PGA DFS Core Plays: TOUR Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges on DraftKings and FanDuel for the TOUR Championship. Which golfers should you be building your lineups around? Find out below!
Every year, it feels like the PGA TOUR season flies by. Maybe not as quickly as the NFL season, but it’s close. It’s hard to believe we are already at the season finale at East Lake. There are 30 golfers set to tee it up at the TOUR Championship with $20 million up for grabs. Unlike past editions of this event, we don’t have to worry about starting strokes this week. Everyone will start at even par, which means the FedExCup standings don’t mean anything now that we are down to the final 30 golfers.
This is one of the most interesting weeks from a DFS game theory standpoint. With such a small field, everyone is going to have inflated ownership. In large-field tournaments, there are going to be a ton of duplicated lineups. You have two options when it comes to being contrarian. You can try to find contrarian golfers and/or contrarian pairings of golfers, or you can leave a ton of salary on the table. Outside of cash games and small-field tournaments, I recommend leaving $500 or more on the table.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament notes, recent form, and course notes for the TOUR Championship, check out this week’s PGA DFS First Look.
Let’s talk about East Lake Golf Club. The course had a restoration before the 2024 edition of this event. It’s now a par 70 that measures 7,440 yards. While this is one of the longest par-adjusted courses on TOUR, it has not played very difficult. In fact, it’s been one of the 10 easiest courses on TOUR in each of the last 2 years. The winning score (if you don’t include starting strokes) has been between -17 and -19 in each of the last 4 years. With no wind in the forecast, we can expect good scoring once again.
The fairways here are tree-lined and average in width (30-32 yards). This has been a driver-heavy course (76% driver usage rate last season), but it’s far from what I would consider a bomber’s course. Hitting approach shots from the fairway is a huge advantage. In fact, the Greens in Regulation rate from the fairway was 36% higher from the fairway than it was from the rough last season. As is the case with most Donald Ross designs, good iron play is a must.
The greens at East Lake are average in size (6,200 square feet) and feature bermudagrass. They are lightning-fast (13 on the stimpmeter) and can lead to a high 3-putt percentage. The greens are relatively easy to hit in regulation (especially from the fairway), and scrambling hasn’t been overly difficult here the last couple of years. The scrambling success rate in 2025 was much higher than TOUR average.
If I had to pick three strengths to target, they would be good total driving, approach play, and putting on bermudagrass.
Top PGA DFS Picks on DraftKings & FanDuel for the TOUR Championship
Core Plays
Collin Morikawa
DraftKings: $8,100 / pOWN%: 27%
FanDuel: $10,400 / pOWN%: TBD
Course History L5 Years: 19, 1, 4, 19, 28
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 19
Strokes Gained: Approach: 3
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 22
Strokes Gained: Putting: 9
Weighted Proximity: 2
Expected Hole Performance: 7
As always, my interest in Scheffler hinges on the pieces you can fit around him. My favorite plays are all in the mid-range, so I’m taking my chances with another Scheffler fade. It worked last week; hopefully it will work again. Morikawa is coming off a T4 finish at the BMW Championship, where he gained nearly 6 strokes ball striking. He now has 7 top-7 finishes in his last 13 starts. East Lake is a great fit for his game, as he’s one of the more accurate golfers on TOUR. He hits a ton of fairways and is elite on approach. He’s also become a much better putter this year, which is why he’s flashed so much upside.
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