PGA DFS: Showdown Spotlight Round 3 of the Rocket Mortgage Classic

This column is a quick-hitter article to give you the stats you need to make informed PGA DFS picks for your DraftKings + FanDuel daily fantasy lineups and give you a couple of recommendations for the Rocket Mortgage Classic. On a typical showdown contest, DraftKings will offer upwards of 50K to first for rounds 2 & 3 showdown, and sometimes up to 100K for the final round contests. They also provide weekend-long contests that have been offering 25K to first for most weekends. Lastly, FanDuel has also tried to get into the weekend-long and final round contests, offering 10K & 5K to first.

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Previous Round Commentary

Thursday morning provided all the entertainment one could have asked for while watching golf, with Bryson ripping drives well beyond his other playing competitors. I mean, just psychological that must be somewhat debilitating. But, these guys are pros and should be able to block all his noise out. However, he hasn’t really looked prime yet, and as such, is down one heading into the weekend to two recent winners, Chris Kirk and Webb Simpson. Webb’s wedge game is so good and so reliable that all he needs to do is catch a slightly warm putter.

Ty Hatton makes it 3/3 in terms of highest priced golfers that made the cut, while Patrick Reed fell victim to the cut this week. Plenty of other big names still in, and as long as you made the cut.

The expected Weather:

Much of the same Weather on Saturday, as the golfers have their third straight day of perfect conditions and no weather edge to be had.

Previous Round Stat Review

Thru 36 holes, Seamus Power and Troy Merritt are the only two golfers that are bogey-free thru 36, having complete control of their game over the first two rounds. Birdies were flying again here at Detriot Golf Club as Matthew Wolff set the pace early with nine of them.

BOB Leaders Round 2

Matthew Wolff (9)
Chris Kirk, Webb Simpson & Ryan Armour * who added a hole in 1 (8)
Ten golfers had seven birdies today, including Cameron Champ, Scottie Scheffler and Harold Varner III.

For the full list of stats, click here!

Strokes Gained Ball Striking vs. Putting

Lucas Glover’s struggles on the greens have returned, well at least for round two, losing 2 1/4 shots on the day. His ball-striking however, remained good in the second round and now has a four-shot differential between the two stats. Harry Higgs, Hudson Swafford and K.H. Lee are three of the other four names ranking in the top five of this category. What’s scary is who the fourth golfer is, Webb Simpson. He’s yet to get hot with the putter really; in fact, he lost a quarter of a stroke on the green today. A scary sight for the rest of the field for sure.

Maverick McNealy leads the other side of this stat, lighting it up on the greens over the first two days, gaining almost five total strokes. If he could get his irons to cooperate, he could be in for a run this weekend. Brendon Todd and Sungjae Im are two other candidates here as well.

PGA DFS Slate Preview:

DraftKings is offering $50,000 to first contest with $200,000K Gtd. Plenty of other offerings, including the $100 long drive single entry contests offering 5K to first and 30K Gtd. A reasonably robust offering for this tournament. They are also offering a 25K to first weekend-long contest and a full slate of other offerings there.

FanDuel steps up their game a bit as they are offering 10K to first for their weekend-long product. They still aren’t offering showdown contests.

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PGA DFS Showdown & Weekend Picks

Top-10 Breakdown & Pick

One two in the salary boards are 1,2 on the leaderboard as well, well 1, 3 if you count Chris Kirk. They’ve both gotten it done in opposite ways, yet Simpson is gaining strokes off the tee as well, just a totally different way then Bryson is. Matthew Wolff, for a round at least put it all together and shows you what happens when its firing on all cylinders for this young kid. I’m excited to see him in contention again. A couple of other players that are coming into this week in some good form also enter the weekend in the top 10 including Ryan Armour, Richy Werenski, Mark Hubbard and the aforementioned Kirk,

If there’s any indication how tomorrow’s slate is going to go, Bryson was 63% in the $100 single entry contest, and 54% in the main $10 contest. Obviously, there’s leverage in fading him, but he’s been so consistent putting up 50+ points, it’s really hard to fade him. Especially with the salary being so much cheaper than his week-long price. I’m not going to be able to fade:

Matthew Wolff ($7,400)

I know ownership is likely to be high tomorrow, but there’s still plenty of choices down below to make a unique lineup while stacking Bryson/Webb and Wolff. He’s got all parts of his game working, something we highlighted on Wednesday night, that all parts of the game had clicked at one point in the last three weeks. Let’s see if he’s got what it takes to win on back to back years on July 4th weekend.

Stud or Value Pick Outside of Top 10

Sam Burns ($7,200)

Burns was a big play for me for the week-long contests, and if I’m to make any of my roll back, it’ll be because of him. He found his irons in round two, gaining over three strokes on the day, but his putter let him down a bit, losing 2.21 on the day. He gained almost two on day one, so we know he’s close with it. They just didn’t’ fall today. Tomorrow they will.

Sneaky Pick Outside of Top 10

Kristoffer Ventura ($6,500)

The twenty-five year old from Mexico has quietly played decent in his limited starts. I highlighted him in the strokes gained article as a guy that can really light it up with the putter, gaining at least one stroke in 4/9 starts. He’s got a chance at that again this weekend, and his irons seem to be heating up a perfect combination. He’s already a longer driver of the ball, so these four par 5s should come in handy this weekend.

PGA DFS Lineup Fill-Ins:

Harry Higgs ($7,500)

Scott Harrington ($6,300)

Hudson Swafford ($7,100)

Doc Redman ($9,100)

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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].