Daily Fantasy Golf: An Introduction to FanDuel PGA
One of the best parts of daily fantasy sports is right there in the name.
You don't have to wait all year to win or lose: your contests are decided within the same day.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that a multi-day sweat isn't fun, but generally, you can only get that multiple-day excitement in the form of the NFL.
That's not the case anymore.
With FanDuel's offering of daily fantasy golf, you can track your teams for four full days, from the opening tee time until the final golfer hits the clubhouse.
Daily fantasy PGA -- if you don't know the difference between a birdie and a bogey -- does require a significantly new outlook on DFS, but we're here to help.
Here are some of the overarching points you need to know as you venture into one of the most fun DFS sports imaginable.
PGA Tournaments
Usually we don't need to go over how the games themselves are played, like with football or basketball, but the PGA is a bit of a unique situation.
So, in case you're a little fuzzy, PGA tournaments begin on Thursdays, with golfers teeing off at staggered times throughout the day, and run through Sunday when the winner is determined.
But in most tournaments, half the field or so gets eliminated after Friday's round (that's known as the "cut"). There's never a predetermined, score-based cut line before the tournament begins, and it depends on how many golfers are above or below an arbitrary cutoff by the end of the day on Friday.
This isn't always the case, but generally, the top 70 golfers (including those tied) make it through to Saturday and Sunday.
FanDuel Roster Construction
If you've played PGA DFS on other sites like DraftKings before, the roster construction process won't be totally foreign.
On FanDuel, you'll have $60,000 to make a lineup of six different golfers, ranging generally from $7,000 to $13,000.
The end goal is pretty simple: you want your golfers to make the cut and finish at the top of the leaderboard. Breaking par is a great way to score fantasy points, but really, no amount of birdies can overcome a missed cut and two absent rounds.
FanDuel PGA Scoring
The PGA scoring on FanDuel is pretty instinctual and straightforward.
| Scoring | FanDuel Points |
|---|---|
| Eagle (or Better) | 7.0 |
| Birdie | 3.1 |
| Par | 0.5 |
| Bogey | -1.0 |
| Double Bogey (or Worse) | -3.0 |
| Streak Bonus (Consecutive Holes Under Par) | 0.6 |
| Bounce Back (Hole Under Par After Hole Over Par) | 0.3 |
| 5+ Birdies (Round with 5+ Holes Under Par) | 4.0 |
| Bogey-Free Round (Round With No Holes Over Par) | 5.0 |
| 1st (Overall Position on Leaderboard) | 20.0 |
| 2nd-5th (Overall Position on Leaderboard) | 12.0 |
| 6th-10th (Overall Position on Leaderboard) | 8.0 |
| 11th-25th (Overall Position on Leaderboard) | 5.0 |
So, you're gaining points on pars, birdies, and eagles and losing points on bogeys of all kinds. There is also, as you can see, a bonus for players running hot (an extra 0.6 fantasy points for par-breaking streaks) and a bounce-back bonus for following an over-par result with an under-par result.
With a useful boost, you'll want to give extra consideration to players who can reel off birdies in a row, as they can help eliminate the penalty of the inevitable bogey. Plus, three birdies in a row counts as two separate streaks, totaling 1.2 extra points.
Of course, you certainly want to have your golfers finish in the top 25. That leads to bonus points and also some of the best scores of the tournament. Finishing position correlates stronger to FanDuel points than anything else.
FanDuel's PGA offering is intuitive and easy to learn for the newcomer to PGA DFS. And as for the seasoned PGA DFS player, the new setup offers a new spin on a fun daily fantasy sport.
