PGA DFS GPP Breakdown: Farmers Insurance Open
Long-time grinder, stlcardinals84, breaks down his top PGA DFS picks in various price ranges for this week’s tournament. Which golfers should you be targeting to try and take down the big DFS tournaments? Find out below!
This is the tournament where we can officially say that the PGA season is back in business. The NFL season is winding down, and we finally get to see our first “true test” of golf at a tougher, traditional venue at Torrey Pines. As was the case with last week’s pro-am, we have a different style of event once again this week, with two courses in play during the first two rounds. Each golfer will play one round on the Torrey Pines North Course and one round on the South Course prior to the cut. The South Course handles all of the weekend duties.
The host South Course measures as a healthy par 72 that plays at around 7,800 yards from the tips. The North Course isn’t quite as long and generally plays around 2-3 strokes easier. That differential used to be greater prior to some renovations that were done at the North Course a few years ago. Still, we can expect the North Course to yield better scoring conditions. You will want your golfers to have a good round there. In addition, if you are playing single-round slates on DraftKings, prioritizing North Course golfers on the first two days is absolutely essential.
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As for the skill set required to succeed at Torrey Pines, you will notice that distance is a key. This is also a course where the “cream usually rises to the top,” as we often see on more difficult tracks. Tiger Woods dominated this place in his prime. Jason Day won twice in a 4-year span. Jon Rahm won here in the past when he was on the PGA TOUR. Other bombers have peppered the leaderboard over the years, though shorter hitters have also won. Those results prove that you can contend with a lights-out all-around game or a red-hot putter. However, this place has generally been a bomber’s paradise. I’ll be focusing on Driving Distance, Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, ball striking, and Bogey Avoidance for key stats. This won’t be a shootout like we have seen in other recent events, and I, for one, am ready for an event like that. The South Course has seven par 4s that check in at 450+ yards, so this tournament won’t be a cakewalk for any golfer.
Let’s move onward to discuss some of my favorite GPP selections for this week!
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PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel GPP Breakdown for the Farmers Insurance Open
Sungjae Im
DraftKings: $10,000
FanDuel: $11,700
Hideki Matsuyama is the obvious “safe” choice at the top, but I like the pivot to Im, especially in GPP builds. Im was a very popular top-end play with elite course history a week ago, and he could not overcome a poor first round on his way to a surprising missed cut. He has very strong course history once again this week, but I expect his ownership to lag a bit thanks to recency bias. Despite a missed cut at Torrey Pines a year ago, he has still gained over 30 strokes over the field average in the last five editions of this tournament. He also ranks 5th in Total Strokes Gained and 4th in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green over the last 36 rounds, and that scrambling skill is huge at Torrey Pines. This is a great bounce-back spot.