PGA DFS Core Plays: THE PLAYERS Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various salary ranges for this week’s tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
There were plenty of landmines last week and while I hit a few of them, I managed to scrape out a profitable week. Going all in on Scottie Scheffler certainly paid dividends. We now turn our attention to one of the toughest tournaments to predict on the PGA TOUR — THE PLAYERS Championship. While this is still the flagship event for the TOUR, it is no longer referred to as the 5th major. While that moniker is gone, the TOUR continues to yell at us with the name of the event being capitalized for no apparent reason.
TPC Sawgrass is a Par 72 that measures 7,275 yards. It’s one of the few courses on TOUR where any type of golfer can contend. Like most Pete Dye designs, power is negated off the tee at this course. It’s always beneficial to have distance but only if golfers can keep it in the fairway. Due to several doglegs and forced layups, driving distance is not a prerequisite for success here. In 2023, the average driving distance was only 284 yards, which was one of the lowest marks on TOUR. The fairways are narrow, and the rough can be penalizing (especially when trying to hit into some of these greens surrounded by water), which emphasizes accuracy over distance.
Noto’s PGA Model Download & Video for the THE PLAYERS Championship
The greens here are small in size (5,500 square feet on average) and are tough to hit in regulation. This has always been known as a second-shot approach type of course. I don’t mind looking at raw strokes gained approach numbers, but if you want to dig in a little deeper and look at specific approach yardage buckets, 40% of approach shots should come from less than 150 yards and 25% of approach shots should come from at least 200 yards. This means we will see a lot of wedge shots and a lot of long iron shots. I have a new metric in my downloadable model that takes all of this into account. The link to the model video and download link is above.
Golfers that strike the ball well are going to have a ton of birdie looks this weekend. However, it’s just as easy to make a big number as it is to make a birdie. With water in play on every single hole, the variance of this event is through the roof. This is exactly why course history has not been predictive here over the years. Even the best players in the world (Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Max Homa, Xander Schauffele, etc) have missed the cut at least once here in the last 5 years. We obviously shouldn’t discount someone that has good course history, but I am not factoring it into my model as much as most weeks.
From a roster construction standpoint, I plan to utilize wave stacks. We’ve seen some big discrepancies between wave scoring at this event over the years. It currently looks like the PM/AM wave might have a small advantage, but I will build stacks on both sides of the wave. I won’t be doing this on all of my lineups, but if the current forecast holds, I like the idea of building something like 30% PM/AM stacks, 20% AM/PM stacks, and 50% of lineups without worrying about the weather. The $5,000 floor pricing is back on DraftKings, which means it is easy to build stars and scrubs lineups. I personally view the balanced build as an enticing option this week.
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for THE PLAYERS Championship
Field Size:
- 144 golfers
Cut Rule:
- Top 65 and ties
Weather Forecasts
TPC Sawgrass
- Location: Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida
- Par 72 — 7,275 yards
- Designer: Pete Dye
- Difficulty: 2023 (12th), 2022 (12th), 2021 (16th), 2020 (N/A), 2019 (23rd)
- Number of holes with water hazards: Every. Single. Hole.
- Fairway width in landing areas: 30.6 yards
- Green type: bermuda overseeded with poa annua
- Green size: 5,500 square feet
- 2023 tournament averages:
- - Driving distance = 284 yards
- - Driving accuracy = 59%
- - Greens in regulation = 59%
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Event and Course Notes
- Dan Back, StevieTPFL, and Noto played here (all three found the water on 17)
- This event no longer calls itself the 5th major but still yells at us with its name
- Pete Dye loves to negate power off the tee- all types of golfers can contend here
- Recent champions: Scheffler (-17), Smith (-13), Thomas (-14), McIlroy (-16)
- Difficulty of the course hinges on wind, rain, and the setup (can get firm and fast)
- Driving accuracy is a lot more important than driving distance
- For our purposes, total driving or strokes gained off the tee is best
- With water lurking and tough-to-hit greens, approach play is paramount
- Nice mix of wedges (40% of approach shots come from less than 150 yards) and long irons (26% of approach shots come from over 200 yards)
- Course history is not very predictive here (likely due to water hazard variance)
- We’ve seen big wave advantages here, so stacking tee times is viable
What to Look For
- Strokes gained approach
- Bogey avoidance
- Strokes gained off the tee
- Strokes gained putting
- Experience in Florida
- Experience in tough fields and on difficult courses
Core Plays
Russell Henley
DraftKings: $8,600 / pOWN: 9%
FanDuel: $9,500 / pOWN: 7%
Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 48
Strokes Gained Approach: 13
Strokes Gained Around the Green: 11
Strokes Gained Putting: 56
Birdie or Better %: 36
Bogey Avoidance: 7
I only have two core plays this week, and neither is Scheffler. I plan to use him in one of my three small-field lineups and in 15-20% of my MME lineups. I’ll likely be under the field, but I feel fine about it given the variance at this course. Anyway, let’s get to the first core play. TPC Sawgrass demands accuracy off the tee and good iron play. Henley is top 20 in this field in both driving accuracy and strokes gained on approach. He’s very good around the green and has gained nearly 13 strokes putting the last two weeks. If his ball striking comes back to his usual levels and he putts the way he has the last couple of events, he could have a real chance at winning this event. He’s very comfortable playing on bermuda courses and has finished in the top 20 at this event in each of the last two years.
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