PGA DFS: Against the Grain Picks for the Travelers Championship

Whether it’s your first time reading or you’re a seasoned vet, this article covers GPP Players Championship 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.

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 PGA DFS Millionaire Maker lineup from last week:

Even with playing some of the chalkiest golfers on the slate, this millionaire was able to stay under 80% total ownership, and put together what might have been the best-ever PGA DFS Millionaire Maker lineup. Much to my dismay, as I came in sixth, in most other weeks would have been walking home with the title. Joaquin Niemann was the only surprise, and the cheapest golfer in the lineup, at $7,400 and 2.5% ownership.

Now let’s turn our attention to how we did projecting the PGA DFS ownership percentages last week.

Jason’s RSQ – 84.18%
Awesemo – 88.43%

Picks Review

Top-end pick: Bryson DeChambeau (eighth) Morikawa (64th)
Mid-level pick: Brooks Koepka (third)
Low-level pick: Bud Cauley (missed cut) and Doc Redman (21st)

Projected Highest-Owned Golfers for the Travelers Championship

For the full list, click here.

Player Focus This Week

This week features 151 players (plus four previous champions that don’t count against the total field number) with the top 65 and ties making the cut.

$10,000 and Above

Six Golfers
Total ownership of 92%

Commentary

We get another six golfers to choose from this week.

Brooks Koepka makes the big salary jump, but the ownership doesn’t seem to be trailing with it. In fact, it seems like the field is having a hard time going overweight on any of these golfers, with Justin Thomas suspected to be the highest-owned at just north of 16%. Jon Rahm‘s price has continued to drop, making him an attractive target this week as well, as has Rory McIlroy‘s. Still, $1,000 is a tremendous amount this week. That only leaves last week’s champ, Webb Simpson, who gets a big price bump, which should keep his ownership to around 15%.

Top Against the Grain Plays

If you’re aiming to get 50% of one of these guys, then you really can’t go wrong with who you pick, as you should be able to easily get triple the field no matter who you choose. I’m not sure if gamers want to play Koepka at these levels yet, so I think I’ll have to lean here.

$8,000-$9,999

16 Golfers
Total ownership of 186.1%

Commentary

Patrick Cantlay and Paul Casey returning to the fray this week has certainly mixed up the ownerships in this section. They are teeing off for the first time since the restart, and we saw how that could go both ways last week. Tyrell Hatton tied for third while Hideki Matsuyama missed the cut.

There are 15 golfers priced in this section, and only one is going to get below 10%: Jordan Spieth. Why would anyone want to play Patrick Reed over Spieth right now? Sure, Spieth isn’t in perfect form, but Reed almost missed the cut at Colonial and did miss it last week at Harbour Town. Spieth wasn’t even close to missing either week. But I digress and head back to the top. Justin Rose has looked very good in the first two weeks and I suspect ownership will finally follow this week at $9,200.

Dustin Johnson, after one good week, gets a $900 price bump and higher ownership. I’m out on that. Then you have a bunch of guys that’ll be between 15% and 10%, depending on the contest. In fact, the rest of the 12 golfers in this section, excluding Rose, Reed, Spieth and Johnson, will be owned in that frame. Pick and choose your overweight and commit to them this week.

Top Against the Grain Plays

There really is one play, and only one play here this week: Spieth. Match him up with Xander Schaffele for some true against the grain as gamers pass him over and either pay up or pay down.

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$7,000s

43 Golfers
Total ownership of 165%

Commentary

Joaquin Niemann goes from 2% owned at $7,400 to almost 20% owned at $7,900. I’ll take the fade option here at that ownership. Also getting a ton of love this week, as expected, is Viktor Hovland who had back-to-back top-25 finishes and looks to nab his first top-10 since his alternate-field win in Puerto Rico. Ian Poulter and Brian Harman will also get a ton of love, coming in around 15%, while J.T. Poston and Corey Conners could push that 10% mark as well.

Outside of those guys, you should get most of the other golfers in the field at 10% or less, including:

Jason Day
Billy Horschel
Max Homa
Louis Oosthuizen
Chez Reavie

That still leaves plenty of golfers that will definitely be under 5% owned this week, including:

Dylan Fritttelli
Kevin Streelman
Byeong Hun An
Brandt Snedeker

Top Against the Grain Plays

It’s overly surprising to see Jason Day’s name on the under-10%-owned list of the $7,000 price section, but here we are. Throw in Oosthuizen as well, and the whole world seems flipped. I like taking either one of those guys in the hope that they find the form we know they have, and matching them up with Spieth, Schauffele and/or someone like Frittelli.

$6,000s

100 Golfers
Total ownership of 129%

Commentary

Carlos Oritz and Sebastian Munoz, who both made waves over the fall circuit, seem to be among three or four golfers that could get over 5% last week. It’s been a couple of weeks in a row now where deep diving in this section hasn’t paid off, although it almost did last week with both of those bolded guys I just mentioned. I suspect a couple of other golfers will come close to 5% this week, including Patrick Rodgers, Doc Redman and former champion Russell Knox. With 100 golfers in this section and a total ownership of less than 130%, you’ll have plenty of options to choose from in the 1-3% owned range. A couple of interesting names include Phil Mickelson, Cameron Smith, Cameron Davis, Cameron Tringale and Harry Higgs.