RADIO
Todd McGill's Round 3 PGA DFS showdown slate picks for the 2025 Truist Championship. His top in-tournament DFS lineup picks and top plays for DraftKings and FanDuel.
After a couple of weeks that have certainly felt less important than the run of golf we had from Florida through Hilton Head, this week's Truist Championship is answering the bell. With the PGA Championship merely a day away, many of the game's best have shown up at the Philadelphia Cricket Club ready to win at a truly historic venue.
Sepp Straka and Shane Lowry have accumulated a sizable advantage on the field with a three-shot lead. Even with the crazy difference in weather each of the first three days, there isn't enough bite around this layout to cause too much carnage. Anyone outside of the top five on the leaderboard finds themselves needing to make up a six-shot deficit or more, which seems too tall to overcome. With that said, this getable property should make for a fun Sunday full of fireworks.
Showdown, unlike typical golf DFS that spans the entire tournament, is a contest that focuses on each round as an individual event. Finding guys performing well on approach is king, but roster decisions that give you ownership leverage from taking riskier players on the board that haven't played their best but present a high likelihood of a bounce-back round are also important. In other words, this is a sprint, not a marathon.
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The weather has been a mixed bag in Pennsylvania this week. Calm conditions like they had in round one can give way to low scores, but Mother Nature has had other plans over the last two days. Tomorrow looks closer to what we saw on Thursday, which is excitingly optimistic given the stacked leaderboard on deck for Sunday's final round.
Round 4 Strategy
The mindset for final-round showdowns is not to pull any punches. A great starting point is to take guys who have a knack for hammering down the gas pedal on Sunday and have at least shown flashes of form over the first three rounds.
Remember that ownership levels will continuously drop the closer you get to the morning's first tee time, so finding the guys who will bounce back is paramount to winning big.
$10,000+
Favorite Play: Rory McIlroy has admittedly not had his best stuff this week in Philly. He's doing his normal thing with the driver, ranking third in the field in strokes gained off the tee (+0.95). He's also continuing to putt extremely well, ranking fourth in strokes gained putting (+1.75).
The struggle has been around the green and approach play. However, the work with the irons has improved over the last three days. As long as McIlroy hasn't already mentally checked into Charlotte, tomorrow should be a classic "go for broke" approach, finding himself six shots back.
Other Options: Justin Thomas
$9,000+
Favorite Play: After being in the Irish limelight of his good friend all season, Shane Lowry seems primed to be the talk of the golfing world this week after putting together three consecutive rounds of inspired golf. The 38-year-old is having an incredible week tee to green, leading the field in driving accuracy (73.8%) and strokes gained on approach (+2.28).
He's been in the mix a bunch in 2025, and a player of his caliber will only knock on the door so many times before finally breaking through. Tomorrow could likely be the place if the putter doesn't leave him like it has on many occasions.
18 holes to go @TruistChamp ☘️☘️☘️ pic.twitter.com/wWivlPrwB0
— Shane Lowry (@ShaneLowryGolf) May 10, 2025
Other Options: Sepp Straka, Corey Conners
$8,000+
Favorite Play: Hideki Matsuyama has had an interesting week from a putting perspective, which is commonplace if you've seen his vast and growing collection of custom prototypes he shows up to events with week in and week out.
This week in Pennsylvania, the Japanese golfer has posted two top-five finishes in strokes gained putting while also posting a round finishing nearly dead last in the field. Depending on which player shows up tomorrow could likely be the difference in a winning Showdown lineup and a completely unusable one.
Other Options: Keegan Bradley, Sungjae Im
$7,000+
Favorite Play: Stephan Jaegar started his week strong with an opening round 65 on Thursday. He has struggled to keep the momentum going, though, with flat rounds of 69 and 70 the last two days, sliding back in his position on the leaderboard heading into Sunday.
He played better in Saturday's round than his even-par score suggests. The German made a double bogey on the opening hole before converting four birdies on the back nine to keep spirits somewhat high heading into tomorrow. Approach play has been the biggest issue this week (-0.36 strokes gained on approach average), however, that hasn't been the case most of the season.
Stephan Jaeger drops it in close 🎯 pic.twitter.com/UI83FjCJuN
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 30, 2023
Other Options: Tony Finau, Harris English
$6,000+
Favorite Play: Nick Taylor is playing as close to mistake-free golf as one can in a scenario that has presented players with many different equations each of the first three days. He's managing top 15 performances in strokes gained ball striking (+0.84) and driving accuracy (64.3%).
The slow and steady climb up the leaderboard probably means he isn't doing enough tomorrow to have serious hopes of catching the lead. But it also isn't very often that we get a sub $7,000 player this high on most leaderboards either, so enjoy the somewhat safe play provided here.
Other Options: Jacob Bridgeman
Showdown Optimizer
The optimizer works nicely with the projected ownership from the model. If you are unsure how to use it, there is a video at the top of the "PGA Lineup Optimizer" page on how to get my projected ownership and/or projected points into your optimizer.
Good luck, and may the odds ever be in your favor.
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