The PGA Tour will travel to upstate New York to compete in the second major of the 2023 season. The PGA Championship will be played at Oak Hills Country Club in Rochester, New York. It will mark the sixth time that this historic course has hosted a major tournament on the PGA Tour (The course last hosted the PGA Championship in 2013 and it was won by Jason Dufner). The field is stacked with 156 of the best golfers in the world. Major tournaments are always fun to play contests on DraftKings and the FanDuel sites.
Here is the recent form and course history for each golfer this week: History and Form
COURSE BREAKDOWN
Oak Hills Country Club is one of the most pristine courses in the United States. The course was modified in 2019 to make it play much different than it when it hosted the PGA Championship in 2013. Hundreds of trees were removed to give the golfers more options this week. The course is less “Oak” and more “Hills” this week. The course will be a par-70 this week and play just less than 7,400 yards.
The fairways are narrow, lined with trees, have deep bunkers and the rough will be deep this week. The golfers will have to avoid Allen Creek that runs through nine holes on the course. The course is just long enough that bombers will be rewarded, but they MUST be accurate off the tee.
The greens have a lot of slope and will run fast this week. The golfers will have to be creative on the greens and with their scrambling if they do not hit the greens in regulation.
Oak Hills Country Club will test every aspect of a golfer’s game. It is set up to reward the best golfer in the field this week. That is exactly the way a major tournament should be played. I do not expect the scores to be too far under par Sunday. My guess is 8-10 shots under par should win this tournament.
Click here to see the course: OAK HILLS COUNTRY CLUB
KEY STATS FOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
– Shots Gained Total (Combines off-the-tee, approach, putting and scrambling)
– Shots Gained Off-the-Tee (I am looking for Accuracy + Distance)
– Shots Gained Approach (200+ Yards
– Strokes Gained Putting (Bent Grass)
– Bogey Avoidance % (We need golfers who can avoid the big number)
TOP 30 GOLFERS
PGA CHAMPIONSHIP STRATEGY
My strategy in Cash Contests is pretty easy this week. Build a “balanced lineup” with as many golfers from the low-$9K and $8K range as possible. The golfers from these price ranges are some of the best golfers in the world and each will have a good chance to win Sunday.
The popular way to build Multi-Entry Tournament Contest this week is to pick a few golfers you like at the top and the sprinkle in a lot of the golfers from the $7K and $6K price ranges. I am building my lineups upside down this week. I am targeting nine golfers priced below $7.5K who I think can make the cut. I will be overweight on them (over 15%) and then sprinkle in a lot of the golfers from the top of the price range. This is a dangerous strategy because most of my lineups will sink if my cheap golfers miss the cut, but it gives me a lot of bullets at the top if they do make the cut. The cheap golfers I am building around this week include Wyndham Clark, Denny McCarthy, Gary Woodland, Keith Mitchell, Mito Pereira, Tom Hoge, Adam Svensson, Harold Varner III, and Thorbjorn Olesen.
CORE GOLFERS FOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
DRAFTKINGS CASH CONTEST LINEUP
XANDER SCHAUFFELE ($9,900): I really wanted to pick Schauffele to win his first major, but Jon Rahm wins majors and Schauffele finishes second. So, I will start my Cash Contest lineup with the golfer I picked to finish runner-up Sunday. Schauffele checks all of the boxes. He doesn’t dominate any stat category, but he ranks top-10 in all of them. His recent form is excellent, with finishes of 2nd, 4th and 10th over the last month. Schuaffele is a great golfer to start you Cash Contest lineups with this week.
TYRELL HATTON ($8,500): There is a lot to like about Hatton this week. He enters the PGA Championship in excellent form. He finished 3rd at the Wells Fargo two weeks ago and 5th last week at the Byron Nelson. Hatton ranks No. 3 in Shots Gained Tee-to-Green, No. 14 in Shots Gained Approach, No. 14 in Scrambling and No. 9 in Shots Gained Putting. That is good enough to rank Hatton No. 4 in the key stats. He typically plays well on tough courses, so I will use Hatton in my Cash Contest lineup.
MATTHEW FITZPATRICK ($8,400): Fitzpatrick should be priced higher than he is. Fitzpatrick proved that he can beat a tough field on a tough course when he won the U.S. Open last year. He proved it again last month when he won an elevated event at the RBC Heritage. Fitzpatrick finished in the top-10 at The Masters this year. He will have a good chance to finish in the top-10 at the PGA Championship too.
TOMMY FLEETWOOD ($8,000): Fleetwood could be one of the best “sleeper picks” to win Sunday. He ranks No. 4 in Shots Gained Tee-to-Green, No. 13 in Shots Gained Approach and No. 15 in Scrambling. That is good enough to rank Fleetwood No. 5 in the key stats this week. The only slight flaw in his game s his putter. He ranks No. 32 in Shots Gained Putting, but that is not too bad. Fleetwood finished 5th two weeks ago at Quail Hollow. That course plays like a major and the field was stack like a major tournament. Fleetwood will have top-10 upside this week.
RICKIE FOWLER ($7,600): I like having consistent golfers in my Cash Contest lineup. It is tough to find anyone as consistent right now as Folwer. He has made 12 cuts in a row. Fowler has not finished outside the top-15 since early March. Fowler ranks No. 11 in the key stats and No. 4 in recent form. He should easily make the cut and contend for a top-10 finish Sunday.
WYNDHAM CLARK ($7,500): Clark should be a $9K golfer when you look at his numbers. He ranks No. 10 in Shots Gained Tee-to-Green, No. 2 in Shots Gained Approach, No. 4 in Shots Gained Putting and No. 10 in Scrambling. That is good enough to rank Clark No. 2 in the key stats behind Scottie Scheffler and ahead of Jon Rahm. Clark won two weeks ago and a tough course (Quail Hallow) and against the golfers in this field. He is a great pick to have as the anchor of your Cash Contest lineups.
* Another Cash Contest lineup that I will be playing consists of Tony Finau, Sungjae Im, Tyrrell Hatton, Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Wyndham Clark
DRAFTKINGS TOURNAMENT CONTEST LINEUP
RORY MCILROY ($10,700): I waited to post the picks this week because I wanted to see what the Fantasy Golf industry was thinking. I watched numerous YouTube Channels and listened to even more podcasts. I only heard one person out of the 16 “experts” hyping Rory McIlroy this week. This could completely backfire, but McIlroy has everything he needs to destroy the field this week. When he is clicking on all cylinders, McIlroy has the best game off the tee and around the greens. He is a member of Oak Hills Country Club, so McIlroy has more course knowledge then the rest of the field. We saw Justin Thomas enter the PGA Championship in poor form last year and win the Wanamaker Trophy. I will play a low owned McIlroy and hope he can do the same.
PATRICK CANTLAY ($9,000): The only thing that is going against Cantlay this week is that he has never won a major before. He checks every other box though. Cantlay ranks No. 5 in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green, No. 1 in Shots Gained Off-the-Tee, No. 12 in Shots Gained Approach, No. 30 in Shots Gained Putting and No. 6 overall in the key stats. We are going to need to have the winner in our lineup, so pairing Rory McIlroy, Tony Finau and Cantlay gives us three chances at having the golfer holding the trophy in the lineup.
TONY FINAU ($9,500): Few golfers can go toe-to-toe with Jon Rahm and beat him. That is exactly what Finaue did earlier this month in Mexico. Finau ranks No. 2 in Shots Gained Tee-to-Green, No. 5 in Shots Gained Approach and No. 8 overall in the key stats. Finau has been a top-15 machine in the majors over the last two years. He can win Sunday if he can just gain a few strokes with his putter.
MITO PEREIRA ($7,000): Pereira nearly won the PGA Championship last year, but be missed too many puts in the final holes. He still finished 3rd and has a good chance to play well this week. Pereira ranks No. 21 in Shots Gained Tee-to-Green, No. 12 in Shots Gained Approach and No. 24 overall in the key stats. He has played well on the LIV Tour this year. I just need him to do what he did last year in the PGA Championship and this lineup could score very well.
HAROLD VARNER III ($6,600): The only reason why HV3 is priced at $6,600 is because he plays on the LIV Tour. He was a $7,500 golfer in the PGA Championship last year, so we get nearly a $1K discount because he switched tours. HV3 finished 4th last week and he has back-to-back top-10 finishes in the LIV Tour. He has made four cuts in a row at the PGA Championship. He should make the cut again this week, with top-25 upside.
THORBJORN OLESEN ($6,500): How well does success on the DP World Tour (the old European Tour) translate into success on the PGA Tour? Olesen has been the best player on the DP World Tour. He finished 4 of his last 6 tournaments in the top-6. Olesen has also made 6 of his last 7 cuts at the PGA Championship. All I need Olesen to do is make the cut for $6,500. I think he has a great chance to do that, with top-30 upside.
* A safer lineup and a better one to use in Single-Entry Tournament Contests would include Scottie Scheffler, Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler, Patrick Reed, Mito Pereira, Gary Woodland
Here are my lineups for Multi-Entry Tournament Contest: (FantasyRacingTips)
FANDUEL CASH CONTEST LINEUP
FANDUEL TOURNAMENT CONTEST LINEUP
YAHOO! TOURNAMENT CONTEST LINEUP
*The pricing for some of the golfers on Yahoo! is ridiculous, so I had to post a lineup.
PGATOUR.COM FANTASY PICKS
* This is the ninth tournament of Segment 3. There is no need to save allocations this week. Simply play the best golfer available.
FANTASY GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP ONE & DONE PICK: JON RAHM (PGA CHAMP)
* I thought about using Brooks Koepka, but he is going to be the highest owned golfer in One & Done Contests and he has only played two good rounds of golf in two years. I will play Rahm while his form is on fire.
Players in Fantasy Golf Championship One & Done so far: Adam Scott (8th), Viktor Hovland (43rd), Tony Finau (Win), Sungjae Im (7TH), Jordan Spieth (4th), Si Woo Kim (39th), Tyrrell Hatton (60th), Adam Hadwin (MC), Rory McIlroy (MC), Will Zalatoris (53rd), Matt Kuchar (MC), Tony Finau (20), Xander Schauffele (10th), Seamus Power (15th), Max Homa (1st), Brian Harman (MC), and Corey Conners (12th)
SEASON LONG ONE & DONE PICK: BROOKS KOEPKA (PGA CHAMP)
* Brooks Koepka is a better pick in this type of game. We need a lot more golfers in games that began last fall, so it is easier to run out of golfers over the summer. I will take a chance with a golfer (Brooks Koepka) who we only have four opportunities to use this year.
Players Used This Season in One & Done: K-H Lee (50th), Cameron Young (59th), Tony Finau (Win), Keith Mitchell (6th), Tom Kim (MC), Brooks Koepka (2nd), Matt Kuchar (3rd), Wyndham Clark (6th), Adam Hadwin (MC), Rory McIlroy (MC), Will Zallatoris (53rd), Sungjae Im (42nd), Max Homa (2), Xander Schauffele (10th), Jordan Spieth (63rd), Jon Rahm (7th), Taylor Montgomery (5th), Russell Henley (32nd), Seamus Power (25th), Brian Harman (2nd), Maverick McNealy (27th), Emiliano Grillo (42nd), Nick Hardy (28th), Terrell Hatton (13TH) Christian Bezuidenhout (29th), Cameron Davis (37th), Denny McCarthy (39th), Brendon Steele (CUT)
BEST BETS FOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
XANDER SCHAUFFELE (18-1)
TONY FINAU (22-1)
MATTHEW FITZPATRICK (28-1)
SUNGJAE IM (35-1)
TOMMY FLEETWOOD (60-1)
WYNDHAM CLARK (80-1)
Good Luck This Week!!!!
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