Daily Fantasy Golf Picks Projections, Picks & Ownership for Charles Schwab Challenge

The tour comes off a thrilling week at Kiawah Island and heads into one of its oldest events/venues for the Charles Schwab Challenge. The Charles Schwab is held at Colonial Country Club every season, a venue that has as much history attached to it as any on tour. The 7,200-yard par 70 has been the host for this event for its entirety and is located in Fort Worth, Texas, marking the tour’s third excursion into the state in the past two months. This event was also the first on the schedule after the post-COVID restart last season, so players who played in that event — which was most of the field this week — will have seen the course not that long ago. That could be a big benefit when making daily fantasy golf picks for DraftKings and FanDuel lineups.

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The venue played as the seventh-toughest on tour last year, and while length typically isn’t that huge a factor at Colonial, it has very tight fairways and plenty of long par 4’s. The old trees also tend to block out approaches from off-line tee shots, so keeping it in the fairway here is typically far more important than pure power off the tee. Four of the last five winners have also gained at least five strokes on the greens, and this has been a great venue for elite putters; the list of recent champs includes Kevin Na, Jordan Spieth and Kevin Kisner.

Colonial Country Club Stats and Info

The course plays at par 70, 7,209 yards and features bentgrass greens; water is in play on roughly four holes.
Greenside play here isn’t overly difficult, as scrambling percentages tend to be quite high every season, but there are 84 bunkers on the course and many of them are greenside; several of the past champs are elite bunker players.
The average driving distance is about 5 to 7 yards less than the tour average, and driving accuracy is also about 5 to 7% lower than normal; players will often opt for accuracy over power, and bombers typically don’t get a huge advantage this week, if any.

Putting Splits

The greens at Colonial are bentgrass, which put them in line with recent venues like Augusta National and TPC Craig Ranch. Here is a more general look at some of the best and worst bentgrass putters in the field, relative to their strokes gained on other surfaces. Use caution with these in your fantasy golf picks; they aren’t the be-all, end-all, but they make for a nice tiebreaker.

Negative Bentgrass Putting Splits, Last 50 Rounds

Ryan Palmer: -14 strokes on bentgrass, +7 strokes on all other surfaces
Charley Hoffman: -7 on bentgrass, +19 on all other surfaces
Michael Thompson: +1 on bentgrass, +15 on all other surfaces

*+ equals total strokes gained | – equals strokes lost

Positive Bentgrass Putting Splits, Last 50 Rounds

Jordan Spieth: +37 on bentgrass, +9 on all other surfaces
Wyndham Clark: +20 on bentgrass, -4 on all other surfaces
Richy Werenski: +33 on bentgrass, -5 on all other surfaces

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Daily Fantasy Golf Picks | Charles Schwab Challenge

*Grades are ordered DraftKings, FanDuel

Justin Thomas — Grades: A+, A | Values: C, B

Thomas comes into this event off a missed cut at the PGA Championship. He has still displayed uber-strong tee-to-green play for most of the season, though, and likely shouldn’t be discounted to the extent he is this week as the second-most expensive player on DraftKings. He ranks No. 4 in strokes gained tee to green and No. 3 in strokes gained on approach while also leading the field in DraftKings points over the last 50 rounds. He played Colonial last season, gaining seven strokes on his approach, and will likely benefit more than most elite players from the need to lay up off the tee here since his driver has been his most inconsistent club of late.

Thomas’ biggest attraction this week might be his ownership projections, though, as he’s trending at just over 10% on Awesemo as of writing. Any time an elite player like Thomas — who is capable of winning an event like this by multiple strokes — is at those ownership levels, taking him in GPPs can represent a huge opportunity. He comes in a full 2 points ahead of the next-closest player and has a top-six percentage this week over 25% in Awesemo’s daily fantasy golf projections.

The Stats:

Leads field in DraftKings points gained over the last 50 rounds and has gained at least four strokes on his approaches in four of his last five starts.
Has putted well on bentgrass, as he ranks 25th in this field in strokes gained putting on bent over the last 50 rounds, having gained 17 strokes on the surface.

Projected PGA DFS ownership: DraftKings: 10.8%

Brian Harman — Grades: B, B | Values: A, B

Harman is coming off a missed cut at the PGA Championship, where he missed on number. He actually struck the ball well at Kiawah, though, gaining 4.6 strokes ball striking over the first two rounds. He was outdone by the tricky Kiawah greens, and he lost 1.9 strokes around the green and 2.4 strokes putting. That area shouldn’t be of concern for Harman, as he ranks eighth in this field in strokes gained putting on bentgrass over the last 50 rounds. Harman’s other attraction here is his course history, which is lengthy and, quite frankly, exceptionally good. He has not missed the cut here in any of the last five seasons and ranks fourth in total strokes gained at Colonial over that span — with his best result being a 14th from 2018.

Harman is going to be chalky and is already projecting over 30% in Awesemo’s ownership projections for the week, but there’s a reason for that. Despite being just $8,000 on DraftKings, he’s projected with the 13th-best points projection in the Awesemo daily fantasy golf model and has the best value score of anyone $8,000 or more this week. Harman is an elite value target for core or cash lineups.

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The Stats:

Has made the cut at Colonial in five straight seasons, with his worst finish here being a 31st from 2019; gained 3.8 strokes on approach here last season and 2.2 strokes on the greens.
His missed cut last week was the second in his last 22 starts on tour, and he had previously recorded four straight top-20 finishes prior to that event.

Projected PGA DFS ownership: DraftKings: 31.7%

Low-Owned PGA DFS GPP Flier

Gary Woodland

The $9,000 range this week is going to be tricky, as there are a lot of elite talent to choose from. Woodland had an up-and-down PGA Championship, as he was in contention going into the weekend but faded badly to a 38th-place finish. The weekend was rough for Woodland, but he did showcase good ball striking once again, gaining 6.8 strokes on his approaches alone and only faltering off the tee, where he lost 2.4 strokes. Colonial is not as tough a course from off the tee box, though, and Woodland played extremely well his last time out in Texas, where he was sixth at the Valero.

Woodland finished ninth here last season, gaining a ridiculous 8.8 strokes on his approaches and clearly found at least some affinity for the venue in that regard. He is projecting well under 5% in Awesemo’s ownership projections in a range where there are several elite names like Joaquin Niemann and Corey Conners with projections well above 15%. Woodland is a good pivot to target here, as he does look close to a grabbing another win soon.

Projected PGA DFS ownership: DraftKings: 3.5%

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DraftKings Top Three Under Five

I am targeting three players here at the Charles Schwab Challenge that I ultimately think will end up under (or close) to 5% ownership in bigger DraftKings GPPs. We’re searching for boom/bust players here with an almost 100% focus on upside.

Patrick Rodgers

Rodgers landed a 47th his last time out when he was featured in this spot at the Byron Nelson, an event where he had his best result of the year in terms of his strokes gained on approach. Rodgers shot three rounds of 68 or better here last season, including a Sunday 65, en route to a 14th-place finish. His high-end putting makes him a worthy back here.

Russell Knox

Knox has been hitting his irons well for quite some time, as he comes into this event having gained at least one stroke on his approaches over the last seven events. Knox has been a little better with his putter of late and was eighth at this well-suited venue back in 2019, a year when he gained 5.2 strokes putting for the week. He is projecting at well under 5% here.

Doc Redman

Redman is coming in off a ninth-place finish at the Byron Nelson where he gained over two strokes putting and on approach for the first time this year. Colonial is very much a great setup for Redman, who hits a ton of fairways and has proven he can go low on similar tree-lined, classic venues like Colonial. He gained 4.7 strokes on approach here last season (and finished 58th) and is still projecting for very low ownership this week.

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