Daily fantasy golf requires a new approach for each and every event.
The course and field change week after week, making no two contests alike. That means you need to refine your approach for each PGA Tour event to try to find golfers who are primed to excel for your daily fantasy golf lineups.
Each week, we have a course primer, and our daily fantasy golf projections and lineup builder can help you get started, but these golfers stand out specifically on DraftKings for the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
Key Stats
Key Stats for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am |
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Strokes Gained: Tee to Green |
Strokes Gained: Approach |
Birdies or Better Gained |
Scrambling |
Strokes Gained: Par 5s |
Let's get to the picks. For details on why these stats stand out this week, check out the course primer.
Stats are from Fantasy National Golf Club and are for golfers in the field over the last 50 rounds, unless otherwise noted.
High-Priced Studs
Patrick Cantlay (DraftKings Price: $11,300 | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds: +750) - With Dustin Johnson withdrawing, Cantlay takes the mantle of highest-salaried golfer and clear favorite in this now even weaker field. He's been playing some of his best golf, with his win at the ZOZO Championship followed by T17 at The Masters, T13 at the Tournament of Champions, and a runner up at the American express. Cantlay is the total package, ranking 3rd in scrambling gained, 4th in stroke gained: tee to green, 4th in strokes gained: par 5s, and 10th in birdies or better gained.
Will Zalatoris ($9,900 | +1900) - Next up is Zalatoris, who rose into the top-50 players in the world this despite not even having his PGA Tour card. He has Special Temporary Membership, which allows him to accept unlimited sponsors exemptions for the entire season, so we'll be seeing plenty of the big-hitting 24-year-old the rest of this season. Zalatoris is 8th in both strokes gained: tee to green and strokes gained: approach, 11th in strokes gained: par 5s, and 18th in strokes gained: off the tee. Finishes of T7 and T17 in 2021 give him top-25 outings in six of his eight PGA Tour events. Looking back to his time on the Korn Ferry Tour last year, he has just four finishes outside that mark since the calendar turned to 2020.
Jason Day ($9,500 | +2100) - Day has some statistical merit -- he ranks 2nd in scrambling gained, 11th in strokes gained: around the green, 21st in strokes gained: tee to green, and 24th off the tee -- but really the story here is his comfort level at Pebble Beach. His finishes the last four years read 4th, T4th, T2nd, and T5th, and all told he's played this event 11 times and finished worse than 14th just twice. Day's form has come and gone over the past year, but here is a spot where we can (probably) trust him, though we should be wary of what we can expect to be a fairly high draft percentage at this price point.
Mid-Priced Options
Si Woo Kim ($9,400 | +3700) - Just a few weeks out from his win at the American Express, Kim is on the radar once again. Pebble Beach's tiny greens won't stand a chance if Kim enters pin-seeking mode with his irons, and even if he's slightly off, his scrambling and around-the-green game has been terrific of late. He ranks 1st in scrambling gained, 2nd in strokes gained: tee to green, 8th in strokes gained: approach, 11th in birdies or better gained, and 20th on par 5s.
Sam Burns (+9100 | +3700) - Burns stays in play this week, despite burning his #onetime with the putter last week in Phoenix. He gained 10.9 strokes putting but lost 2.8 strokes off the tee, just the second time he's lost to the field in that category since last January. His outlier tee-to-green performance and lack of course history should keep his draft percentage in check, especially with course-form god Kevin Streelman ($8,900 | +4500) and fast risers Francesco Molinari ($9,300 | +3000), Cameron Davis ($9,000 | +4500), and Henrik Norlander ($8,700 | +5500) surrounding him in his salary slot. All are fine options in their own right, but each has a lower floor than Burns' on any given week. Early indications are that Burns could end up the least popular of the group.
Cameron Tringale ($8,500 | +4200) - Tringale is 7th in birdies or better gained, 10th on par 5s, 11th in approach, 15th tee to green, and 17th in scrambling. He arrives off back-to-back top 20s, and aside from one off week at the American Express, he has been rock solid with the putter. Historically he rolls it best on poa annua, and as long as the wind stays down, he should be able to keep pace in a crowded price range.
Low-Priced Options
Chris Kirk ($7,900 | +8000) - Kirk flat out stunk last week, and we'll look to take advantage of that blip at increased popularity to get him on the bounce-back this week at Pebble Beach. His long-term stats don't really move the needle -- he's just 24th tee to green, 38th in birdies or better gained, and 52nd on approach in the 50-round sample -- but his more recent form before last week's dud has been much more promising. Over just his last 24 rounds, he's 15th in both tee to green and approach and 17th in birdies or better gained.
Brandt Snedeker ($7,800 | +9000) - Snedeker has some of the widest poa splits on Tour, and even though his game is kind of a mess right now, he has often been a player who can pop out of seemingly nowhere. He's a two-time winner here back in 2013 and 2015, with a 4th and a T20th since then. Consecutive missed cuts the past two years knock him down a tier from some of the more touted course history names this week, but we'll ride with Sneds as a leverage play with major upside.
Doug Ghim ($7,500 | +10000) - We are finally starting to see some of Ghim's pedigree shine through on the PGA Tour, with his first career top 10 and top 5 on the PGA Tour a few weeks back at the American Express. He followed that up with a T37 at the Farmers that was due largely to his performance on the South Course's poa greens, where he gained 5.3 strokes. Ghim ranks 12th in birdies or better gained, 21st on par 5s, 41st tee to green, and 42nd in approach.
Charley Hoffman ($7,300 | +14000) - Hoffman had started to see his game come back before faltering with a missed cut in Phoenix, but there are enough encouraging signs to get back on him this week. He's solid across the board, ranking 18th in strokes gained: tee to green, 22nd on par 5s, 23rd in birdies or better gained, and 24th in strokes gained: approach.
Bargain Basement
Chase Seiffert ($6,800 | +25000) - Seiffert is a solid scrambler who has played well in California in his short career. He is at his best when the strength of field drops down, and this year's installment will be one of the weakest groups to tee it up at Pebble Beach.
Josh Teater ($6,600 | +30000) - Teater is another golfer who may get outclassed in a field loaded with world-class talent but can sneak up the leaderboard in some of these weaker events. He ranks 13th on par 5s, 31st in birdies or better gained, 36th tee to green, and 38th in approach.
Mike Rodden is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Mike Rodden also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username mike_rodden. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.