PGA DFS: Against the Grain Picks for the Millionaire Maker The Memorial

Whether it’s your first time reading or you’re a seasoned vet, this article covers GPP Memorial Tournament picks for PGA DFS. It also breaks the field down into four price categories for FanDuel, DraftKings and Yahoo. The article is meant to be a guiding tool in creating variance in your lineups, which in turn, hopefully, can create an edge against the field.

Winning a GPP of any size is a difficult task, especially ones with 40,000-plus entries. Each of my big wins has come by going against the grain with some players and pairing them with the right chalk.

Millionaire Maker Review From Last Week

First, let’s take a look at the winning lineup from last week:

“DaveHofman” entered one lineup and ended on this. For the second straight week now, the Milly Maker has been by a single-entry lineup. As you can see, the total ownership is incredibly low. But contrary to the winner last week, only Jason Day and Charley Hoffman had superb Sundays so two golfers instead of three. Still, this lineup wasn’t likely near the top of the boards going into Sunday morning. There is always a sweat when you have such tightly bunched leaderboards.

Picks Review

Top-end pick: Brooks Koepka (MC)
Mid-level pick: Joaquin Niemann (31)
Low-level pick: Luke List (MC)

Projected Highest-Owned Golfers for The Memorial

For the full list, click here.

Player Focus This Week

This week features 133 golfers with the top 65 and ties making the cut.

$10,000 and Above

Five Golfers
Total ownership of around 70%

Commentary

The biggest prize pools since the return of golf across the DFS sites, and because of that, we have got the softest pricing since returning. Bryson DeChambeau coming in at $11,100 in the strongest field of the year is quite astonishing, though, and likely gamers will lean towards Rory McIlroy, who is $400 cheaper this week. Still, with how good DeChambeau has been, I don’t suspect his ownership dipping below 10%. Justin Thomas, off of his excellent week on the same course, is expected to be mildly owned around 15%. The last two in this section are both coming off of a win, and it looks like gamers won’t be willing be to spend this type of money on Collin Morikawa who should come in as the lowest-owned.

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

If you are OK stomaching the winner in back-to-back weeks, Morikawa is a perfect GPP play again. He’s likely to be very low-owned in the higher-dollar and single-entry stuff as well.

$8,000-$9,999

19 Golfers
Total ownership of 250%

Commentary

With the most golfers we’ve seen in this price range since the return, a ton of ownership is going to be soaked up here. In fact, it’s possible that all 19 are owned over 10%. A couple of names will be close to 10% or a bit under, including Matthew Fitzpatrick, Jason Day, Matt Kuchar and two golfers coming off of missed cuts, Brooks Koepka and Justin Rose. Early indications are that DraftKings priced Tiger Woods a little too cheaply, as he projects to be one of the top-owned golfers of the slate.

But he likely will not higher-owned than Patrick Cantlay, who could be the highest-owned golfer for the second straight week. That is brutal for people like me that love to play him. Jon Rahm‘s stellar Sunday, where the ball striking finally came to life, and his cheaper salary will likely get him closer to one of the highest-owned players of the slate as well.

We’ll also have a bunch of golfers in that 15% range this week, including:

Webb Simpson
Viktor Hovland
Hideki Matsuyama
Xander Schauffele
Daniel Berger
Gary Woodland
Tony Finau
Abraham Ancer

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

It looks like a pair of Matts might be two of the lowest-owned from this section. Even though Fitzpatrick came in around 15% last week, I think he’ll trend lower with so many options this week. If I’m right, I’d lean him over Kuchar right now. Fitzpatrick has shown much more upside since the return of golf.

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$7,000s

34 Golfers
Total ownership of 190%

Commentary

A loaded $7,000 section with many golfers that were above $8,000 last week are priced down here now due to the field strength. That’s why we see more ownership than last week here but with eight fewer golfers. Adam Hadwin has shown consistent and reliable golf since returning, and at $7,400, gamers will be lined up to play him in all formats. There may be a bit of emphasis on cash, but that will still have a spillover effect to the Millionaire Maker. Paul Casey competes for only the second time in the last five weeks, and that’s probably the reason he’s not projected closer to the 15-20% range. Sergio Garcia, Kevin Streelman and Ian Poulter have all put up stellar performances over the last five weeks and will all carry about 10% ownership. Then you have the not-playing-so-well guys like Marc Leishman, Scottie Scheffler, Byeong Hn An and Jordan Spieth who will still carry more than 5% ownership to them.

Plenty of other golfers will also see more than 5% ownership this week, and some of those include:

Lucas Glover
Corey Conners
Rory Sabbatini
Cameron Champ
Harris English
Harold Varner III
Kevin Kisner
Joel Dahmen

That still leaves plenty of golfers that will be under 5% owned this week, including:

J.T. Poston
Matt Wallace
Brendan Steele
Keegan Bradley
Shane Lowry
Matthew Wolff
Louis Oosthuizen

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

Matthew Wolff has top-end talent, but at a hard course, he may not be a great fit. We just don’t know yet. Louis Oosthuizen always comes to play when the course is the hardest and the fields are the best, so I’ll have a bit of him, Lowry, Bradley, Steele, Poston and Wallace. I pretty much like all of those guys in that second bulleted list. Even Wolff will make my player pool this week.

$6,000s

75 Golfers
Total ownership of 100%

Commentary

As of right now, there isn’t anyone projected to be more than 5% owned this week below $7,000. That is a rarity, as we usually have at least one or two, but I think that Brendon Todd and Brandt Snedeker will get awfully close. Todd has played well enough over the last five weeks, and Snedeker is a relatively big name. Others like Maverick McNealy, Alex Noren, Lanto Griffin and Chez Reavie are all projected to get a couple of percent ownership. Nick Taylor, who had three good rounds last week, will likely get higher than the 1% projected right now, as will Talor Gooch and possibly even Zach Johnson, who played well last week.

For a little bit more talk on this subject, check out my “Against the Grain” Podcast on your favorite podcast provider!