It’s the final major event of the year for the PGA Tour and we everything to help you win! Sia Nejad and Joel have DFS plays, bets and more on the The Open DFS Breakdown!
Sia Nejad – @SiaNejad
Joel – @DraftMasterFlex
Make sure to check out more DFS and betting content at WinDailySports.com
The year’s final major is upon us and it is at Royal St. George’s Golf Club in England for The Open Championship. This is a Links style course characterized as a coastal course, with no protection from the elements and filled with deep bunkers and sand dunes. Wind is likely to be big factor and we may need to wait until Wednesday night to determine where the edge is in that regard. Note that this tournament locks around midnight Wednesday evening. Make sure you check our Discord Wednesday night before lock for all of the last minute information. And check out the PGA team Tuesday night for our Live PGA Livestream for notes on all of the players and the course itself.
Brooks Koepka (10700) – I think Brooks and Jon Rahm have the best chance for an outright win at The Open, and therefore, I’ll take the slight discount that Brooks offers (I clearly like Rahm as well). He has plenty of Links experience and a great track record at Opens and majors in general. Over the last two tournaments, which included the US Open, he’s finished Top 5.
Jordan Spieth (9700) – Great finishing positions, great strokes gained metrics, great Open experience and great price. Spieth epitomizes the idea of value. No one is a lock in this tournament, but can’t deny the value of Spieth.
Louis Oothuizen (9300) – Speaking of great track records in majors, there’s no disputing that Louis is usually completely dialed in at majors and this week should be no different. He’s also been in good form with 2nd place finishes in his last two majors (US Open and PGA Championship).
Patrick Cantlay (8900) – He’s been very solid after his slight slump and this feels like one of many value plays in this tournament. Cantlay won the Memorial (kinda, Rahm WD) and he has Open experience.
Patrick Reed (8800) – We’ll need to wait and see how ownership plays out, but I think Reed is very sneaky as he’s the type of golfer that will map out and navigate this course easier than most. His recent form is average, but his Open experience is very strong.
Matt Fitzpatrick (7900) – If he ends up being chalky, I’ll likely pivot as I’m never “inlove” with Matt Fitzpatrick, but he’s another guy that shouldn’t have trouble navigating tough conditions and he just had a great showing in a tough Scottish Open field.
Jason Day (7700) – A GPP play only and this write up assumes four days of health, but Day could be a great play if people are shy to use him. His Open and Links experience are great and he’s coming in with good form.
Daniel Berger (7400) – This price is pretty eye-popping and while he lacks some of the experience on Links style courses that I’m looking for, the value is too good to ignore. Berger rates out very well for me and belongs in the 8k range.
Garrick Higgo (7400) – He’s been great on the Euro Tour and the adjustment to the PGA Tour has also been easier than expected. I don’t think he’ll be intimidated by this major.
Harris English (7300) – He has middling results in Opens in the past, but he has made 4 of 5 cuts. His recent form is excellent (1st, 3rd and 14th over his last three tournaments) and I think he’s another guy in the low 7k range that can offer plenty of upside.
Branden Grace (7200) – He’s been pretty dialed in lately and that shows in improving SG metrics and impressive finishing positions. He also has the requisite Links experience. A good course fit at a good value.
Lucas Herbert (6800) – He’s 3rd on the European Tour in SG: Total and that’s shown in his finishing positions. He’s coming off a T4 at last week’s Scottish Open so the form is there. His Open experience is limited but he certainly has Links experience.
Secret Weapon (less than 7k/less than 5% owned) – Current record is 38-12. See you in Discord.
If you haven’t already, subscribe to Win Daily Sports on YouTube and at the Apple Podcasts and check out all the content at windailysports.com. It’s also important to be in Discord Wednesday night for all The Open Championship late tips, lineup changes and weather reports.
On to the John Deere Classic! It’s a bit of a thin field this time around, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make money! Sia Nejad, Joel and Nick have DFS plays, bets and more on the John Deere Classic DFS Breakdown!
Sia Nejad – @SiaNejad
Joel – @DraftMasterFlex
Nick- @StixPicks
Make sure to check out more DFS and betting content at WinDailySports.com
The PGA Tour is at TPC Deere Run this week for the John Deere Classic. This Par 71 7000+ yard track will feature a watered down field as most of the elite players are across the Atlantic at the Scottish Open. This week my focus will be on BS and APP, particularly from proximities of 150 yards and below, and once again, I’ll be looking for guys who can get hot with the putter. Join us Tuesday night at 8:00 EST for the Win Daily PGA Livestream with much more on the course and the players (don’t forget to hit the ‘Like’ button on YouTube!). Now let’s get to my Initial Picks for the John Deere Classic.
Sungjae Im (10700) – Really like how he’s rounding into form. Earlier this year the APP game was just way off, but it’s been good for 3 weeks in a row now and he’s gaining everywhere else. It’s rare that I’m on Sungjae but it feels like the right time.
Brian Harman (10400) – Somehow this feels risky as his APP game can get dicey here and there. But those instances are few and far between and I like how he sets up at this course. This is another guy that I’m not normally on and I question his upside, but in this field the upside is there.
Kevin Streelman (9700) – I’m hopeful that the MC at the Travelers keeps ownership down as Streelman has been lights out. He rates out perfectly for this course and is in great form.
Seamus Power (9000) – Only question mark for Power is his spotty OTT game and his increased pricetag, but he has been great everywhere else and I think this is actually a fair price for him in this field. He’s played the John Deere three times and has three made cuts.
Patton Kizzire (8900) – This guy can get red hot with APP and PUTT and that’s a great combination for taking a tournament down. I worry a bit about his volatility OTT so I’m endorsing Kizzire for GPP only.
Maverick McNealy (8800) – Three top 30’s in a row and the ability to go low at any moment. Just like Kizzire he’s got some volatility attached to him, but the upside is there.
Hank Lebioda (8400) – A great ball striker as of late who has been absolutely dominant with the putter. How long will it last for Hammerin Hank no one knows, but I’ve been riding this train longer than most so I’m going to stay on it longer than most.
Kyle Stanley (7900) – I love Stanley but I need to offer the disclaimer that he is high risk due to a horrific putter. Over his last 30 tournaments (dates back to January 2020) he’s only gained with the PUTT 5 times. That’s pretty staggering and it makes him unsafe, but if ownership happens to be low, I’ll jump in.
Beau Hossler (7800) – We were on him last week and I’ll be on him again this week. He’s got three Top 25’s in a row and is a nice course fit. Finished 26th at the John Deere in 2019 in his only appearance.
Satoshi Kodaira (7000) – Kodaira broke our hearts last week with a back nine which led to an MC. I still like his ball striking and putting overall and he appears to be a better course fit this week. I’ll stick with Kodaira while others jump ship.
Adam Schenk (6900) – Another low end golfer we were on last week who made the cut and paid off his price. Schenk has good history here and has been striking the ball pretty well. The putter can be up and down, but willing to take the chance at this price.
JJ Spaun (6600) – If you need to go super low in price, JJ is a good option as his ball striking has been good as of late and we may be catching him on the rise. It’s obviously very risky down here in this range.
Secret Weapon (less than 7k/less than 5% owned) – Current record is 38-11. See you in Discord.
If you haven’t already, subscribe to Win Daily Sports on YouTube and at the Apple Podcasts and check out all the content at windailysports.com. It’s also important to be in Discord Wednesday night for all The John Deere late tips, lineup changes and weather reports.
If this is your first time reading my article, I’d like to talk about some basics. I only play DraftKings (DK), So those are the salaries I refer to. That being said, My thoughts on the players themselves should be fairly universal across the industry. Strategy in PGA DFS is very important. The players you pick differ substantially depending on the sport, type of game you are playing, and number of contestants in that particular game. This article revolves around cash games, and smaller field, single entry tournaments. My goal is to continuously build a bankroll with cash games, while taking limited risks in smaller field, single entry (SE) tournaments.
Players are popular in PGA DFS for a reason. Knowing when to play, or fade popular (chalk) players can determine whether you make, or lose money in any particular week. This article is intended to determine which of these “chalky” players you should be using, or fading in regards to this particular course. Please keep in mind that most of my picks are highly owned players, so you will need to find contrarian plays as well to win a contest similar to the Millionaire Maker. For more on DFS strategy, please refer to any of our WinDaily articles regarding strategy. Let’s take a look at the course to determine the type of golfer we’re looking for.
Detroit Golf Club is a par 72, 7370 yard course designed by Donald Ross. Although tree lined, the fairways are large and easy to hit. The rough is moderate and not very penal. The greens are smaller than average and consist of both POA and Bentgrass. This is only the 3rd year Detroit has hosted this event, so course history is minimal. There aren’t very many obstacles on this course. I’m not going to emphasize scrambling or around the green (ARG) stats too much because frankly, this will be a “birdie fest”. The golfers we pick will need to be scoring heavily as the past 2 champions have been 23, and 25 under par. So if your players are working on their ARG game, that means they’ve missed the green and are trying to save par, and most likely not contending to begin with.
There is chatter going around the PGA DFS industry that this is a “bombers” course. I want to set the record straight. Distance will always be a positive in golf, but it’s not the only factor in winning. Most will have you believe this is a “bombers” course because Bryson DeChambeau won this event in 2020, with Matthew Wolff finishing as a runner up. Both of these players are well documented as hitting the ball very far off the tee (OTT). However, looking deeper into the stats, Bryson did gain 6.7 strokes OTT. Sounds like a lot, but it’s just average for DeChambeau. Wolff only gained 2.7 strokes OTT. I can tell you how they REALLY won it, putting. Strokes Gained (SG) putting for both: Bryson, 7.8; Wolff, 6.1.Adding those numbers in to their other stats, they both had SG: Totals of over 12 strokes, 15 for the champion.
Behind these 2 on the leader board were basically 8 golfers that are known as being much shorter OTT players. In addition to these stats, in the 2019 version of this event, Nate Lashley walked away with top honors after winning a qualifier on the Monday before the event. He wasn’t listed on DraftKings, nor most betting books. Nate Lashley is well known as being one of the shortest drivers on tour.
Bryson’s approach (SG: APP) numbers are a little skewed, as are his proximity numbers. He hits the ball so far off the tee, that when he gets close to a green on a par 4, the PGA stat engine often thinks of it as a missed approach shot. This leads to his 2nd shots recording as ARG, instead of close proximity. The only real way to get a feel for his game is to actually watch him play. He’s kind of an anomaly in that way, one that we’ve never really seen before. All this being said, Bryson is a great golfer, but I don’t think he’s been playing as good as he could be. He has a terrible tendency to pull his drives way far to the right, and his SG: APP, and putting has just not been as good as I’ve seen in the past. I think he’s priced appropriately for his Ora so to speak, but I do NOT think he’s the top golfer in this field. At the current time, with the injuries to Webb Simpson, that title belongs to Patrick Reed in my opinion.
There are 4 BIG events on the horizon for professional golf. The Olympics, The (British) Open Championship, The FedEx playoffs, and the Ryder Cup. There are a LOT of golfers out there with their minds set on some of these much bigger events, and you should too. I want to mention 3 golfers in particular. I spoke in length last week on Si Woo Kim’s status in the Olympics regarding his responsibilities with the Military in his home country of Korea, so I’m not going to get in to that again.
We have 2 other high priced golfers on this PGA DFS slate that have narratives flying around that I think are worth mentioning. Will Zalatoris is still an amateur that has been playing on sponsor exemptions all season. Most may not know this as he’s been an absolute beast. The fact of the matter is that unless he wins, he will not secure his PGA card, nor will he be eligible for the FedEx playoffs. This would be a major blow to what has been a top 20 golfer on tour all year long. That doesn’t include the almost 70 million dollars that would be up for grabs to him if he could just win an event!!!
Webb Simpson is getting older, and has had a set back injury to his neck. He simply hasn’t played very much lately. The one time we did see him play was at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. This was a course that Simpson never plays because it really doesn’t fit his particular style of game, and it was his first time playing since his return from that injury. He missed the cut. It is my belief that Webb has the stature to pick and choose the events that he wants to play, and specifically picks out courses that he can win on when they don’t involve a major championship.
Webb Simpson is arguably one of the top 10 players in the world, and currently sits on the outside looking in to make the final team for the United States at the Ryder Cup (which is a major in itself, held on U.S. soil this year, and been aggravatingly won by team Europe lately). A win would get Simpson on the team, and he picked THIS course to do it on. By the way, Webb is also well known for being very short OTT. He finished 8th here last year.
I’ve rambled on long enough. I’m going to make this quite simple. I’m looking for golfers with a good all around game, focusing on SG: APP, and SG: Putting. Of course distance is always a plus, but I may be avoiding it in spots to gain ownership leverage on the field regarding the narrative I laid out above. Finally, I want guys that are coming in with solid form. I don’t care about their stats from 3-4 months ago. There is simply too much on the horizon for these golfers, and us PGA DFS players. We need to stay focused on the present to win some cash this week.
Patrick Reed
Webb Simpson
Will Zalatoris
Jason Kokrak
Matthew Wolff
Gary Woodland
Max Homa
Garrick Higgo
Brendon Todd
Lucas Glover
Maverick McNealy
Alex Noren
Seamus Power
Beau Hossler
Mito Pereira
Henrik Norlander
Satoshi Kodaira
Austin Eckroat
Justin Suh
It’s a good idea to read all the writers articles here at WinDaily so that you can get the best information the industry has to offer before making the final decisions on your PGA DFS lineups.
Be sure you check out Steven’s (aka Sicily Kid) ownership article on Wednesday evening to fine tune your lineups according to the contests you’re playing.
Join us in the Discord chat rooms as the writers break down and discuss our favorite plays even further. Our family here at WinDaily hopes that we can teach everyone some key factors to success at playing DFS and earn some extra money while doing something we love.
Thank You for reading my content and feel free to leave a comment, or reach out to me on Twitter. Good Luck this weekend.
The PGA Tour makes its next stop in Dallas for the Rocket Mortgage Classic! Sia Nejad and Joel break it all down with course notes, DFS plays and betting picks on the Rocket Mortgage DFS Breakdown!
Sia Nejad – @SiaNejad
Joel – @DraftMasterFlex
Nick- @StixPicks
Make sure to check out more DFS and betting content at WinDailySports.com
The PGA Tour is in Detroit this week for The Rocket Mortgage Classic. This Par 72 7330 track will favor bombers, but it is certainly not a pre-requisite to be long. My focus will be on OTT and APP somewhat equally and I’ve honed in a bit on APP proximities between 75-150. Finally, I’m looking for golfers who have shown that they have the potential to get hot with the putter. We will have more on the course and all the players on the Win Daily PGA Livestream Tuesday night at 8:00 EST. Now let’s get to the Initial Picks for The Rocket Mortgage Classic.
Bryson DeChambeau (11400) – Truth is I’m not huge on Bryson this week, but I felt the need to put him in the article because his upside is massive. I don’t love his APP game from shorter proximities, but he checks out everywhere else. Not a ton of shares for me, but I will play him.
Webb Simpson (10400) – We haven’t seen him much this year and he’s not very long OTT and I’m hoping that keeps ownership down. Webb is only 9th in my model, but I see him as fully rested and ready to attack the rest of 2021. His T2G game is elite and he’s also a surprising 5th SG Par 5 last 24 rounds. He finished 8th here last year. I’ll note I also like Hideki and Reed in this elite range.
Jason Kokrak (9500) – Number 1 in my model. He’s great in the BS department and can get scorching hot with the putter. Only weakness is ARG, but I don’t think that will be a big issue for him this week. All systems go on Kokrak.
Gary Woodland (8600) – In spite of last week’s MC, it feels like Woodland’s game is back on the rise. He rates out very high in my model and I’m happy to be early on him. A GPP play only.
Garrick Higgo (8300) – He’s gained BS three tournaments in a row and it’s mainly the ARG game that has led to the consecutive MCs. He’s gained PUTT in 3 of the 4 tournaments he’s played on the PGA Tour. Plenty of upside here for Higgo at The Rocket Mortgage.
Emiliano Grillo (8200) – Another guy who had a somewhat surprising MC last week at the Travelers, but I like the fact that he is always solid with the BS and the fact that he can get hot with the putter (it doesn’t happen often, but it’s starting to happen more and more).
Cameron Tringale (8100) – Was a DFS darling a few short months ago, but the game has fallen off a bit. He also missed the cut last week at the Travelers, but overall, I like what I’m seeing from his game, particularly with the putter and the shorter APP proximities.
Brendon Todd (7900) – Doesn’t feel like the best course fit, but I like what I’m seeing from him lately. He gained almost 6 strokes T2G last week but finished a pedestrian 30th due to a poor putter. The BS is turning around and historically his putter can get hot.
Hank Lebioda (7200) – Hammerin’ Hank came through for us last week with a Win Daily Secret Weapon Special (100+ DK points from a guy who was 1.5% owned is gigantic). His final score was a little misleading as he gained almost 6 strokes PUTT and wasn’t great BS. I expect the BS to bounce back and if the putter stays hot, watch out.
Beau Hossler (7000) – Either the last couple of tournaments were a mirage or Beau has found something with two Top 20 finishes in a row. In a Rocket Mortgage tournament that doesn’t have much talent below 7500 I’m willing to take a chance that Hossler has found something.
Satoshi Kodaira (6800) – Had a couple bad days at the Travelers after a red-hot start on Thursday, but still managed to place 36th. Prior to last week he had gained BS in four straight tournaments. He has also gained PUTT in a big way in four straight. This is great upside for a guy priced this low.
Adam Schenk (6500) – His metrics aren’t great, but he has managed to make cuts lately (he’s made 6 of his last 8 cuts but hasn’t had a Top 20 since the Valspar. Add to that he’s finished 30th and 42nd on this track and there’s some arguable value at this price.
Secret Weapon (less than 7k/less than 5% owned) – Current record is 38-10. See you in Discord.
If you haven’t already, subscribe to Win Daily Sports on YouTube and at the Apple Podcasts and check out all the content at windailysports.com. It’s also important to be in Discord Wednesday night for all The Rocket Mortgage late tips, lineup changes and weather reports.
After another exciting major the PGA Tour is back at it this week with the Travelers Championship! The PGA crew has you covered as Spencer, Joel and Nick give a full DFS breakdown and betting picks as well on the Travelers Championship DFS Breakdown!
Spencer – @TeeOffSports
Joel – @DraftMasterFlex
Nick- @StixPicks
Make sure to check out more DFS and betting content at WinDailySports.com
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