British Open: PGA DFS Showdown PIcks Spieth & Kopeka Lurking (FREE)

;This PGA DFS column is a quick hitter article for the British Open, to give you the stats you need to make informed decisions for your fantasy golf lineups, and give you a couple of recommendations.

DraftKings is offering 15K to first place for tomorrow’s Round 3 slate & a 15K to first for the Weekend Long slate.

Tournament Update

Scoring Numbers:
- Round 1- 72.78 or 1.78 over par.
- Round 2- 71.38 or .38 over par
- Six eagles were made on the day. There were also 409 birdies made on the day and 529 bogeys as well as 64 doubles or worse.

Sweatsheet

Saturday Weather

Round 1/2 Commentary

The PM/AM stacks worked out fantastic, and if you were up close to lock on Thursday you saw me express how much better it could be. It worked out and with ton’s of chalk missing the cut from the am/pm wave here’s out the cut shakes out from a DFS perspective

Final precise %’s at the conclusion of Rd 2 in The Open Championship pic.twitter.com/sWDKdJnrqB

— Cut Sweats (@CutSweats) July 19, 2019

Shane Lowry and a favorite of mine pre-tourney Andrew Putnam beat the conditions and held the top scores for that bad wave. On the good side of the draw, J.B. Holmes remained hot with his putter and added a solid 68 after holding the first-round lead. After Lowry and Holmes, a three-headed English monster sits lurking on the leaderboard. Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose and Lee Westwood all have themselves in position to win The Open for the first time.

Xander Schauffele superb ball-striking today. He leads the field over the first two days now in both fairways hit and greens in regulations. That spells a good weekend for Schauffele holders. Matt Kuchar, Kevin Streelman, Adam Hadwin and Lucas Glover are the only golfers that have hit both 80% of the greens in regulation and fairways.

Round Three Showdown & Weekend Picks

One of the questions I get most is why I never write about the golfers inside the top-10. The answer is pretty simple; I’ve never done that. I find them to be obvious plays, but since It’s the question I’m asked about most, I decided I’ll cover my top plays for tomorrow’s slate that are inside the current top-10. Then two additional plays outside the top 10.**

Top-10 Pick

With five studs inside the top 10, it’s going to be little hard to pick just one, especially with the salary flexibility of showdown/weekend formats. Yesterday I went with Fleetwood who was a great pick, much better than both Kopeka or Rahm, and I’m leaning towards “don’t try and fix what’s not broke.” However, Tommy has struggled on Saturdays in the past, so I may fade him for that simple narrative, and look elsewhere.

And guess whose back…back again….

Jordan Spieth ($8,200) is playing Spieth golf right now, missing fairways (38%), chipping in for eagles (67% of his greens), making long putts (8th in putting), and hacking it out of the hay. He’s also not whining as much, so for all of the aforementioned things to be happening, well this is exactly why I like Jordan in the first place. I’m back to rooting for him, and at these cheaper salaries, I’ll buy into a hot putter and a better off the tee game this weekend.

If you don’t want to play him Brooks Koepka is hanging around like always, will be hard to pass up at this point.

Value Pick

Two great options in this section for the tomorrow’s slates, and likely will be a popular stack that being Tony Finau & Patrick Reed. I like both of them quite a bit, but again they will be highly owned so that we will look for a pivot option here.

Alex Noren ($7,200/$7,000)

Alex held it together today during the toughest of the conditions and came in at an even-par 71 after opening with a 68. His ball-striking seems to be returning, hitting over 70% of his fairways and 80% of his greens through two rounds. He’s ranked 69th in putting, so we can glean that his struggling a bit with the flat stick, which on these slower greens we’ll expect to change some tomorrow.

Sneaky Pick

Byeong Hun An ($6,700)

A fantastic day on the greens for Hun-An on Friday, jolting him up the leaderboard posting an early 67 after being one of the earliest times out on Friday. That’s what I play for, glad to see it work out. It’s nice to see him get hot with his putter for once, which only means good things for as good of a ball-striker as he is. He came in the top 15 at the U.S Open and is undoubtedly in a good position to best that here this week at Royal Portrush.

Lineup Fill-Ins

Dustin Johnson ($10,000)

Rickie Fowler ($9,000)

Rory Sabbatini ($7,200)

Mikko Korhonen ($6,300)

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].