PGA DFS Picks: Against the Grain for the Shriners Open

As we head into the offseason before peaking again at The Masters, the PGA DFS contests offered might be a tad lower than normal. This week it’s Shriners Hospital for Children Open as we dig in and find the best against-the-grain plays for the slate.

Awesemo’s Top 10 Projected Golfers (Will update with Finau Withdrawal News)

PGA DFS Player Focus

This week features 144 players with the top 65 and ties making the cut.

$12,000-$9,400

10 Golfers
Total ownership of around 160%

No Finau

A little bit more substance is added to this section when I go with the top 10 golfers rather than just those that are priced above $10,000. Until we have at least six, I’ll stick to this way. Webb Simpson is the safest option on the board, at least for gamers, no matter his price. Whether he is $11,000 or $7,5000, it doesn’t matter. He’s projected to be the highest owned player in the slate. Bryson DeChambeau, fresh off his first major, will also get over 20%. Lastly, among the 20%-and-up group will be Hideki Matsuyama, who will end up close 20% this week.

The next batch of golfers will be dramatically affected by the withdrawal of Tony Finau, who literally just announced his positive test as I am writing this. It will bump up Matsuyama quite a bit, as it will for Collin Morikawa, Harris English and Matthew Wolff. All four will now get over 15%, whereas before they were barely over it.

Jason Day and Scottie Scheffler are probably a tad too far away from Finau in terms of price to have their ownership affected by this, with Day being the only one to come in below 10% this week. Scheffler may be the next closest to 10%, coming in around 13% this week.

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

Day is $9,500 is n a rather strong field. I know he’s under 10%, but I don’t know if I can trust where his game is right now at these prices. But, at 7%, I’d be silly not to get him in there in my GPP lines this week. At 15% ownership, I’ll roll out Wolff over English all day. I’ll also take Wolff over Scheffler.

Nos. 11-32 Priced Golfers ($9,400-$7,500)

25 Golfers
Total ownership 185%

PGA DFS

With many strong plays in this range, it’s no surprise to ownership being projected at a relatively even spread. Louis Oosthuizen is projecting out to be the highest owned, along with Rickie Fowler, Sungjae Im, Brian Harman and Joaquin Niemann. All of them are looking like they will be over 10% owned this week. Also getting close will be Paul Casey, but the $9,200 price tag will likely keep his ownership below 10%. Matt Kuchar will be an interesting case this week, as gamers will either look at his strokes gained on the approaches and play him because of it or look a little deeper and see that it was a small sample. Either way, I have him, Jason Kokrak, Cameron Davis, Harold Varner III, Sebastian Munoz, Will Zalatoris, Abraham Ancer, J.T, Poston, Si Woo Kim and Doc Redman, all owned in the 7-10% range.

The rest of the golfers in the section will end up somewhere between 3-7 %. A few of the names I like this week include:

Cameron Smith
Russell Henley
Cameron Champ
Kevin Na
Denny McCarthy

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

The last bulleted list, along with the last set of bolded names, gives a pretty large player pool of golfers expected under 10% owned this week. Picking one from each should do you pretty well in terms of diversifying your lineups.

The Rest ($7,400 and Below)

105 Golfers
Total ownership of 263%

There are 105 golfers still left, and they come with plenty of expected ownership as well. Over 250% will be going to the bottom 105 players in the field this week. Only a handful will get over 10% as well, leaving quite an even spread of ownership throughout these. Ryan Palmer and Kevin Streelman are the only ones trending toward that 10% this week, with Kristoffer Ventura, Brendan Steele and Joel Dahmen getting close as well. A couple of other names expected to get north of 5% this week include Luke List, Cameron Tringale, Chez Reavie, Sam Burns and Patrick Rodgers.

I’ve only mentioned about 10-15 names, leaving somewhere close to 90 or so golfers left. A couple of my favorite names this week are Sepp Straka, Harry Higgs, Will Gordon and Justin Suh.

For now, that’s it unless we get another withdraw of a golfer expected to be in the top 10 owned golfers of the week. If that happens again, I’ll just delete this entire thing and start over. Let’s hope that isn’t the case.

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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].