PGA DFS Core Plays: Tour 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.
Viktor Hovland went nuclear on his back nine on Sunday, firing a 28 to steal the BMW Championship away from Scottie Scheffler and Matt Fitzpatrick. As he has done time and time again this season, he put on a ball striking clinic and caught fire with the flat-stick. Most players of his caliber would consider the season a slight disappointment without a major, but Hovland should feel great about rattling off his two biggest wins in his career (The Memorial Tournament and the BMW Championship). He now has a chance to take down the $18 million first place prize at this week’s Tour Championship.
We have finally arrived at the playoff finale. If you aren’t familiar with the event, the format is quite different than what we typically see on the PGA Tour. For starters, there will only be 30 golfers in the field. This naturally increases the ownership for everyone on the DFS front. This is a week where you can feel good about leaving $1,000+ on the table when building lineups. The other big difference with this event is the starting strokes. Based on the FedExCup standings, golfers will start with a score anywhere from even par to 10-under par. While that will have an impact on finishing position points in DFS, I want to point out that the difference in finishing position points between fifth and 30th place is the same as four birdies. That’s not much over the course of four rounds. To each their own, but I’m not focusing my attention on the starting strokes.
East Lake Golf Club is a Par 70 that measures 7,364 yards. On the scorecard, it’s almost identical to last week’s course. However, there are plenty of differences between the two courses. Most notably, Olympia Fields had bentgrass greens, while East Lake has bermudagrass greens. The greens here are only 5,600 square feet on average, and they will likely be 12+ on the stimpmeter (very fast). The fairways here are quite narrow (25 yards wide on average), and if you miss them, hitting greens in regulation becomes a very difficult task. Over the years, this course has negated raw power and has placed a big emphasis on hitting fairways. I’m certainly not looking at distance and will be using a combination of strokes gained off the tee, total driving, and driving accuracy.
Field Breakdown Video & Model Download Link for the Tour Championship
As you can see from the course breakdown below, there is a wide mix of approach shot lengths at this course. It’s not a wedge fest and it’s not a long iron test. East Lake is one of the few courses on tour that demands solid play all throughout the bag. You have to drive it well, you have to hit a mix of approach shots, you have to scramble well given the small greens, and you ultimately have to putt well on these bermudagrass greens. Making birdies will be important for DFS scoring, but I’m personally looking more at bogey avoidance. With all golfers guaranteed to play four rounds, I want to avoid those that could rack up a ton of bogeys and nuke lineups.
That should do it for the breakdown this week. Don’t be afraid to leave a lot of salary on the table and try to avoid pairing together very popular players in large-field tournaments. The best way to do that is to monitor the ownership projections and build rules into LineupHQ. It’s been a fun season, so let’s try to end it with a bang.
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for Tour Championship
Field Size:
- 30 golfers
Cut Rule:
- No cut this week
Weather Forecasts
Golf Course
- East Lake Golf Club
- Designer: Donald Ross
- Location: Atlanta, Georgia
- Par 70 — 7,346 yards
- Difficulty: 2022 (44th), 2021 (37th), 2020 (24th), 2019 (14th), 2018 (24th)
- Average fairway width: 24.9 yards
- Average green size: 5,600 square feet
- Grass type: zoysiagrass fairways, bermuda rough and greens
- Water is in play on six holes
- Approach shot lengths from 2022:
- 50-75 yards: 2%
- 75-100 yards: 4%
- 100-125 yards: 12%
- 125-150 yards: 19%
- 150-175 yards: 17%
- 175-200 yards: 16%
- 200-225 yards: 16%
- 225-250 yards: 10%
- 250+ yards: 4%
Event Notes
- Playoff finale! Only the top 30 in the standings will tee it up this week
- Starting strokes are applied based on standings (shown in the table below)
- Course negates power and rewards good ball strikers
- Only two par fives on the course and six par fours over 450 yards
- Small bermudagrass greens that are quite fast (12+ on stimp)
- Those that hit fairways and greens should have a big edge
- Around the green play and good bermuda putting are handy here
What to Look For
- Strokes gained approach
- Total driving
- Greens in regulation
- Bogey Avoidance
- Strokes gained putting on bermuda
- Strokes gained around the green
Core Plays
Xander Schauffele
DK: $10,500 — FD: $11,600
SG: OTT — 15
SG: APP — 3
Greens in Regulation — 4
Bogey Avoidance — 7
SG: Putting (Bermuda) — 12
Stat Rank — 12
Noto Rating — 73.5
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