The First Cut: PGA DFS Picks & Preview for the AT&T Byron Nelson | DraftKings & FanDuel 5/9/21

It’s just about major season again on the PGA Tour, and with that big-time PGA DFS picks and large DraftKings and FanDuel contests. On the player’s side, they are making their final preparations for golf’s second major of the year, the PGA Championship. Those that didn’t want to head to Kiawah Island a week early will be heading to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area for the AT&T Byron Nelson. For the last couple of years, the tournament was held at Trinity Forest Golf Club, and beyond Aaron Wise and Sung Kang — the two winners of the event when it was held there — not many people liked the course.

Luckily for all involved, the tour heads away from Trinity Forest and to TPC Craig Ranch for the next five years. While it hasn’t hosted a PGA Tour event, there have been a few events held here, including the then Korn Ferry Tour Finals in both 2008 and 2012. There were also a few Q schools held here, but by in large, very little is known about this 7,450-yard course.

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Firstly, if it is your first time joining us, here’s a brief synopsis of what you can find in this article most weeks.

• Tournament and Format
• Course Commentary
• Course Facts and Figures
• PGA DFS Course Summary and Statistical Comparison
• PGA DFS Preview, including sweat sheet and optimal lineups from last year’s event
• Player Preview

DraftKings & FanDuel PGA DFS Picks: AT&T Byron Nelson

One of the oldest tournaments on the PGA rotation, it debuted as the Texas Victory Open all the way back in the 1940s. Of course, it was on by the gentleman’s for which this tournament is named after and has been won by all of the world’s best throughout the years. The last few years of the event were played in Southern Dallas at Trinity Forest, but just about everyone did not like the course, including patrons, gamers & players, for that matter. This year is the first year the tournament will head to TPC Craig Ranch.

The Course: TPC Craig Ranch

Opened in 2004 and designed by Tom Weiskopf, the course in its infancy had always hoped to host a PGA Tour event and, with that in mind, designed it to be such. It covers 7,450 yards and winds through the master-planned community of Craig Ranch. Purchased by Club Corp in 2019, the course should present a fresh, new face for the tournament. It boasts Zoysia fairways and Bentgrass greens, while the famous Rowlett Creek can be seen on 10 holes. Now, there is one caveat, and it’ll interesting to see how the PGA Tour plays it this week, the 12th hole can be played as either a very long par 4, measuring 493 yards, or as par short par 5, measuring 547 yards, the prevailing theory is that it’ll end up as a par 4 for the week.

A few differences that I think are important to point out, especially the differences from Trinity Forest to here, and while it’s called Trinity Forest, there weren’t any trees that were in the actual field of play. That won’t be the case this year as this course is inundated with trees all around, providing a test similar to The Colonial rather than what we’ve seen at this event the past few years.

Here’s how the rest of the course breaks down and what we can expect to see in our DraftKings and FanDuel PGA DFS contests this week.

Course Facts & Figures

Par and Yardage

• Par 71? 72? 7,450 yards

Course Difficulty

• N/A

Hole Dispersion

• Four par 3’s: 190, 220, 216, 180
• 10 or 11 par 4’s: 440, 440, 420, 360, 560, 440, 460, 495?, 440, 330, 460
• Three or four par 5’s: 580, 520, 550?, 552

Grass Types and Hazards

• Grass Type: Zoysia Fairways and Bentgrass Greens
• Average Green Size: n/a
• Water Hazards: n/a
• Bunkers: n/a
• Rough Length: n/a

Designer

• Tom Weiskopf

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The AT&T Byron Nelson PGA DFS Slate Preview

There is a normal set of offerings this week, with the top prize on DraftKings being $200,000.

PGA DFS Sweat Sheet for TPC Craig Rank (using a baseline to project out the scoring)

Undoubtedly, one of the earliest questions of the week will be how the Tour decides to set up hole No. 12. Will it be a short par 5 or a long par 4? That’ll mess with the scoring by quite a bit. I have it going from either the third-easiest or the hardest. It’s very similar to the second hole at Pebble Beach when that turns into a par 4 for major championships.

PGA DFS AT&T Byron Nelson Player Preview

The old way of doing things, at least if you are Tiger Woods, was to show up at a major venue a few weeks prior to the event planning and preparing. But, more and more stars, as time marches on, are going away from this theory. They would rather be playing golf instead of sitting around at the venue waiting for the tournament to start. It has been a trend going on for a little while now. This week seems to be the culmination of it.

Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama returns to action for the first time since his groundbreaking win, as do Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka. They’ll be joined by Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and plenty of others, providing a nice warm-up to next week’s PGA Championship.

Once we have a bit more information on the course setup, we will circle back to the article.

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