PGA DFS: 2021 Preview including Major Winners & Bold Predictions

Whether this is the first venture into the involved and passionate game of PGA DFS or you are a seasoned pro, there’s always something to glean from the past. The professional golf game is always evolving, providing us new talent, players and styles of play, so understanding the data becomes vital. As an analyst of the game, one of my goals is to educate to the best of my ability, not just from the golf side but from the PGA DFS side as well.

In this preview article I’ll cover the following:

Important trends and statistics from last year
My 2021 top 10 bold predictions, including my predicted winner for each of the four majors.

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Important Trends & Statistics from Last Year: PGA DFS Info

In my five years of playing DFS, I can comfortably say that ownership is as important in PGA DFS as it is any other, maybe even more so. With that in mind, I’ll be giving statistical trends from both the DFS side and the golf side of things. I’ve been keeping a full set of data for about a year and a half, covering everything from DraftKings ownership to strokes gained putting. With that data and the help of @fantasygolfman1 on Twitter, I’ve compiled a few data points to share today.

The average finish for the highest-owned golfer in the slate was 27th place with an ownership of 27%.
Five times out of 31 events the winner was the most owned.
The winner of the event was owned on average of 12.7% of the time.
The average ownership for each player in the top 10 was 9.79%.

For more info on the winners of the event check out the graphic below.

Important Trends & Statistics from Last Year: Golf Info

Having a plethora of stats provided by the PGA Tour, and more specifically the strokes gained statistics, makes it easy for us to break down golfers and find their strengths and weaknesses. I’ll go over a few highlights from the winners last year and the recipe for success on the PGA Tour. Let’s start with a winner’s graphic.

Winners Stats

Average Strokes Gained Putting: 1.39
Average Strokes Gained Around the Green: 0.37
The Average Strokes Gained Approach: 1.33
Average Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 0.56
The average Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 2.26
Average Strokes Gained Total: 3.65

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My Top 10 Bold Predictions for 2021 Season + Major Winners

It’s always fun to look back on who and what you were high or low on at the beginning of the year. The following, in no specific order, cover 10 different golfers.

Justin Thomas will win The Masters. Each year he’s gotten better there and got inside the top five this year. With the tournament going back to its typical timeframe, I suspect it’ll play quite a bit harder. That should help out Thomas, who played the course in all conditions.
Jon Rahm will win The Open Championship and become the No. 1 golfer in the world after doing it. We all know he has the game to win a major. Having won the Irish Open twice, we also know his game translates to the links-style quite well.
Patrick Cantlay will win The PGA Championship. He might be a popular pick for Torrey Pines and the U.S. Open, being a California kid, but I think that Kiawah Island may fit his game a bit better. Dustin Johnson will finish second.
Bryson DeChambeau will win the U.S. Open. I think his game translates best to U.S. Open setups, and we’ve seen in recent history players going on runs and winning these back-to-back to years.
Tony Finau will win the Tournament of Champions and continue the trend set by Viktor Hovland in breaking the Puerto Rico Open curse.
The three-headed monster of Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff and Hovland each will add another victory this year. They also will add their fourth comrade, Justin Suh, to the PGA Tour this year.
Tiger Woods will come in the top 10 of two majors, including a top-five, but will not win. However, his play will be good enough to earn him a Ryder Cup berth. In addition, all American players above him in the Olympic competition pass on the chance to play so he can.
Jordan Spieth will not win, again. However, his major performances will be above average, with another two top-10s and a made cut in all four.
Justin Rose will continue his decline and slip outside of the world’s top 50.
Abraham Ancer and Scottie Scheffler both will get their first wins, highlighting the pack of first-time winners. Will Zalatoris will miss out on the winner’s circle but will easily earn membership on the tour.

If you are looking for more resources and are new to the game, check out a few of these resources:

The article called “How to win 100K Playing DFS: All you need to know to win playing this game”. Click here
How to use the Top Golfers Tool from Alex “Awesemo” Baker & I. Click Here
And of course, use our PGA page to get updated on all of the content we produce! Click here.
How to use all of our other premium tools including fantasy cruncher: Coming soon.

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Looking for more PGA DFS picks content? We have loads of articles, data, cheat sheets and more on the Awesemo PGA home page. Just click HERE.

Author

Jason Rouslin

Jason established his roots in the littlest state that could...Rhode Island. But after 29 years of bitter cold, and only being able to play golf 4 months a year, upended those roots and moved to Florida. Now four years later, Jason is a husband to Sarah and father of two boys, James & Myles. A dog and more specifically Lab lover (Bella), he dedicates his time to serve as the lead of PGA content at Awesemo.com. In the time he is not diving into the PGA stats and covering this week's current tournament, you can find him researching and trading stocks, on the golf course, at Disney World, on a hike, or somewhere in between. Want to chat? Have a question about Golf/Stocks or anything else? Hop on twitter and give him a message @dfsgolfer23. You can also contact Jason by emailing [email protected].