How to Build Winning PGA DFS Lineups for DraftKings and FanDuel

Introduction to PGA DFS: A 101 Guide

Benitt

09/07/2020

Ever wonder how the pros Build Winning PGA DFS Lineups for DraftKings and FanDuel? I figured I would give you an introduction to PGA DFS as the season comes to end and welcome you to how I more or less do my research. The new season is set to begin September 10-13th at Safeway. And this season features 50 tournaments the most since 1975.

First and foremost, it is the best four-day sweat and the best bang for your buck. It’s either going to be the best nerve-racking weekend or the worst weekend. The tournaments usually begin on Thursday and go on through Sunday. I’ll go more in-depth about this in a bit, So with that being said a lot of you have a lot of questions on how this whole golf thing works.

The Course and Current Form

This week are the finals for the TOUR Championship at East Lake. So when I look up this course I see that the top 5 that finished here were strong on Approach, Ball Striking, Par 5’s, and Sand Saves. You’re probably asking yourself what all this means. But I’ll get to that in the next section. Let’s talk about course fit and current form! (how fun)

Every week you’re going to have to evaluate what tools you need for a specific course. For example, some courses require a ball-striker over a great chipper. A ball striker is a golfer that can unleash power on a ball and smash it 325+ yards. Bryson DeChambeau & Cameron Champ are those types of golfers that are excellent in ball striking. A great chipper (ARG) would be Jason Day & Mackenzie Hughes.

Another important tool to note is what kind of greens are being played on for the week. Depending on the course you can see Bermuda Grass, Bentgrass and Poa Annua Grass. This becomes extremely important because depending on the player you select they can either be excellent or terrible on the specific surface.

Lastly, the current form is also something very important to know. Let’s say Rory McIlroy has been missing the cut the last 4 tournaments and coming into this week he’s still priced highly I would probably avoid till he can get back on track. However, if Rory McIlroy has been on fire and has had 3-4 top 10 finishes then he’s going to be in my pool due to his current form.

Stats

As you read, it’s important to know what the course measures. But alongside that information you also need statistics. I’ll be defining a few statistics to help you follow the lingo.

• Strokes Gained: Approach (APP) – Also known as iron shots which reflect your performance on shots taken from more than 50 yards from the green. Usually after the initial drive.
• Strokes Gained: Off The Tee (OTT) – Measures a player’s performance relative to the field on Driver shots.
• Strokes Gained: Around The Green (ARG) – Measures how a player performs chipping and getting up and down. Which is when a player misses the green and takes one shot to hit the ball onto the green and one shot to make the putt.
• Strokes Gained: Tee To Green (T2G) – One of my favorite metrics. It’s essentially the sum of off the tee, approach, and around the green.
• Birdie or Better Percentage (BoB%) – The percentage a player successfully putts for a birdie or eagle.

There are a lot more in-depth or secondary stats to consider. For example, Ball Striking is inside OTT, but it measures abilities in driving and hitting greens. Par 5 scoring and Sand Saves are simply secondary stats. Par 5 averages players score when they approach a par 5. And Sand Saves measures the percent of the time it takes a player to get the ball up and down from a greenside bunker.

If you’re part of Rise or Fall you can easily access our Study Hub where all that information is placed in a very easy format to read as you determine the best player based on the important stats for the course.

Our Rise or Fall VIP Members get access to the PGA Study Hub each week. The Hub includes our Exclusive ROF Ratings, Projections, and Ownership projections along with Course History, Recent Form, and Important stats to consider each week when constructing your PGA Lineups.

Click here to get access to the PGA Study hub and all of our PGA Exclusive Content

The Cut

Getting your players into the cut is the top priority and it’s ultimately much more difficult than it sounds. Every week you have to pick six golfers and pray that everything goes accordingly and by Friday you’ll know if you’re going to have a major sweat for the weekend or a dreadful weekend. Also, only about 5% ever make it with 6 out of 6 players, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Having 6 out of 6 is enough to take down a tournament and you can cash with a 5/6. Hell, even with a 4/6. Anyway, the cut line is determined by the top 65 and ties so you’ll never know whether it’s going to be -1 or +2.

Weather

This is very important to check because this could either break you or make you. If it’s windy and your golfer isn’t great in windy conditions he is going to have a terrible day. But golfers like Ryan Palmer gain strokes in windy conditions (crazy, huh?). While a golfer like Cameron Champ loses over half a stroke in windy conditions which can be detrimental. It’s also important to check the temperature. A world-class player like Tiger Woods or Jason Day is going to have a tough day in the cold because they have back problems, so at any given moment they could withdraw with an injury.

Variance

And to finish off this lengthy article just remember to embrace the variance of PGA DFS. Golf can be very rewarding when you have a 6/6 and the player pool you built is perfect, but PGA is a very long season (nearly a year) so your top golfers like Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, and Jon Rahm are not going to always have the best weeks. Long term they’ll come around, but in the short term, it be can daunting at times. Just enjoy the long grind, have fun, and control your bankroll.