PGA DFS GPP Breakdown: TOUR Championship
Top-ranked grinder, STLCardinals84, will break 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.
We’ve made it to the end of another PGA Tour season. It has been another strange year in the golf world, but here we are. The top 30 golfers in the FedEx Cup standings have qualified at East Lake, and the Tour is going to continue the new format that was introduced a few years ago. There were cases in the past where the winner of this final tournament didn’t end up hoisting the FedEx Cup trophy, so the Tour felt a need to change that.
Enter the “starting score” theory.
Based on their current position in the standings, each golfer will start at a certain score. Here is the list:
1st – Scottie Scheffler – starts at -10
2nd – Viktor Hovland – starts at -8
3rd – Rory McIlroy – starts at -7
4th – Jon Rahm – starts at -6
5th – Lucas Glover – starts at -5
6th to 10th – Max Homa, Patrick Cantlay, Brian Harman, Wyndham Clark, and Matt Fitzpatrick – all start at -4
11th to 15th – Tommy Fleetwood, Russell Henley, Keegan Bradley, Rickie Fowler, and Xander Schauffele – all start at -3
16th to 20th – Tom Kim, Sungjae Im, Tony Finau, Corey Conners, and Si Woo Kim – all start at -2
21st to 25th – Taylor Moore, Nick Taylor, Adam Schenk, Collin Morikawa, and Jason Day – all start at -1
26th to 30th – Sam Burns, Emiliano Grillo, Tyrrell Hatton, Jordan Spieth, and Sepp Straka – all start at even par
If you have ever played the final round Showdown contests on DraftKings, you can think of this as a glorified, four-round version of that. Everyone starts at a certain position, finishing position matters, and the golfers starting near the top generally have higher salaries. In fact, Scheffler, McIlroy, and Hovland are exponentially priced over there this week (it’s less extreme on FanDuel and Yahoo). The higher starting salaries for the top starters is good for GPP building, because it adds another layer of strategy to the mix. Rory McIlroy won three years ago despite starting five shots back (and he won by four), so don’t over-emphasize the starting position to your own detriment.
That brings about another point. These are 30 of the top golfers on Tour. There isn’t going to be a lot separating these players statistically. All of them have a semblance of solid form or they wouldn’t have made it here. Game theory becomes super important in GPP contests this week.
As for the course layout, East Lake is a demanding par 70 course that requires elite play off the tee, a solid approach game, and an ability to offer touch around the greens. Basically, the course is no pushover and will test every aspect of a golfer’s game. If you aren’t striking it well here, you won’t be rewarded.
Let’s take a look at some of my favorite GPP plays for the season finale!
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel GPP Breakdown for the TOUR Championship
Scottie Scheffler
DraftKings: $13,400
FanDuel: $13,000
Yahoo: $50
If there’s anyone who can break this slate given the starting advantage, it’s Scottie Scheffler.
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