PGA DFS Picks: Showdown Spotlight Round 2 of the PGA Championship

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 PGA Championship. On a typical showdown contest, DraftKings will offer upwards of $50,000 to first for rounds 2 and 3 showdown and sometimes up to $100,000 for the final-round contests. They also provide weekend-long contests that have been offering $25,000 to first for most weekends. Lastly, FanDuel has also tried to get into the weekend-long and final round contests, offering $10,000 and $5,000 to first.

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Previous Round Commentary

The morning wave was, in fact, the right play, as only one golfer from the entire afternoon wave ended up in the top 10. Only three ended in the top 20: J.T. Poston, Haotong Li and Brendon Todd. Those three will turn right back around tomorrow morning and try and set the pace heading into the weekend, but there will be a cold, wet marine layer with hopefully faster and trickier greens than what we saw Thursday. The morning wave had a bunch of star players get close to the top, including everyone’s favorite player in majors, Brooks Koepka. Xander Schauffele is the other stud that’s closest today after round 1.

The course overall played as people may have expected it to, albeit a little easier. The scoring average was 71.297 or +1.29 over par. Typically you can double that if the weather is expected to be the same, and you can try and predict the cutline that way. So, with that being said, I think the cut will end up closer to +2 or +3 come 10 p.m. EST tomorrow night.

The Expected Weather for Friday’s Round

We should see pretty correlated conditions from what we saw on Thursday, with the wind maybe a bit lesser in the afternoon.

Previous Round Stat Review

The 156 man field hit 51% of fairways in round 1. That is insanely low. That brought the greens-in-regulation percentage down to around 60%, but with average scores around 1 over, the green complexes proved to be rather easy. Again, hopefully we will see them faster and firmer as this tournament progresses. It seems as though driving accuracy is also bringing down the average driving distance, coming in just shy of 286 yards per drive, almost 10 yards shorter than in 2005. There were 467 birdies on the day for an average of just under three per player, but that didn’t’ stop Todd from pouring in seven birdies.

Let’s check out a few other stats.

Bogey-Free Rounds in Round 1:

Jason Day
Gary Woodland
Brian Harman
Tom Lewis

Birdie-or-Better Leaders Through Round 1

Brendon Todd, Kevin Kisner, Bud Cauley, J.T. Poston, Bernd Wiesberger (7)
Joel Dahmen, Brooks Koepka, Scottie Scheffler, Justin Rose, Mike Lorenzo Vera, Daniel Berger, Alex Noren.

For the full list of stats, click here!

Strokes Gained Ball Striking vs. Putting

Matthew Wolff, for the second straight week, has lit it up in terms of ball striking in round 1 but was terrible with the putter. He gained almost five strokes ball striking but lost over two with his putter for an almost seven-shot differential. If he can get the putter working tomorrow, he has a great chance to jump the board. Tyrrell Hatton, whose tape since returning to golf has looked quite the opposite from this, gained 5.3 more strokes ball striking than he did with his putter today. Tony Finau, Sergio Garcia, Luke List, Paul Casey, Harold Varner III, Shane Lowry and Tyler Duncan all gained at least four more strokes ball striking than with their putter.

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Top 10 Breakdown and Pick(s)

Brendon Todd’s putter is a force to be reckoned with, but the day turned in by Justin Rose was remarkable. He hit no more than five fairways on the day but still managed to scrape, claw and finesse his way into a 66 to open up. He’s only $7,100 for round 2. Mike Lorenzo Vera has done it again, coming up big in the first round of a major, as he and Martin Kaymer are the most unusual names in that big tie for third behind Todd and Jason Day. Others in that big tie include Scottie Scheffler, Brendan Steele, Schauffele and Koepka. If the morning wave is to have the advantage yet again tomorrow, I’m looking right back at Koepka to anchor my lineups.

Brooks Koepka > Xander Schauffele

Tony Finau > Daniel Berger

Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau > Daniel Berger and Xander Schauffele.

Stud or Value Pick Outside of Top 10

Matthew Wolff ($7,600)

These numbers are too good for me to pass up. Almost five strokes ball striking for a guy I know can get hot with his putter? Sign me up. I wanted to get exposure to a couple of morning guys here anyway, and with only two birdies on the card, Wolff may not be a substantial target for most gamers in round 2. I also like his teammate Viktor Hovland ($7,900) and friend Collin Morikawa ($9,000) quite a bit as well. Even with the double on 18, I’m sure a lot of gamers looking for that morning stack will look to Casey and Todd for the second round.

Sneaky Pick Outside of Top 10

Harold Varner III and Christiaan Bezuidenhout ($7,000)

Both golfers struggled the greens in round 1, but both can get hot with the flat stick in a hurry. They also gained pretty handily with their irons in round 1 and present good value at the last $7,000 price. Mixing them in with Hovland or Wolff, or even both, should give you a variety of options to choose from when building out your lineups.

Lineup Fill-Ins

Sergio Garcia ($7,800)

Tommy Fleetwood ($7,8000)

Adam Scott ($7,700)

Joohyung Kim ($6,300)

Related PGA Content

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].