PGA DFS Core Plays: THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges on DraftKings and FanDuel for THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson. Whom should you be building your lineups around? Find out below!
With Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, and Ludvig Aberg all in contention on Sunday, I still can’t believe Aaron Rai came out on top at the PGA Championship. He played a flawless final 10 holes (6 under par) and was no match for the rest of the field. He ended up winning by 3 shots over Rahm and Alex Smalley. Based on some interviews by his peers, it sounds like he’s one of the most liked golfers on TOUR. The win also dug up some old interviews on why he plays with two gloves and why he has iron covers (both reasons are fantastic if you want to look them up). While I wrote up Aberg and Smalley in this article, I didn’t have the best week of DFS thanks to Adam Scott, Tommy Fleetwood, and J.J. Spaun.
We now turn our attention to THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson. This event would typically be an afterthought with a weak field and being the week after a major, but I get excited for any full-field event with a cut these days. The Signature Events are somehow making the non-Signature Events more fun to watch. We also get to see a lot of golfers who haven’t teed it up in a while. This event has treated me well in the past (solid in DFS and 2 of the last 3 outright winners), so let’s keep that streak going this week in McKinney, Texas.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament notes, recent form, and course notes for the THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson, check out this week’s PGA DFS First Look.
TPC Craig Ranch has undergone a $22 million restoration over the last two years. Before last year’s event, they narrowed the fairways, thickened the rough, and overseeded the fairways with ryegrass. Scottie Scheffler took the place apart with a score of -31, but the course did play slightly more difficult on average. Before this year’s event, all 18 of the green complexes were replaced with bentgrass, the fairways were overseeded with zoysiagrass, and the rough now features bermudagrass.
The course was also shortened by about 200 yards. It’s now a Par 71 that measures 7,385 yards. It’ll be interesting to see if the course plays any differently this time around. New greens tend to be firm, but there is rain in the forecast all week. The softer the course, the easier it is going to play, especially now that the course is 200 yards shorter. We’ve seen a winning score of at least -23 in each of the last 5 years. I expect that trend to continue here in 2026.
As far as course specifics, the fairways are narrow (28 yards wide), and the greens are average in size (6,800 square feet). Water is in play on 8 of the holes. In these birdie-fests, we typically see the field hit a ton of greens in regulation, and they often turn into putting contests. However, this event has treated the ball strikers much better than the short-game specialists over the years. That’s where my focus will be this week.
Before we get into the picks, we should talk about the absurd price point on Scottie Scheffler. If you roster him, you will have $7,040 remaining per golfer on DraftKings and $8,880 remaining per golfer on FanDuel. This isn’t a week with a ton of standout values, so rostering Scheffler brings a ton of risk into play. It’s always tough to get 6-of-6 golfers through the cut, but doing it with Scheffler feels like an impossible task. He could obviously run away from the field like he did last year, but I’m having a tough time fitting him in my lineups.
Top PGA DFS Picks on DraftKings & FanDuel for THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson
Core Plays
Jordan Spieth
Noto Rating: 3 / Cash Rating: 3 / GPP Rating: 3
DraftKings: $9,800 / pOWN%: 18%
FanDuel: $11,800 / pOWN%: 22%
Course History L5 Years: 4, MC, 2, 9
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 30
Strokes Gained: Approach: 7
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 22
Strokes Gained: Putting: 40
It’s hard to go wrong with Spieth when he’s playing in Texas. He loves golfing in his home state. While he doesn’t have a top 10 this year, he has made 11 straight cuts and has posted 6 top-20 finishes during that stretch. Over the last 3 months, he’s top 30 in this field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach, and Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green. He’s become a very consistent golfer with solid underlying statistics. We haven’t been able to say that about him in a very long time. He clearly likes TPC Ranch, as he’s finished in the top 10 at this event in 3 of his last 4 appearances.
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