PGA DFS Picks: Expert Data & Analysis for The Players Championship

PGA DFS is filled with tons of useful information, but at times it can be overwhelming. The Awesemo golf team created a format to provide one condensed article that will analyze the four most important statistics for daily fantasy golf. This statistical overview will focus on recent form, course history, strokes gained, and old-school statistics. I will provide notes and a data sheet to help with your PGA DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel contests in each category. This week we’re focusing on The Players Championship.

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The Players Championship PGA DFS Data and Picks

Recent Form

We’ll use the last nine tournaments to complete our dataset this week, which takes us back to the Tournament of Champions. The highest number of tournaments golfers have competed in is seven of nine weeks, while the lowest is three weeks. That gives us plenty of data on almost every player competing this week to gauge the type of form they are in.

Twelve golfers have at least three top-10s in this span, and the three have four: Paul Casey, Tony Finau and Viktor Hovland. The others with three include Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Daniel Berger, Francesco Molinari, Rory McIlroy, Max Homa and Andrew Putnam.

However, only three golfers in the field have managed to come in the top 25 of every one of their starts in these past nine weeks. Casey is one, Tyrrell Hatton and Patrick Cantlay are the other two. Homa leads the field, though, with six top-25s in the last seven weeks, making the cut in all seven. He is the only golfer other than Sungjae Im to have competed seven times over the last nine weeks and made a paycheck in all of them.

The same cannot be said for Homa’s closest competition at the 2019 Wells Fargo, Joel Dahmen, who seems to be more interested in drinking White Claws and challenging Twitter friends to $100 Nassaus than making cuts. He has missed five of six, and the one he made he came in 60th. What better way to break out of a slump than at the Players? Adam Long also comes into the week struggling. He shot 2 under on Thursday and was in great position before shooting 81 on Friday.

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Latest PGA DFS Content

Course History at TPC Sawgrass

If you have been able to catch any of my earlier content, I have talked at length about the volatility at TPC Sawgrass, especially among the best players in the world. In fact, looking at just the top six players, they only have a combined four top-10s out of 17 starts since 2016. That is almost unheard of when it comes to the best player, especially at such big events. None of them have been able to get in the top 10 twice, and all except Dustin Johnson has missed at least one cut. Johnson has come inside the top 30 four straight years.

When we extend out the parameters and look to 2014, McIlroy has three top-10s, a win last year and back-to-back top-10s in 2014 and 2015. Only Jason Day and Molinari have three top-10s as well, but theirs don’t come without some bad starts; each of them has missed at least one cut since 2015. Only five other golfers have two top-10 here since 2014: Tommy Fleetwood, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia and Brian Harman.

There isn’t any golfer in the entire field that has at least two starts that has come in the top 25 in all of them. Harris English has struggled the most here, though, missing the cut in each of the last six years, while Kevin Streelman and Phil Mickelson have only made one cut. Danny Willett is 0-for-4 with a withdraw, putting a cap on the negative side of TPC Sawgrass.

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Strokes Gained

Our Strokes Gained tool here at Awesemo is a great resource for this area. We will be pushing a new update to this every Tuesday evening after a week in which strokes gained was measured. It’ll come with a brief tutorial for those of you that aren’t familiar with this great set of statistics. For those of you that aren’t an Awesemo+ member but would like baseline strokes gained information, here is this week’s field and their yearly PGA Tour Ranks.

This week, TPC Sawgrass doesn’t favor anyone golfer over another, so taking the totality of these stats will be my aim this week.

Strokes Gained Off Tee

Bryson DeChambeau (1), Garcia (2), McIlroy (3), Jon Rahm (4), Hovland (5), Jhonattan Vegas (6), Im (7)

Strokes Gained On Approach

Morikawa (1), D. Johnson (3), Russell Henley (5), Justin Thomas (6), Matthew NeSmith (7), Will Zalatoris (8)

Strokes Gained Around Green

Christiaan Bezuidenhout (1), Byeong Hun An (6), Kevin Na (7), D. Johnson (9), Cantlay (10), Spieth (11)

Strokes Gained Putting

Reed (2), Louie Oosthuizen (3), Brendon Todd (5), Peter Malnati (6), J.T. Poston (9), Xander Schauffele (10)

For the yearly strokes gained ranks, Click here.

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Old School Statistics for PGA DFS Analysis

Before strokes gained statistics were invented, the focus was on data like greens in regulation and driving distance/accuracy. The old standards can still help develop a player’s profile further, helping us identify potential strengths and weaknesses. I’ve chosen my five favorite old-school statistics for this week’s Genesis Invitational. Four of these will come from a corollary statistic to the strokes gained category. I’ve listed each golfer along with their ranking in the statistical category.

Total Driving

Gary Woodland (1), Hatton (3), Rahm (4), Daniel Berger (5), Webb Simpson (6), Hovland (7), Garcia (8)

Greens In Regulation

Cantlay (2), Corey Conners (4), Woodland (5), Rahm (6), Adam Hadwin (7), McIlroy (8)

Around the green Proximity

Thomas (4), Fleetwood (4), McIlroy (6), Matsuyama (7), Brendan Steele (9), Ryan Palmer (9)

Putting from 15-20 feet

Malnati (1), Rose (3), Woodland (6), McIlroy (7), Thomas (8), Maverick McNealy (9)

Birdie or Better

Simpson (1), Thomas (2), Cantlay (3), Scottie Scheffler (4), McIlroy (5)

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Data-Driven PGA DFS Picks for The Players Championship

I know that was a lot of information to digest. At the end of each weekly article, I will provide some of names that appear with positive data in at least two of the four. These should make for good PGA DFS picks on DraftKings and FanDuel.

Only Dustin Johnson and McIlroy show up in all four categories this week.

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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].