With 91 players in the field at this week’s PGA Tour event at Augusta National, there will be plenty of opportunities to find golfers that not many gamers know about and create the edge necessary to score big at the Masters 2022. Finding the right mix of low-owned golfers and chalk is critical when making your fantasy golf picks this week, especially for the Millionaire Maker contests on DraftKings. To win such a large field event, with the biggest prize in DFS, it takes the right mix.
Contrarian Fantasy Golf Picks: The Masters 2022
Check out the entire field’s PGA DFS ownership projections before making your predictions and fantasy golf picks this week on DraftKings and FanDuel.
PGA DFS DraftKings Millionaire Maker Review
Typically, a few bare minimums are necessary to win the Milly Maker. One of the unique things about the Masters this week is that it’s the smallest player pool to choose from, which always breeds higher ownership among the chalk. But there have been no duplicated winning lineups the last few years here, so just how does one get it done for this event? For certain one answer is, have at least one or two golfers that are owned under 10% and at least one owned near or at 5%. Here is the winning lineup from the Players Championship, which had one of the lowest combined total ownership of the last 12 Millionaire Maker winning lineups.
Next up is the last two Masters Millionaire Maker winning lineups. Each year it’s the only one of the majors that features fewer than 100 golfers competing, providing a unique slate for PGA DFS purposes.
Even with one of the highest-owned golfers in the slate on each of these lineups, they were still able to diversify enough to make unique lineups against 230,000-plus entries. Each lineup had at least two golfers right at or below 10% ownership, which seems to be an absolute must to maintain uniqueness throughout the lineups.
Lastly, here are some stats from the last 12 Millionaire Maker contests.
Awesemo’s Fantasy Golf Ownership: Top 10
(As of 11 a.m. ET Monday)
Click here for the full field and the most up-to-date projections
PGA DFS Favorites: $9,000 and Above
- 16 golfers
Covering almost 20% of the field, DraftKings pricing is noticeably tight this week, with 16 golfers priced at or over $9,000. That will surely provide plenty of ownership bubbles, with a select handful generating a ton of buzz. This week the most buzz among the favorites is for Justin Thomas ($10,300) and Cameron Smith ($9,900). Smith has had a fantastic year and great success at this course but has taken the last three weeks off to be with family. Thomas has been trending up at Augusta as well and playing well this year, to go along with a decent price discount from Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler. In terms of ownership, Rahm won’t be far behind Smith and Thomas, with all of them coming in around 20% this week.
Then, however, there seems to be a bit of parity among the rest of the golfers in this price section. It’s still likely that Xander Schauffele and Daniel Berger will be the next two and will likely be owned around 15% this week. Next comes Will Zalatoris, Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth, all of whom should be around 10-15% this week, but most of them are trending toward the 10% rather than the 15%.
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That leaves a few names that are projecting with 10% ownership or less, ones that can provide diversification among the chalk this week.
This week’s four names are Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama and Bryson DeChambeau, four huge names in the game of golf that all bring question marks to the table this week, thus keeping their ownership low. McIlroy is coming off a week where he looked his worst in recent time at the Valero Texas Open but yet still has a premium price. Dustin Johnson had one good start at the Match Play and suddenly he’s back among the top-priced golfers in the field. Then there’s the big question marks in Matsuyama and DeChambeau. Matsuyama has withdrawn from his last few starts and clearly isn’t healthy. This week the murmurs of back/neck problems could keep Matsuyama from defending his green jacket, but he was out for a practice round on Monday. DeChambeau’s injuries have plagued him all season and have looked horrendous in each of last two weeks in Texas. His game is nowhere near ready, and Augusta will likely expose that even more.
With all that being said, Johnson and McIlroy are certainly the two safer options here. McIlroy has been able to bounce back several times after a missed cut, including the win at last year’s Wells Fargo Championship after missing the cut at the Masters. Lastly, Johnson will try to use the best finish of his season, last week’s Match Play, to get back to his reliable ways at Augusta National, a place that’s yielded him five top-10s in his last six trips.
PGA DFS Mid-Range ($8,900-$7,500)
- 19 golfers
The strong pricing continues this week with many big names in this price range, including the biggest, Tiger Woods. Will he or won’t he play? That’s the biggest question of the week, with all signs pointing to him giving it a go on Thursday. His ownership will be fascinating to watch if he does tee it up and likely will not be over 10%.
However, there aren’t many questions marks about Corey Conners, as he could be the highest-owned golfer on the slate. With back-to-back top-10s at this event, solid recent form and a perfect price, Conners will get over 25% in most contests and higher in the limited entry fields. Paul Casey also joins the list of question marks this week, having had to withdraw from the Match Play with a back injury, but Casey’s price is intriguing given his history. He won’t be owned nearly as much as Conners, but expect some ownership to head Casey’s way.
A handful of other names will get close to, if not over 20% this week, including:
- Sam Burns
- Tyrrell Hatton
- Russell Henley
- Matthew Fitzpatrick
It’s expected that these six names could total over 120% total ownership, which won’t leave all that much for the rest of the bunch in here. Only Adam Scott is projected to be owned over 10% of the remaining 13 golfers. Louis Oosthuizen, Sungjae Im, Joaquin Niemann, Tony Finau, Abraham Ancer, Sergio Garcia, Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose are all projected to be owned between 8% and 12%.
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The most obvious pricing mistake this week from any across the industry is Talor Gooch ($8,700). He’s had a great season and a nice coming-out party this year with a win at the RSM Classic, but he is priced above proven major contenders and winners. He may not get above 2% or 3% owned this week and is likely in the player pool because of that alone. Shane Lowry also seems overpriced, but the harder the course gets the better his chances become. Lastly, Webb Simpson is still coming back from an injury and is projected to be one of the lowest owned in this price range.
Awesemo golf betting experts Ben Rasa and Eytan Shander will be coming to you every week on the OddsShopper YouTube Channel with the Putting for Dough golf betting show, where they give you their expert PGA picks and predictions for the week. This week, they are giving their free golf betting picks for the 2022 Masters.
PGA DFS Value Plays ($7,400 and Below)
- 56 golfers
With a limited invitee list to this year’s tournament, there are just 56 golfers left in the field. Among them, six are projected to be owned over 10%:
- Billy Horschel
- Patrick Reed
- Marc Leishman
- Max Homa
- Si Woo Kim
- Gary Woodland
Plenty of names are expected to get close to 10% as well, including:
- Bubba Watson
- Robert MacIntyre
- Brian Harman
- Kevin Kisner
- Tom Hoge
- Thomas Pieters
That leaves several golfers that are projected with less than 5% ownership. Some of those names are:
- Cameron Young
- Luke List
- Francesco Molinari
- Kevin Na
- Harold Varner
- Sepp Straka
- Ryan Palmer
- Lucas Glover
- Cam Davis
- Lucas Herbert
- Keita Nakajima
- Stewart Cink
- Mackenzie Hughes
- Hudson Swafford
- Harry Higgs
- Garrick Higgo
- K.H. Lee
Among those golfers — and almost every golfer in the field — Cameron Young is the best value according to Awesemo’s PGA DFS Projections, with a projected score of 63.75 points. Be sure to check out how all of the Awesemo experts are ranking these golfers in the Pro Plays Tool.
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