PGA DFS Core Plays: Travelers Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges on DraftKings and FanDuel for the Travelers Championship. Whom should you be building your lineups around? Find out below!
Welcome back to the PGA DFS Core Plays. As always, thanks for joining me.
It was a mix of good and bad at the U.S. Open. The good: Scottie Scheffler, Sam Burns, and Tom Kim all finished in the top 5. They were 3 of the 9 golfers that I highlighted last week. The bad: I didn’t have any Wyndham Clark, and my two main lineups couldn’t have had worse combinations of golfers. I was only able to get 3 of 6 through the cut in each lineup. I nearly min-cashed thanks to Scheffler, Burns, and Kim, but my missed cuts were too much to overcome. Unlike Clark, I did not celebrate on Sunday by opening some grape (which is a bottle of wine if you haven’t been on X).
We have no time for a major hangover, as we have a Signature Event on tap this week. There’s some good news and bad news on this front. The PGA TOUR is revamping its entire schedule and setup next year, and all of its big events are going to feature big fields and a cut. Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to this week’s event. There are only 72 golfers set to tee it up this week in Connecticut, and we don’t have a cut. While I cherish my Friday afternoon cut sweat, I’ve had a real struggle getting 6 of 6 golfers through the cut lately. Perhaps it’s a good thing that none of my picks can miss the cut this week.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament notes, recent form, and course notes for the Travelers Championship, check out this week’s PGA DFS First Look.
TPC River Highlands is a Par 70 that measures only 6,844 yards. With 12 Par 4s on the scorecard, I am going to take a hard look at Par 4 Scoring. I decided to add a weighted Par 4 Scoring metric to my model if you want to check it out. Unlike most courses on the PGA TOUR, it’s more important to be accurate than it is to have distance off the tee. The difference in Greens in Regulation Rate from the fairway and the rough was 43% at this event last year. With this being such a short course, it’s a great week for the fairway finders off the tee. My favorite driving metrics this week are Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Good Drive Percentage.
The greens at TPC River Highlands are extremely small (5,000 square feet), but they are easy to hit in regulation (especially from the fairway). This places a major emphasis on approach play. Nearly 60% of approach shots are expected to come from 50-175 yards, so there won’t be a lot of long iron approaches this week. I created an expected Strokes Gained: Approach metric in my model this week that takes into account the expected approach shot distributions and how good golfers are at approach shots in those ranges. The model is free to download and customize each week for premium members.
The two biggest elements regarding strokes gained at this specific course have been on approach and on the greens. While putting is extremely difficult to predict on a week-to-week basis, I am bumping up the weight for putting in my model this week. Course history at TPC River Highlands has been more predictive than at most venues on the PGA TOUR, so that’s something that I will also be heavily weighing in my model. With the greens being easy to hit and relatively calm conditions in the forecast (including some rain, which could soften the course), I won’t be looking at any around-the-green metrics this week.
The hard work is done. Let’s dive into the picks and my favorite bets for the week.
Top PGA DFS Picks on DraftKings & FanDuel for the Travelers Championship
Core Plays
Russell Henley
Noto Rating: 4 / Cash Rating: 4 / GPP Rating: 5
DraftKings: $9,000 / pOWN%: 13%
FanDuel: $10,400 / pOWN%: 13%
U.S. Open History L5 Years: 2, 48, 19, 19
Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee: 20
Strokes Gained: Approach: 22
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 37
Strokes Gained: Putting: 36
Henley doesn’t have elite course history at TPC River Highlands, but there might not be a better fit on paper for this course. He’s one of the most accurate drivers of the ball on TOUR, which means he’s going to be hitting most of his approach shots from the fairway. He’s excellent on approach overall and even better when you look strictly at his strokes gained numbers from 50-175 yards. He’s having one of his best years with his putter, and he’s picked up a pair of big wins in the last 15 months (Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Charles Schwab Challenge). He now has confidence that he can close the door when in contention, even in these strong fields.
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