After a stop by the Bayou for a two-man team competition last week, the PGA TOUR is back to every man for himself for the annual trip south of the border to Mexico. This is just the second year that the Mexico Open is a PGA TOUR event after it spent several years as an event on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica, the Nationwide Tour, and the Challenge Tour.
While this tournament doesn’t have the rich history of some of the other stops, it does have a hefty purse and full exception status for the winners. Last year, Jon Rahm won his only PGA TOUR event in 2022 at this event, so since it has joined as a fully sanctioned event, the champion here has won the Masters in the following year and climbed to No. 1 in the World Rankings (just the facts, people).
Aside from Rahm in his title defense, Tony Finau is the only other big name in this field. In fact, Davis Riley had the third-highest salary, and he withdrew after winning last week. Wyndham Clark is the only other player in the top 20 of the FedExCup standings scheduled to participate.
Even without star power, though, there will be plenty of storylines to track this week. For players on the fringe of the PGA TOUR, getting a high finish at an event like this is critical for qualifying for future events. Rising stars and aging veterans will both be in search of strong finishes, and it’s a great chance to get to know some of the depth options that can represent value in later events.
The course they’ll be playing for the second straight season is the par-71 Vidanta Vallarta, designed by Greg Norman. It played as a shot-makers course last year, and you can see what players fit the profile in Matt Vincenzi’s stats preview.
In this post, we focus on players with lower ownership projections than their potential performance. Finding these high-leverage plays with low ownership is critical for GPP lineups. I’ll try to highlight ways to go against the grain and take advantage of golfers who many fantasy players may overlook or pass by due to risk factors.
Since these are GPP picks, we also can accept a little more risk if it raises the ceiling of the lineup. High-risk, high-reward options with low ownerships create the “boom-or-bust” style lineups that usually lead to large-field success.
This weekly post focuses on players who are strong plays in GPP contests. These contests usually have large numbers of entries and pay out big prizes to the top few percent. The biggest example this week is the DraftKings $600K Pitch and Putt, which pays out $200K to the winner. In large contests like this one, it is critical to try and target players who have a chance to outperform salary expectations and come with low projected ownership.
The players highlighted will be good options if they deliver in all formats, but they come with risk factors that usually keep them from being the safest plays. Safety and reliability should be the focus of lineups in cash and double-up contests, where finishing in the top spot isn’t quite as important. On the other hand, GPPs call for high-risk, high-reward options with high ceilings and low projected ownership. To find specific guidance for all the different kinds of contests, check out our full Daily Fantasy Golf coverage each week.
No matter what type of format you prefer, be sure to use the FantasyLabs PGA Models to help you make the best choices. These models use stats and simulations to highlight different players’ strengths and weaknesses. A couple of key new stats to specifically use for GPP play are Perfect% and SimLeverage, which are further explained here.
Usually, I rely on the Stroked Gained Model, which is very predictive of results. I also tend to lean into players that gain shots on approach since week-to-week putting performance can be extremely volatile, even for the best players on the PGA TOUR.
As you dig into the numbers, you can enjoy the many tools that FantasyLabs offers, including the Lineup Optimizer, which effortlessly creates up to 300 lineups. Alternatively, you can use the Lineup Builder if you prefer a more hands-on approach.
Check out my top picks in each price range listed below.
Editors note: SimLeverage and Perfect% numbers may change after this piece is published. Be sure to check the PGA Models for any updates to the sims.
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High-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Nicolai Hojgaard $9,500
The top of the salary structure for the Mexico Open is pretty wild. Rahm leads the way with a $12K salary but comes with a projected ownership of 55.5%. He can still be in your GPP lineups, but you’ll just have to find other ways to differentiate at other spots. Tony Finau is the only other player with a salary over $10K, and he’s projected for a hefty 37% ownership. Both are good plays but don’t offer much leverage with such high ownership. You can and should consider them for your GPP lineups, but you will also have to differentiate your lineups with other picks like the ones listed here.
One relatively high-priced play that is expected to outpace his ownership is Hojgaard, who just accepted Special Temporary Membership on the PGA TOUR after the Valero Texas Open. He opened the year with three made cuts on the DP World Tour, highlighted by a fifth-place finish at the Thailand Classic. After coming to the PGA TOUR, the 22-year-old Dane finished solo-second at the Corales Puntacana Championship, T28 at the Texas Open, and made the cut last week at the Zurich before fading to 32nd place.
His high finish at Puntacana is especially relevant this week since the course setup and Paspalum greens and fairways seem to set up a strong correlation. We have limited data on this course since it’s just the second year stopping here, but it seems like success in one tropical venue may transfer to the other.
Hojgaard has the seventh-highest Perfect% in the field but is only projected for under 9% ownership. That gives him the highest SimLeverage of any player over $9K by a wide margin. He brings the fourth-highest Leverage in the field at that low ownership.
Only Rahm and Gary Woodland match more of the Pro Trends than Hojgaard does since he comes in with six Pro Trends in his favor.
Getting a win at the Mexico Open would be huge for Hojgaard and continue to open doors for him to establish himself as one of the top rising stars in the game. He’s not Jon Rahm yet, but neither was Rahm when he won here a year ago.
Getting Hojgaard at this ownership and salary is a great option from the players over $9K.
Alexander Noren $9,000
With so many lineups expected to be paying up for one or two of the top golfers on this slate, there’s actually a little dip in the projected ownership of players around $9K. Noren falls right in the middle of the projected ownership dip at just barely over 5% projected ownership.
Our projections see Noren as a boom-or-bust play with a pretty good ceiling but a dangerously low floor. That lack of a floor is what makes him such a good source of leverage, though, since many will pass on him. Noren has the fourth-highest SimLeverage in the field and is one of just 15 players who show up in more than 10% of optimal lineups in our sims.
Noren finished 2022 in excellent form with a top-five finish at the Houston Open and a runner-up finish at the DP World Tour Championship in November. He hasn’t been consistent in 2023 but has flashed some upside with a T15 at the Valero Texas Open as his best finish on the PGA TOUR to this point in the season.
The 40-year-old Swede usually gains shots on approach and around the greens, but he doesn’t crush it off the tee like Hojgaard. If he can compensate for his lack of length with creativity and solid putting, he could end up contending this week. He does have a track record of being able to do that on similar courses to this one in the past, with top-15 finishes at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship in 2018 and in the Bermuda Championship in 2020.
Aside from Rahm and Finau, he’s the only player in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings in the field.
Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Beau Hossler $8,800
It doesn’t look like hardly anyone is ready to buy in on Beau since he has an extremely low ownership projection. Part of that is probably due to his massive salary hike in this smaller field and the fact that last week’s success at the Zurich was part of his partnership with Wyndham Clark, who is getting much more attention from the general public.
Hossler brings the highest SimLeverage and Leverage in the entire field due to his low projected ownership.
Last week, Hossler and Clark at least shared the lead after each of the first three rounds but had to settle for a third-place finish after a disappointing Sunday. It was still the best result of the season for Hossler, who had missed four straight cuts during the Florida Swing.
Hossler can tend to be a streaky player and posted back-to-back top-15 finishes at Pebble Beach and the WM Phoenix Open just before that string of missed cuts. He didn’t play in this event last year but did make the cut during his only trip to Puntacana.
Garrick Higgo $8,300
Behind only Hossler, Higgo has the second-highest SimLeverage in the field this week. He actually has a higher floor projection than Hossler and checks in with an 11.2% Perfect%, which is the 10th-highest in the field.
Higgo won an event with a similar field to this one at the Palmetto Championship at Congaree in June of 2021. Although it seems like the South African has been around these kinds of events for a long time, he is still only 23 and has been doing a lot of his growing up on the PGA TOUR while riding the exemption from that victory.
This season, the lefty has made the cut in 10 of his 17 tournaments with three top 25s. He finished third at the Sanderson Farms Championship last fall and has made the cut in five of his past six events, which include THE PLAYERS Championship and the Elevated Event at the RBC Heritage two weeks ago. He didn’t play last week, so he should be fresh and ready to take on Vidanta Vallarta this week.
He seems like a good course fit, given his length, and he usually performs well enough to at least make the cut in these lighter fields. He also has a high ceiling if his putter gets going, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see him in the mix on Sunday if things go his way.
Value PGA DFS Picks
Akshay Bhatia $7,400
There aren’t many left-handed players on the PGA TOUR, but Bhatia joins Higgo as lefties in my picks for this week.
Bhatia isn’t here because he’s left-handed, though–the youngster has shown a ton of upside while working his way to Special Temporary Membership on the PGA TOUR this season. A few years ago, Bhatia made the controversial decision to skip college and jump straight to the Pros at 17. He’s been derailed by injuries and had some ups and downs since then, but he definitely has proven he can contend on similar courses and in similar fields.
The 21-year-old claimed his first career win at the Bahamas Great Exuma Classic in 2022 on a similar Paspalum course in a tropical environment on the Korn Ferry Tour. He also finished in the top 10 in both events in the Bahamas this year on the KFT and transferred that success to another island event, finishing second behind Nico Echavarria at the Puerto Rico Open.
That high finish in a PGA TOUR event was enough to get him that special temporary membership, and he added two made cuts at Puntacana (T24) and the Valero Texas Open (T46) before missing the cut at the RBC Heritage two weeks ago. Last week at the Zurich Classic, he and Harry Hall teamed up and missed the cut on the number.
According to his projected ownership, Bhatia is coming into this event firmly off the radar. He has outperformed salary-based expectations in six of his past eight tournaments on the PGA TOUR, in addition to his strong showings before accepting membership. Due to his low ownership projection, he has the second-highest leverage in the field and the third-highest SimLeverage.
While his game is still a work in progress, his strong showings on similar courses and in similar fields give him a very high ceiling this week, and he’s a play I love under $7.5K.
Michael Kim, $7,300
Kim won the 2018 John Deere Classic and then vanished from the fantasy golf scene, missing 22 of 26 cuts the following season. He didn’t really rediscover his form until this season, but he seems to be in a nice groove coming into this tournament. He’s only projected for a 3.4% ownership, and his resulting 3.2% SimLeverage puts him inside the top 10 in that category.
After continuing to struggle early in the season, Kim’s turnaround started at the Farmers Insurance Open. Since then, he has made seven of eight cuts, highlighted by a fifth-place finish in the Puerto Rico Open. He also had a T26 at Corales during that stretch.
Kim partnered with Seung-yul Noh last week to finish in the top 20 last week as well, giving him four top-26 finishes in his last seven appearances. Even before that week, he had exceeded salary-based expectations in seven of his previous nine tournaments.
With the weaker field, good form, and a layout that should fit his game, Kim has a good shot at posting another strong finish this week.
Sleeper PGA DFS Picks
Matthias Schwab $6,900
Once you get below $7K in these weaker fields, there are plenty of “boom-or-bust” options to consider. It’s unlikely someone from this price range will out-duel the top players in this field, but there is the potential for a strong finish that can buoy a roster of top players while providing some differentiation.
For example, Schwab is projected for under 1% ownership, so adding him to a lineup with Rahm helps delude some of the chalk inherent in taking that top option. The 28-year-old Austrian brings upside, though, and has the fourth-highest SimLeverage of all players $7K and under.
Schwab missed the cut in three of his last four standard format events, but the one outlier there was a strong showing at the Corales on that similar setup and surface. He finished T8 that week, firing three straight 68s to climb the leaderboard in each round after his opening 71. He also looked sharp last week while teamed up with Vincent Norrman, finishing in the top 10 at the Zurich Classic.
Those two top 10s showcase his upside, and his projected ownership helps identify him as a good leverage option. In fact, he has the highest Leverage of any player at $7k or under.
Carson Young $6,600
Young is another player who could pop from this reduced salary range this week. He missed the cut at the Zurich Classic playing alongside Kyle Westmoreland, but he had been on a nice run prior to getting some extra rest before his trip to Mexico.
In his most recent individual event, he fired four straight rounds in the 60s to place T19 at the RBC Heritage. Since that was an elevated event this season, that finish is even more impressive against a tough field. Young also made the cut at Corales and had a great week at the Puerto Rico Open. In that tournament in early March, Young had the lead after each of the first two rounds and finished solo third behind only Bhatia and Echavarria.
His season-long stats aren’t impressive, mostly due to a rough stretch at the beginning of the year, but his ball-striking has been strong lately. He has shown he can go low in a hurry on similar courses in similar fields, so if you have to go with an option around $6.5K to make the rest of your roster structure work, Young is my top option in this price range.
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