PGA DFS Strategy: GPP Lineup Picks for the PGA Championship

Hey there, RotoBallers! Thanks for stopping by my PGA DFS strategy series that focuses on multi-entry GPP strategy for each specific golf tournament on the PGA Tour. If you haven't read any of my pieces yet, my name is Tommy Bell. I go by @BellRoto in the Twitter world, and I've been writing for RotoBaller since my college days back in 2013!

Our fantastic RotoBaller PGA team has pretty much every facet of golf DFS and betting covered, but this might one extra piece I can add to the mix to help put into words what I believe is the most profitable way to approach PGA DFS. That approach is simply max entering the multi-entry GPP tournaments. For context, I will be using DraftKings as my site of reference, and I will refer mainly to the $3 entry, 20-entry max tournament that they host each tournament. That being said, a lot of what I'll cover can be translated to use in lower or higher buy-in tournaments. It can also (with some tweaks) be used in a 50-entry or 150-entry max approach.

I understand everyone uses different lineup-building tools, and that's great! I'll be using our awesome lineup builder/optimizer tool here as reference. Each week I'll provide some reflection on last week's tournament, some generic thoughts on the upcoming approach to building multiple lineups, and lastly a quick peak at which players will make up my core for building GPP lineups this week. Let's get to it!

Reflection: Last Week's WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational

I ended up going lighter last week, like I did the week prior at the 3M Open, simply because of the volatility day to day with scoring. While a no-cut event means that all of YOUR golfers will play through the weekend, it also means that everyone else has a chance to surpass you all the way through to Sunday. You can feel really good about things Saturday morning, and end up drawing blank on Sunday afternoon. It's just the name of the game!

As you'll see below, I'm glad I went light, because I took a big stand on what I thought were safe bets with big upside in Viktor Hovland, Matthew Wolff, Daniel Berger, and Tyrell Hatton. Berger ended up making a big run on the weekend, but the others came up well short of expectations. The only real sparks outside of Berger came from Joel Dahmen (welcome back to being a good professional golf player!) and Benny An, who imploded on the back nine on Sunday. It was a weird week, and it joins a string of cold weeks for me, but that will happen in DraftKings golf. We gotta stick with it!

In no world was I planning on playing Brooks Koepka, and I wasn't keen on spending up for the top names, including Justin Thomas, so no matter how you shake it out, I wasn't going to win big money last week. The build I went with simply was incorrect, and I can swallow that and move on. Let's hope we can right the ship when we jump back up to the $3 tournament for the PGA Championship this week...

Approach: PGA Championship

With this being a major event, I'm sure you've had an adequate dosage of course previews at your disposal already, so let's skip that all together and get to what I'm planning to do with my 20 lineups this week...

I only like three players at or above $10k this week, and I am skipping the $9k range as a whole, so you can imagine that I'm all about loading up on the low-$8k/high-$7k players at TPC Harding Park. I simply think there's so much upside with a lot of those names, and we can jam 4-5 of them in a lineup, pair them with one of the three $10k studs I like, and feel fantastic about the potential upside that lineup presents.

I'm also making sure to avoid using every dollar of my salary cap this week. Any amateur DFS players who are jumping into your massive tournament for the first time will almost certainly try to use every cent for that last player filling out their lineup, so you can better avoid duplication by leaving even just $100 on the table. The balanced build I mentioned above falls in line really well with leaving a few bucks out there.

Lastly, I'll mention that, along with perceived upside, my biggest skill combo that I'm looking for in a golfer this week is long, accurate driver with the ability to hit greens in regulation with the irons, particularly on longer par 4s. Harding Park plays fairly long for a Par 70 track, and the thick air and ocean breeze could make it play even longer. You'll notice a few names below can really strike the longer irons well when they're on.

Staples Over $8.5K: PGA Championship

Jon Rahm: $10,500 - About 50%

Rahm is my favorite stud of the week, and it's mostly because of the skillset he showed us at Memorial. That was a tough track that required consistently long, accurate drives followed by smart, high iron shots. The blow up is always possible with Rahmbo, but he's shown a lot of maturity of the past handful of tournaments. This guy has as much skill as anyone on tour, so let's see if he's ready to take that next step and start racking up majors.

Daniel Berger: $8,800 - About 40%

Here's my note about Berger from last week, with an adjusted tidbit...

"In his last five events prior to that, Berger had been lights out. Gaining strokes in every category for three of those events, winning the Schwab, and placing Top 10 in all five tourneys (Make that six tourneys including last week's 2nd place at the WGC FedEx St. Jude!). You know he's been itching to get back out there and prove he belongs at the top end of this field ever since his week was cut short on Friday afternoon in Dublin, Ohio. There isn't a bad thing I can say about Berger, and I think he'll eventually be a $10k mainstay."

Yeah, safe to say I'm back on Berger at $8.8k

Collin Morikawa: $8,600 - About 40%

Not much can be said about Morikawa that hasn't already been stated. If he has a good showing at this major, he's going to be an upper-$9k player for the forseeable future. He can get in his own head with the putter once in a while, and his around-the-green game can come and go, but man can this guy score. His ability to drive the ball consistently and hit impressive iron shots time and time again is too good to pass up at this price. And he's played this track plenty of times!

Staples Under $8.5K: PGA Championship

Abraham Ancer: $7,700 - About 50%

I thought I would have Justin Rose here, but the more I looked into players just below him in pricing, the more I felt these guys are a bit safer. I'll still have plenty of Rosey for the record...

Ancer has been unbelievably solid from tee to green since the restart. He's not super long off the tee, but he's long enough, and he's going to pepper greens all week long. If the putter gets hot, he can be in contention on Sunday. The only downside is a bit of a weakness around the green, but clearly that's baked into his price tag this week.

Tommy Fleetwood: $7,700 - About 45%

Fleetwood's impressive Sunday got me real excited to jump on him again at a low price (and hopefully low ownership) at the PGA Championship. This guy has been a stud in major events in the past, and I'm hopeful we saw his game start to round into form in Memphis last week. Fairway hitter, long iron savant, and locked in putter. Sign me up.

Harris English: $7,200 - About 40%

Since he came out cold and burned some folks at the Charles Schwab to begin the restart, English has been as solid as they come. He has three top-20s in a row since the Schwab, and he's gaining strokes in the important categories. English is just a rock solid way to round out a great lineup, and he's the 6th player in my favorite lineup of the week at a beautiful $7.2k price tag.

Joel Dahmen: $6,900 - About 40%

Again, I'm going to re-use my note from last week, and add a small paragraph to reiterate...

"Dahmen was flat out BAD in his two weeks at Muirfield Village Golf Club. However, I'm hoping the time off last week will help him get his irons back to the way they were coming out of the PGA's layoff, when he gained a combined 11.2 strokes tee-to-green in his first three events, logging two Top 20s. Dahmen can play, and he's a prolific scorer when he gets comfortable. The good news is we should know pretty early on Thursday which Joel Dahmen came to play in Memphis."

The GOOD Dahmen showed up in Memphis, and I'm all aboard the Joel train again this week. If it weren't for two really bad weeks in Ohio, he'd be right around $8,000. The approach is back, and Dahmen should be a shoe-in to make the cut this week... *Gulp*

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