PGA DFS Picks: Against the Grain for the 3M Open Millionaire Maker

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.

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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’s DraftKings Millionaire Maker Contest

For the first time in my years of following PGA DFS, we have a winning Milly Maker lineup, or shall I say lineups, that had different rosters. With very few birdie streaks, bogey-free rounds and ties at various finishing positions, the point differential between players wasn’t that much. Total ownerships of both lineups were below 80%, and neither of them entered more than four total lineups.

Picks Review

Top-end pick: Morikawa (50+)
Value: Fitzpatrick (3)
Mid-level pick: Wolff (Top 25)
Low-level pick: Reavie and Steele (Top 25)

Projected Highest-Owned Golfers for 3M Open

For the full list, click here.

Player Focus This Week

This week features 156 golfers with the top 65 and ties making the cut.

$10,000 and Above

Five Golfers
Total ownership of around 105%

Commentary

Two of our five golfers are coming off of missed cuts last week, another two coming of horrendous Sundays and another that hasn’t played professional golf in four months. Talk about a variable week in front of us. Brooks Koepka is likely to get the least amount of ownership, mainly due to the injury concern that has been widely reported on now for a couple of weeks. Here’s the two-minute video tweet from yesterday:

Brooks Koepka is still battling his knee injury at this week’s 3M Open.

Our @SBurkowskiGC has more details in this @TaylorMadeGolf Golf Central Update. pic.twitter.com/UjDsaY6Va9

— Golf Central (@GolfCentral) July 21, 2020

Dustin Johnson has been pretty good coming off a missed cut in the past, and that will inevitably get touted this week, driving his ownership into the 20% range. Tony Finau is slated to be the most owned, at least in my opinion. Paul Casey hasn’t missed many cuts in the past but has also rebounded nicely, likely driving his ownership north of 20% as well. Tommy Fleetwood‘s ownership is a bit of a mystery to me this week, as I have no problem playing him, even after the long hiatus. I hope he ends up under 20%.

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

I’m not playing Koepka at $11,200 when he’s hurt. I’ll just play the chalk I like here this week.

$8,000-$9,999

14 Golfers
Total ownership of 176%

Commentary

I can stomach all of the top five guys at the prices they are — I’ve paid for them at those prices plenty of times before. However, this section is a bit different — $9,200 for Russell Henley, $9,400 for Lucas Glover, Max Homa and Brian Harman at $8,000. But we still need six, and these guys are more reliable than a lot of others in this field. That’s why we are again seeing some good ownership in at least six of these golfers, and we likely only get a few under 10% owned this week.

Glover, Henley, Matthew Wolff, Harris English, Doc Redman, Erik van Rooyen and Henrik Norlander are all projected to be above 15% this week. Even Bubba Watson could trend up there, as his statistical measures have looked good the last six weeks. Sam Burns gets a considerable price bump, as do Luke List, Ryan Moore and Patrick Rodgers, which should keep their ownership below 10%.

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

List has been incredibly volatile over the past six weeks, but there’s a win and a top 10 included in there. I think he’s a good GPP target this week at these ownerships.

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$7,000s

35 Golfers
Total ownership of 200%

Commentary

Only a couple of familiar names in this section are left, as we get by far our weakest field of the last month-plus. Charley Hoffman is coming in off a beautiful weekend at Muirfield two weeks ago and is likely to get the most ownership amongst this group, somewhere north of 10%. Will Gordon is also back in the field this week and should get around 10% along with Dylan Frittelli, Alex Noren, Troy Merritt, Jhonattan Vegas and Chase Seiffert. Richy Werenski, Scott Stallings, Wyndham Clark, Cam Tringale and Sam Ryder will trend north of 5%. As you can see, the ownership is spread out pretty evenly throughout these guys. Even the guys projected at the bottom of this, Kristoffer Ventura and Michael Thompson, will likely trend even higher as Thursday comes closer. A couple of other golfers getting close to 5% that I have interest in this week are

Aaron Wise
Bernd Wiesberger
Matthias Schwab
Tom Lewis
Branden Grace

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

Unless you absolutely needed to go overweight on one of the golfers bolded in the first paragraph, then I don’t think it’ll be hard for you to get any of these golfers at a low ownership, making it easy to get any type of leverage you want. Even if you really into Charley Hoffman, you should still be able to get triple the field and have below 40% ownership. I like Gordon as my overweight there, and I like Lewis as my overweight from the lower-owned section.

$6,000s

100+ Golfers
Total ownership of 110%

Commentary

For the second straight week, no golfer is projected over 5%. Adam Schenk and Matthew NeSmith are the closest to it, with Vaughn Taylor, Keith Mitchell, Russell Knox, Harry Higgs and Chesson Hadley not too far behind. I suspect Derek Ernst will also be looked at a few times, as he’s coming in with very good form from the Korn Ferry Tour. If you have a read on someone or are in love with a player, this is a good week to cash in on it, especially with how week the field is up top.

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