Fading the chalk (especially in the lower pricing tier) is not a bad strategy, especially in large-field tournaments.
Top PGA DFS Picks on DraftKings & FanDuel for the Sony Open
Core Plays
Russell Henley
DraftKings: $10,300 / pOWN%: 31%
FanDuel: $12,000 / pOWN%: 31%
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 43
Strokes Gained: Approach: 3
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 4
Strokes Gained: Putting: 20
Birdie or Better %: 42
Bogey Avoidance: 7
Waialae Country Club isn’t a course that can be overpowered off the tee. The other three strokes gained metrics are all more important than off the tee, which is why Henley might have the best course fit of anyone in the field. He’s extremely accurate off the tee, he’s an elite iron player, he’s an elite scrambler, and he’s an above-average putter. He’s had an excellent track record at this course over the years, posting 6 top-20 finishes and back-to-back top-10 finishes. I have Henley and Griffin projected much higher than the rest of the field, so I will be prioritizing both in my builds this week.
Ben Griffin
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