PGA DFS Core Plays: Travelers Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges for this week’s tournament. Who should you be building lineups around? Find out below!
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for the Travelers Championship
After a wild Sunday at the U.S. Open, we head to Connecticut for yet another signature event. The Travelers Championship features a field of only 72 golfers and will not have a cut. While this takes the sweat equity out of the first two rounds for us DFS players, at least it guarantees that our lineups won’t be dead come Saturday morning.
TPC River Highlands is a par 70 that measures just over 6,800 yards. It’s one of the shortest courses on the PGA TOUR. Despite being a par 70 with only two par 5s, this is routinely one of the top 15 easiest courses on TOUR. The winning score is usually at least 20-under par, so golfers will need to make birdies in bunches to contend.
This is one of the few courses on TOUR where accuracy off the tee reigns supreme. Driver was only hit on 59% of tee shots at this event last year, and the fairways narrow as you get closer to the green. Add in a steep penalty for missing the fairway, and it’s easy to see why accuracy is so important here.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament and course notes for the Travelers 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.
Pete Dye designed the course, and like most of his tracks, this one is all about approach play. The greens are small (5,000 square feet), yet we can still expect the field to hit more than 70% of the greens in regulation. When everyone is hitting greens, it also places a huge emphasis on putting.
To sum up the course fit for TPC River Highlands, I am looking for accurate drivers of the ball, good iron players (especially with wedges), birdie makers, and good putters. With all golfers guaranteed to play four rounds, we have to avoid the landmines. That’ll be the key in giving your lineups a chance over the weekend.
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Core Plays
Russell Henley
DraftKings: $8,800 / pOWN%: 15%
FanDuel: $10,600 / pOWN%: 15%
Driving Accuracy: 7
Strokes Gained: Approach: 9
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green: 3
Strokes Gained: Putting: 19
Birdie or Better %: 40
Bogey Avoidance: 4
Henley rates out as the 2nd-best golfer in my model, ahead of Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, and Ludvig Aberg. He’s one of the most accurate drivers of the ball in the world and is top 10 in this field in Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green. He’s coming off back-to-back top-10 finishes at the Memorial Tournament and the U.S. Open, so he should have plenty of confidence coming into the week. He tends to clean up on these short and easy courses.
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