PGA DFS Core Plays: The Open 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 Open Championship
We are back for the final major of the year—The Open Championship. It’s a bittersweet week, as it’s one of my favorite events, but now we won’t have another major championship until April. The Open Championship is on a rota, which means it changes venues each year. This year it will be held at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland. The last time it was played here was 2019, when Shane Lowry ran away from the field and won with a score of 15-under par.
As is always the case in this part of the world, we have to keep a close eye on the PGA weather report from Chief Meteorologist, Kevin Roth. We often see a major wave advantage when it comes to tee times at The Open. With that said, it’s worth noting that the weather in Northern Ireland can change at a moment’s notice, especially with the course being right on the coast. My plan of attack is to potentially stack the favorable side of the draw in my main lineup and then build stacks on both sides of the draw in large-field tournaments.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament and course notes for The Open 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.
Royal Portrush is a par 71 that measures 7,381 yards. It’s a links course that is right on the coast, which means it’s even more susceptible to the wind and rain. It features beautiful rolling fairways, lush fescue rough, and smaller-than-average-sized greens. The greens feature plenty of contours that golfers can use to their advantage. This is not going to be your typical bomb-and-wedge precision fest that we see on the PGA TOUR. Golfers will need to be creative with their approach shots and around the green.
As is the case with all links courses, there are penalizing pot bunkers that golfers must avoid off the tee. They essentially serve as a 1-stroke penalty. While missing them will take as much luck as it will skill (a lot of them are in the middle of the fairway or right on the edge of the fairway), knowing how to stay calm and not get frustrated will be a major advantage. That’s the nature of links golf — you are going to be on the good and/or bad side of many breaks throughout the week.
In terms of course fit, I am looking for golfers who are solid all-around players, golfers who are creative around the green, golfers who have had success in majors, and golfers who have had at least some semblance of success on links courses in the past. With the lower salary floor on DraftKings this week, I’m looking to build more stars and scrubs lineups. On FanDuel, it’s more of the same, as there are a ton of golfers below $8,000 on my radar.
My friends… let’s have a week to remember!
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Core Plays
Rory McIlroy
DraftKings: $11,500 / pOWN%: 20%
FanDuel: $11,900 / pOWN%: 21%
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 6
Strokes Gained: Approach: 34
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 27
Strokes Gained: Putting: 9
Birdie or Better %: 10
Bogey Avoidance: 6
The last time The Open was held at Royal Portrush, McIlroy quadrupled the first hole and missed the cut at what was supposed to be a storybook win in his home country. Something tells me he’ll have more success this time around. This is the best year McIlroy has had on TOUR in arguably the last 10 years. He won at Pebble, he won THE PLAYERS, and he won the Masters. He also won the DP World Tour Championship at the end of last year. He wasn’t able to get the win last week at the Scottish Open, but that had more to do with the excellent play from Chris Gotterup than anything else. McIlroy is much cheaper than Scheffler, he has more experience on links courses, and he’s playing in his home country. He could cement himself as the Player of the Year with a win this week.
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