Tournament Preview (David Barnett)

The PGA TOUR season culminates in Atlanta at East Lake Golf Club, as the top 30 in the FedExCup standings hope to bring home the TOUR Championship. By now, we’re all familiar with the staggered starting positions first deployed in 2019. It matters quite a bit when determining who to roster in your DraftKings DFS lineups.

We’ve seen that it’s difficult for players to truly come from too far behind and overtake the guys at the top. Scottie Scheffler and Rory Mcllroy are hard enough to beat when they don’t have a head start. We just need to face the fact that it’s highly unlikely we see a winner priced below Scheffler, Mcllroy, Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm. Therefore, we find it foolish to have DFS lineups without at least one of those four players. Honestly, we actually like starting your lineup with two of those top four players to improve the odds of cashing in on those finish position points on DraftKings.

Just because we’re saying guys outside the top four are unlikely to win, doesn’t mean players can’t get hot and move up the board rapidly. We’ve seen guys do that just about every year since 2019. As a reminder, this is another one of those limited field tournaments where duplicate lineups are easy to make, but you’ve got to try and avoid it at all costs. It’s only 30 players with six roster spots on DraftKings. The good news is that all of these players are REALLY good! That being the case, don’t be afraid to roster six REALLY good golfers, but leave some substantial salary on the table. Ownership leverage still matters in the TOUR Championship.

This is a tough week to differentiate your lineups, especially when we’re basically requiring a combo of the top four find their way in all your builds. So, choose your DFS contests carefully, tighten your player pool considerably (maybe no more than 10 players) and consider managing your bankroll accordingly so you don’t have to start the new season at the Fortinet Championship by making a deposit.

Lineup Picks (Pat Perry & Ben Little)

Speaking of differentiating...enter the guy who shot 18 over on his way to finishing dead last at the BMW Championship. Taylor Moore’s sandwiched between Jordan Spieth and Sam Burns in the DraftKings $6K range, and he’ll likely be completely ignored. Spieth and Burns are both more enticing names with experience at East Lake. With a guaranteed four rounds and only 30 players, rostering a guy with the upside of Moore for possibly less than 10-12% average ownership is a perfect GPP play.

Moore was in the final group on Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship just two weeks ago. His form all season has been quite boom-or-bust. For example, he finished fourth at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in between five missed cuts. The good news is that Taylor Moore LOVES Bermuda greens (they played on bentgrass at the BMW), and he’s back on Bermuda at East Lake. Assuming he can get the driver back on track, Moore’s proven ability to have spike weeks against any strength field is worth the risk.

Finally, Georgia boy Russell Henley at $8.3K on DraftKings and is a name worth clicking as he arrives at East Lake GC for the first time since his third-place finish in 2017. He’s rattled off three top 10 finishes the last three weeks. He’s been one of the most consistent guys on the PGA TOUR since THE PLAYERS. In 13 starts since THE PLAYERS, he’s had two missed cuts, a T35, and 10 top 20 finishes. Henley’s accuracy off the tee and precision iron play has given him the upside to compete on any course against any field.

It’s likely the $8K range on DraftKings gets talked about a lot, but it’s under-utilized when it comes to actually building lineups as it’s difficult to roster two of the top four and love your lineup with an $8K player in addition. Plus, Sungjae Im is likely to scoop up a fair share of ownership for those that do find a way to roster an $8K player. Henley offers just as much upside as Im. Plus, starting at 3 under (instead of Im at 2 under), we think there’s a strong chance Henley has the firepower to vault into the top five by Sunday evening for those extra DraftKings finish position points.