PGA DFS Picks: Against the Grain for the Wyndham Championship

Whether it’s your first time reading or you’re a seasoned vet, this article covers GPP picks for the Wyndham Championship. It also breaks the field down into four price categories for FanDuel and DraftKings. 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

User ‘ReggiesRun’ had an incredible week last week, coming in not only first and second but fourth as well. The lineup above would seem chalky, but with two guys under 10% and one under 5%, it wasn’t duplicated. It also used all $50,000 salary.

Picks Review

Top-end pick: Rory McIlroy wasn’t bad last week, but he wasn’t great either.
Value: Tough to pinpoint a specific recommendation, but Collin Morikawa was first on the list?
Mid-level pick: Erik van Rooyen was OK.
Low-level pick: The best being Dylan Frittelli and Brendan Steele.

Projected Highest-Owned Golfers for Wyndham Championship

For the full list, click here.

Player Focus This Week

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

$10,000 and Above

Five Golfers
Total ownership of around 110%

Commentary

There are only five up top this week, but that doesn’t necessarily give us a weak field. It may be a little thin up top, with Brooks Koepka as the highest-priced golfer. Webb Simpson has been incredibly popular since returning from the hiatus, except last week, where his ownership was less than 10% in some contests. Well, the time of a low-owned Simpson is certainly over, projected to come in north of 30% this week. Even with a possible rib injury scare floating around, I don’t suspect that will dampen his ownership much. Patrick Reed is also pushing north of 25% here at Sedgefield, as his ownership pushes toward 25%.

The English boys are next at a combined 38% ownership, as Paul Casey looks to continue his troll upon PGA DFS’ers. He goes from high-owned and mid-priced with a missed cut at The Memorial, high-priced and high-owned with a missed cut at the 3M, followed by a runner-up at a major, where he was barely owned, and that was after a terrible week at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude. Now he’s high-priced and close to 20% owned. The ride continues.

Lastly, Koepka didn’t get it done at a major, a nice thing to finally say after at least five straight performances where he dominated. As the highest-priced golfer in the field with his stats not really lining up, I fear ownership will be even lower than 10% and could be headed for a short week.

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

If you want to roll with Koepka in a non-major, then you’ll likely get him close to 10%

$8,000-$9,999

13 Golfers
Total ownership of 160%

Commentary

DraftKings is going with a very similar approach in terms of pricing this week, loading up the high-$7,000 section and pricing fewer golfers here. There are 14 this week with the Abrahama Ancer’s withdrawal, which should push ownership to Harris English, Billy Horschel and Justin Rose. Sungjae Im has not been playing well at all the last few weeks now, but with a sixth-place finish here last year and a rather cheap price for this type of field, they’d much rather roster him over Jordan Spieth. To be honest, I’m actually not there. I’m not ready to throw all my eggs at Sungjae over Spieth.

Horschel and English will likely be the biggest benefactor of the Ancer withdrawal in terms of ownership, with both coming in near 20%. Ryan Moore has also picked up his game lately and likely brings along 15-20% ownership as well. Other household names like Rose, Kevin Kisner and Sergio Garcia are all likely to be owned between 10-15%.

That leaves us with a handful of golfers that will be at or below 10% owned this week:

Brendon Todd
Corey Conners
Jordan Spieth
Chez Reavie
Shane Lowry
Brandt Snedeker
Si Woo Kim

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

I got a message from Alex “Awesemo” Baker earlier asking me, “What’s up with Si Woo Kim this week?” While the price tag and odds seem entirely out of place, he makes for an intriguing against-the-grain play, as it’s likely gamers match this up with long-term form and see how out of place this is. Still, at 5%, it’s not a bad gamble to go 15% or so. Lowry’s form has been worlds better than Snedeker’s, but Snedeker did pop off for a 66 last week at the PGA Championship, so maybe his form is closer than expected. Both make intriguing GPP options under 10% owned.

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$7,000s

35 Golfers
Total ownership of 202%

Commentary

A week after we saw the strongest $7,000 section, and subsequently the highest 6-for-6 percentage in quite a long time, even with the “top 70 and ties” rule, it wasn’t even needed as it ended up being top 61. So, either way, it was still going to end up as high as it was. I think a lot of that was due to the pricing in this section being so strong, and in this field it’s very strong again. Only 14 golfers priced between $8,000 and $9,000 allows DraftKings to put a ton of talent golfers in the high $7,000s, making people look toward a more balanced build. We will see if my theory is correct, but I suspect we’ll see a higher 6-for-6 percentage this week as well, barring any big withdraws or anything like that.

Also, because it’s rather stacked, ownership shouldn’t get that high on any one golfer, maybe topping out at 15%.

Defending champ J.T. Poston is likely to be the leading candidate for that 15% tag along with Russell Henley, Joaquin Niemann, Henrik Norlander, Lucas Glover, Sam Burns and Dylan Frittelli. The next batch of names should be around 10% owned this week: Doc Redman, Jim Furyk, Brian Harman, Charles Howell III and Christiaan Bezuidenhout. Still, plenty of names are left that should be owned at 5% or slightly under:

Harold Varner III
Maverick McNealy
Matt Wallace
Bud Cauley
Tom Lewis
Cameron Davis

Some will be below 3% owned. Those include:

Danny Willett
Charl Schwartzel
Luke List
Chris Kirk
Branden Grace

Top Against-the-Grain Plays

I like almost every golfer in the first list except for Matt Wallace. I don’t think his irons have been good enough to make the number of birdies needed to compete here. Picking two from that first list, or one from the first and one from the second, will provide plenty of variance to add in some chalkier plays like Simpson or Reed.

$6,000s

98 golfers
Total ownership of 130%

Commentary

There are nearly 100 golfers here this week, as Wesley Bryan leads the ownership down here again. Bryan, playing under his major medical card, hasn’t missed a cut since returning, picking his spots on where he thinks he can compete. Kyle Stanley and Pat Perez have shown flashes of form over the last month or so, and both will get over 5%. Other names that could test 5% this week include Sebastian Munoz, Chase Seiffert, Seamus Power, Will Gordon, Adam Long, Adam Schenk, Mark Hubbard and Troy Merritt. Plenty of other golfers that won’t even sniff 5% include Keith Mitchell, Danny Lee and Wyndham Clark.

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