PGA DFS Core Plays: THE PLAYERS Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges on DraftKings and FanDuel for THE PLAYERS Championship. Whom should you be building your lineups around? Find out below!
The Arnold Palmer Invitational was an absolute mess from a DFS standpoint. Jake Knapp withdrew after lock but before his tee time, Austin Smotherman withdrew at the start of his third round, and Rory McIlroy withdrew right before he was set to tee off on Saturday. If you were able to avoid all those landmines (as well as some of the big names that missed the cut), you likely ended up having a nice week. It was easily my worst main slate of the year.
As for the actual golf, it was quite an entertaining final round. Daniel Berger carried a big lead into the back nine on Sunday. It looked like he was going to cruise to a wire-to-wire victory, but Akshay Bhatia had other ideas. He started his back nine with 4 straight birdies and added an eagle on the 16th hole. Berger was able to make a gutsy putt to force a playoff, but Bhatia was able to scrounge out a par and get the job done on the first playoff hole.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament notes, recent form, and course notes for THE PLAYERS 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.
We now turn our attention to one of the biggest events of the year… THE PLAYERS Championship. I still don’t understand the random capitalization of the name, but other than that, this is one of my favorite events of the year. The tilt at THE PLAYERS is unlike any other, as your golfer can go from well inside the cut line to missing the cut with a few bad swings on the back nine. This course might have the best 3-hole finish of any on TOUR. The 16th hole is a risk/reward Par 5, the 17th hole is the island green Par 3, and then the 18th hole has water all down the left of the hole and trees down the right. Few leads are safe heading into the final 3 holes.
Let’s talk about some of the course specifics. TPC Sawgrass is a Par 72 that measures 7,352 yards. This is typically one of the toughest courses on TOUR, especially if there is wind in the forecast. Water hazards are in play on 16 of the 18 holes, so big numbers are lurking everywhere. This is a Pete Dye design, and like most of his courses, this one can’t be overpowered off the tee. The fairways here are narrow (30 yards wide on average) and extremely important to hit. The greens in regulation rate from the fairway is nearly 30% higher than it is from the rough. However, this isn’t a pure accuracy course. Total Driving and Good Drive Percentage are my favorite off-the-tee metrics this week.
The greens here are small (5,500 square feet) and feature bermudagrass. They should be lightning fast (13 on the stimpmeter), so lag putting will be critical. With small greens and trouble everywhere, approach play is easily the most important metric of the week. Around-the-green play also matters, but I would lean toward good ball strikers over good scramblers. Ideally, we want good total drivers, good iron players, good around-the-green players, and good bermudagrass putters. My final note is that course history has not been predictive here over the years, so don’t worry if a golfer you like hasn’t played well here in the past.
My friends, let’s have a week! Get those screenshots ready.
Top PGA DFS Picks on DraftKings & FanDuel for THE PLAYERS Championship
Core Plays
Si Woo Kim
DraftKings: $9,300 / pOWN%: 17%
FanDuel: $11,100 / pOWN%: 14%
Course History L5 Years: 38, 6, 27, MC, 9
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 18
Strokes Gained: Approach: 9
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 13
Strokes Gained: Putting: 121
I’m taking my chances with an underweight stance on Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy this week. I much prefer the balanced builds. I love starting lineups with Kim, who won this event in 2017. He’s playing some of the best golf of his career, posting finishes of T13, T34, T45, T3, T2, T6, and T11 to start the 2026 season. He’s a good total driver of the ball, he’s first in this field in Strokes Gained: Approach so far in 2026, and he’s very good around the greens. The putter can lead him astray at times, but he’s certainly capable of having a good week on the greens.
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