Jon Rahm watches his shot from the second tee during the final round of the Quicken Loans National PGA golf tournament, Sunday, June 26, 2016, in Bethesda, Md. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Chris will be bringing you weekly PGA picks, analysis, and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings and FanDuel. As every week in DFS PGA changes with the course setup, field of players and weather, Chris will be providing a range of different picks for cash games as well as upside plays for tournaments. Chris also provides a DFS PGA Cheatsheet which looks at odds, form, course history, and much more.
After a long off-season(not really) we are back and ready to kick off the 2020 portion of the season in style. It starts with a trip to Hawaii for the Sentry Tournament of Champions. The field is open to all winners from the previous season and this year we get 33-man field led by Xander Schauffele, Dustin Johnson, and Justin Thomas who have combined to win the last three events here. We will also get to see the red-hot John Rahm who has jumped up to #3 in the Official World Golf Rankings since the Tour Championship with two wins and a runner-up on the Euro Tour.
The course is fairly unique in that it is a Par 73 with just three Par 3's, 11 Par 4's, and four Par 5's. The other unique part that leads to some of the low scoring is that six of the 11 Par 4 holes are under 400 yards. The par 5's are where most of the scoring comes from, however, with three of them coming in or under 555 yards. Even the beastly 663-yard par 5 18th hole plays almost a half-stroke under par. The event quickly turns into a birdie fest with wide fairways, huge greens, and normally excellent weather. Because of this, I am keeping my model fairly simple this week and looking at Strokes Gained: Approach with an emphasis on Proximity with the giant green complexes. After that, I am heavy on Birdie or Better %, Par 5 Birdie or Better %, and Par 4 scoring which can help players separate themselves as they are the hardest holes on the course(still not that hard).
With that, let's jump into the picks.
Plantation Course at Kapalua
Par 73 - 7,452 yards
Greens -
**Click the image above to see a hole by hole breakdown from PGATour.com**
When breaking down the top stats I use a combination of my own cheatsheet and the tools over at FantasyNational.com.
Jon Rahm
World Golf Ranking (#5)
Vegas Odds (4/1)
Draftkings ($11,400)
FanDuel ($11,200)
Let's first look back at how Rahm ended the 2019 season. After missign back to back cuts in May, he rebounded in a huge way with a T3 at the US Open followed by five more Top 15 finishes. He then traveled overseas to stay in form playing four events on the European Tour and tallied two wins and a runner-up finish and followed that up with a runner-up finish at Tiger's Hero World Challenge. Some players may come in rusty but Rahm is not one of them and in this small-field, no-cut I will be loading up and pretty much splitting the top two players in my model.
Justin Thomas
World Golf Ranking (#4)
Vegas Odds (5/1)
Draftkings ($11,200)
FanDuel ($11,700)
Thomas actually slightly edges out Rahm in my model but they are really 1A/1B options for me this week. He came oh so close to winning his second Tour Championship last season after a win at the BMW the week before and carried that form over into the fall season with a T4 at the Safeway Open, win at the CJ Cup, T17 at the Zozo Championship, and helped the US win the Presidents Cup. He won here back in 2017, finished T3 last year and looking at my custom model on Fantasy National, he ranks 1st in SG: Approach, 1st in Par 5 scoring, and 1st in Birdie or Better gained over his last 24 rounds. Put it all together and JT is a top play in all formats in this small field birdie fest.
Corey Conners
World Golf Ranking (#60)
Vegas Odds (50/1)
Draftkings ($7,800)
FanDuel ($8,900)
Conners is coming off a very successful season in which he captured his first PGA Tour victory at the Valero Texas Open and ended up making it all the way to the Tour Championship. He started off the fall season a bit slow with a missed cut at the Sanderson Farms Championship but has rebounded nicely with five straight Top 20 finishes and ranks Top 10 in this field in Birdie or Better since the fall season began. Conners is my favorite mid-tier option and I will have exposure in all formats.
Cameron Champ
World Golf Ranking (#79)
Vegas Odds (35/1)
Draftkings ($8,200)
FanDuel ($9,700)
Champ may not be the most consistent player in this field but he is right up there in terms of upside as he already has win in each of his first two seasons on tour after his win at the Safeway back in September. The course fits him very well as he is not very accurate(don't need to be here) but has the distance to more than make up for it. It showed last year as he finished T11 here finishing 6th in birdies and 4th in Strokes Gained: Putting. He won't be in my cash game core but will have lots of exposure in GPP formats.
Lanto Griffin
World Golf Ranking (#120)
Vegas Odds (125/1)
Draftkings ($6,500)
FanDuel ($7,000)
Despite the field being loaded with star players, Lanto Griffin comes in Top 10 in both my model and my custom model on Fantasy National. He played his way back on the PGA Tour through the Korn Ferry Tour and has shown why he belongs as he won the Houston Open and has six top 20 finishes in eight fall season events. Since the start of the fall season, he ranks 4th in SG: Total, 12th in SG: Ball Striking, and 1st in SG: Short Game and 2nd in SG: Putting. Griffin is my top value play of the week and with the saving helps us easily build around one or both of Thomas and Rahm.
Chris Durell has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for six years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is an active player in college football, NFL, MLB, NASCAR, NHL and of course PGA. He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada with his wife and two daughters. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jager_Bombs9 for advice, strategy, answers to any PGA questions and how he copes with the winters up north.
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