PGA DFS GPP Breakdown: The Open Championship
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!
Welcome, Grinders of all sports! We always have a few more casual DFS players joining the lineup building process this week, with big GPP contests to be had for the season’s final major. We have The Open Championship this week at Royal Troon in Scotland.
Before we get too deep into the analysis, I will say that it is extremely important to monitor the weather forecast this week. This tournament is being played on a traditional links course where the main course defense is the wind, and the course will become much more difficult if Mother Nature gets involved. Keep an eye out for Kevin Roth’s weather forecast as we get closer to lock.
The early forecast shows a decent amount of wind but not much of an edge for any specific wave. However, I will likely make some rosters that stack tee time waves even if the preliminary forecast doesn’t show an advantage, as things can change at a moment’s notice in Scotland. We see this quite often, and the advantage can often be exacerbated in The Open because tee times are more spread out with everyone starting on the first tee. In fact, my best DFS golf week ever remains the last Open Championship that was held at Royal Troon in 2016, where there ended up being a significant edge at one section of the tee time draw.
Editor’s Note: RotoGrinders has partnered with Betsperts Golf and the Rabbit Hole!
Tool Highlights
- Build unlimited custom stat models with official PGA TOUR data.
- Hundreds of filters to find the exact data split you’re looking for.
- Save custom reports and run them again with next week’s field.
- Download anything right to your computer with the click of a button.
- See expert models each week.
As for the course, when the weather isn’t an issue, Royal Troon isn’t the most difficult Open Championship venue — though it will still provide a fair test. As with most links courses, Royal Troon is generally a course that prioritizes approach play. When this major was last held here in 2016, the winning score was -20 (Henrik Stenson), while Phil Mickelson came in second at -17. However, it was a two-golfer race, as the third-place finisher was all the way back at -6. I say this to caution against thinking that this will be a birdie fest. That won’t be the case.
Hitting fairways and avoiding trouble is going to be the most important factor for success, and this major championship will provide an all-around test for the 156 golfers in the field. Good ball strikers and those with strong links / Open experience will rise up my wish list, and I will absolutely prioritize golfers with strong scrambling and bogey avoidance metrics. Everyone is going to miss some greens here, and being able to grind out pars when needed has plenty of value.
Let’s get to some of my favorite GPP picks for the season’s final major!
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel GPP Breakdown for The Open Championship
Xander Schauffele
DraftKings: $11,200
FanDuel: $11,800
Yahoo: $44
Schauffele brings such a great blend of safety and upside to the board right now that it’s difficult to find any reason not to play him. He hasn’t finished outside the top 25 in any event in five months. He’s made almost 50 cuts in a row. He hasn’t missed a cut in six Open Championship appearances. Only one of those has resulted in a finish worse than 30th place. He finally won a major this year and is playing with extreme confidence. The stats are strong across the board, as he ranks 2nd in this field in approach play and 3rd in ball striking over the last 36 rounds. When you factor in salaries, I like him better than the other top-tier options this week.
Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!
