PGA DFS Picks: Showdown Spotlight Round 3 of the FedEx St. Jude

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 WGC FedEx St.Jude Invitational. 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 weather was expected to roll on in the afternoon, so play was moved up almost four hours. That screwed up my ability to watch a lot of golf today, which is what it is. I watched the Justin Thomas & Brooks Koepka pairings for the first six holes, and conditions looked somewhat dicey out there, with the wind howling out at times. Greens were soft, and they played it ” ball in hand” for the second straight day, but scores actually crept to just slightly over par, with the average being 70.01.

The Expected Weather for Tomorrow’s Round

It seems that the bad weather, and wind, have passed us by here in Memphis, as it looks like smooth sailing with little wind the next two days. We start at noon EST time tomorrow as the tour uses threesomes off two tees again to get everyone out in a two-hour span.

Previous Round Stat Review

A couple of bogey-free rounds, one that got Matt Fitzpatrick back into the golf tournament, and the other by Todd, who was putting the absolutely lights out of the ball today. He gained almost four strokes on the day with the flat stick!

Bogey Free rounds in Round 2:

Brendon Todd
Matthew Fitzpatrick

BOB Leaders For round 2

Byeong Hun An, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Webb Simpson, Kevin Na, Tony Finau, Sebastian Soderberg (6)
17 Tied at (5) including Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Reed, Corey Conners, Joel Dahmen, Jason Kokrak, & Dustin Johnson.

For the full list of stats, click here!

Strokes Gained Ball Striking vs. Putting

A day after Brooks looked almost unstoppable on the greens, he looked equally as bad today. His ball-striking continued to be in form, gaining another 3.66 strokes on the day, but he lost 4.64 putting today, good, good for an eight-shot differential on the day, and a two day average of 4.51, the most of anyone in the field. Chez Reavie isn’t too far behind, at 4.12, with Justin Thomas, Graeme McDowell, Nick Taylor, & Sergio Garcia rounding out the golfers that have gained, on average, three more strokes ball-striking than with the putters.

Strokes Gained Differential:

I’m adding this section here to highlight a few golfers that improved their ball striking drastically from one round to the next. Here are yesterdays big movers in terms of strokes gained ball striking differential from round to round:

Rory McIlroy +6.17
Matthew Fitzpatrick +5.75
Kevin Na +5,3
Byeong Hun An +4.89
Adam Hadwin +4.65
Marc Leishman +4.56

Slate Preview

Slate Lock Time

11:00 AM EST

Contest Preview

DraftKings:

DraftKings is offering $50,000 to first with $150,000 guaranteed for round 3 for the $12 buy-in
They are also offering $20,000 to first with $60,000 guaranteed for the weekend-long contests with a $15 buy-in

FanDuel:

FanDuel is offering 5K to first with 25K GTD for the weekend-long contests.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter for giveaways and promos!

Top 10 Breakdown & PGA DFS Pick

As bad as Brooks was with his putter, Todd was equally as good. For the two days, he’s gained just shy of seven strokes while loosing 1.2 off the tee. That could come back to hurt him eventually, if that putter ever cools down, which could bring the rest of the field back into play. Still, he looks good with his irons, gaining on average of 1.6 per day, so that’ll have to cool off as well. Rickie Fowler has looked impressive in both of the days, gaining another 2.38 strokes from tee to green today, but the irons colled off in round two, losing a quarter of a stroke to the field. If he wants to win this tournament, or possibly more important next week, those will need to stay hot.

There were a couple of big movers on the day, including Louis Oosthuizen, who finally looks good, with back to back under-par rounds, and a 67 on the day. His iron play picked up in round two, gaining 1.56 strokes, which pales in comparison to Sung Kang, who finds himself in his best spot since the restart. He’s on fire with his irons, gaining over four strokes today, and another 1.61 on Thursday, for a total of 5.61 for the two days, leading the field.

Sungjae Im ($7,000)

So, I know this is bold. Seeing how he’s the only one in the top 10 to be losing strokes tee to green. Granted, it’s very minimal, but he’s keeping it together with his short game, gaining on average of about 2.5 strokes per day. I covered Im in the pre-tourney content, and I really felt this would be the end of his streak of losing on the approaches, but he’ll need to gain at least 1.5 strokes over the weekend to do so. If he does that, he could sneak all the way into the top 5 with how good his short game has been over the first two days.

Stud or Value Pick Outside of Top 10

Marc Leishman ($7,600)

Leishman has struggled since the return of golf but finally seemed like he caught wind of something out there today with his irons. Gaining 2.33 strokes on the day, almost four more than on day one, Leishman looks to get himself into a good frame of mind heading into next week. He’s always a pretty consistent putter, so we don’t have to worry about that. It’s just been his ball-striking that’s lacked. I’m going to bet on that continuing into the weekend.

Sneaky Pick Outside of Top 10

Tom Lewis ($6,100)

I’m back in on the cheap Lewis, who gained almost a stroke with his irons today. We are going to need one of these cheap guys to go off to make sure we get all the studs we want, and I’m sure Lewis won’t be heavily looked at heading into round three tomorrow. He’s played well over the weekend the last two tournaments, so le’ts see if we can jump on that train and keep it going for this weekend. I also like McDowell here quite a bit for the same price, but I expect more ownership there.

PGA DFS Lineup Fill-Ins

Jordan Spieth ($8,200)

Tommy Fleetwood ($7,700)

Adam Hadwin ($7,900)

Graeme McDowell ($6,100)

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].