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TOUR Championship Top PGA DFS Picks, Values and Sleepers for Large-Field GPPs on DraftKings

By Zach Thompson @ZT_Sports
Aug 23, 2023

The PGA TOUR wraps up the FedExCup playoffs this week with the TOUR Championship. The top 30 in the FedExCup Standings have advanced to this final round and will now play to earn the spot as the 17th FedExCup champion.

Rory McIlroy won at this event last year, claiming his record-setting third FedExCup. He’ll look to also become the first golfer to ever win back-to-back FedExCup championships this week. Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth are other previous winners of the FedExCup who are also in the field this week.

This week’s event has a unique format for several reasons. First, it is the smallest field of ant tournament all season, with only 30 players teeing it up this week. It’s a no-cut event, so barring injury or withdrawal, all 30 players will play four rounds. Leverage is hard to come by since every player has high ownership, but there are a few spots where I think players are being undervalued. I don’t have quite as many picks highlighted as usual for full-field events, but I listed some of my top plays below.

The other difference in this week’s event from typical tournaments is that FedExCup Starting Strokes are used to spread out the field to reflect their standing in the FedExCup coming into the week. Scottie Scheffler will start at -10 since he comes into the week atop the standings, and last week’s winner Viktor Hovland will start at -8 since he starts the week in second place after his impressive finish at Olympia Fields. The starting positions for the rest of the field cascade down to the final five golfers ranked 26th-30th in the FedExCup, who start at even par.

With such a limited field and starting strokes in play, it’s a different week for DFS players, but it still should be a great chance to see some of the top golfers in the world battle it out for one of the biggest prizes in the golf world.

The TOUR Championship has always been held at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, so we have good amount of course history to consider. To learn more about the course and the skill set it rewards, check out Matt Vincenzi’s weekly stats preview.

This weekly GPP post focuses on players with lower ownership projections than their potential performance. Finding high-leverage plays is critical for GPP success. The picks here are designed to go against the grain and take advantage of players that may be overlooked or not selected due to risk factors.

Since these are GPP picks, we can accept more risk if it raises the lineup’s ceiling. High-risk, high-reward options with low ownership create the “boom-or-bust” style lineups that usually lead to large-field success.

GPP contests are contests that have large numbers of entries and pay out huge prizes to the top few percent. Since this week is a major, the largest GPP on DraftKings is the $1M Summer Sand Trap, which awards $200K to first place.

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. To find specific guidance for all contest types, 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 few critical new stats 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 highly 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 Pick

Max Homa $10,900

Since he’s priced way up in the middle of the top golfers in the field and pairing him with another top player really makes the salary cap tricky, Homa is set up to be extremely under-owned, according to our ownership projections. He’s projected to be the third-lowest owned golfer in the entire field at barely over 10%. Finding a player with this much upside at this low of an ownership projection sets up a good spot for leverage. In fact, Homa offers the highest leverage in the field.

Homa’s Vegas odds to win and finish in the top 10 are the seventh-highest in the field, but his ownership is only the 28th-highest. The only reason he’s getting overlooked is his salary, but this is a spot to pay up for low ownership since he then gives your roster a nice contrarian ceiling.

On top of being a good game theory play, Homa comes in playing extremely well. He fired a then-course-record 62 in Round 2 last week and held on for a T5 at the BMW Championship. He has finished in the top 25 and exceeded salary-based expectations in each of his last five events and in the top 10 in each of his last three.

Homa also has had some success at East Lake, finishing T5 last year in his debut at the TOUR Championship. Like last week, he had a standout round in that tournament as well, firing an eight-under in Round 2. He’ll look to put together a couple of rounds like that this week to surge into contention.

He starts the week as the No. 6 seed at four-under-par, six shots off the lead.

Mid-Priced PGA DFS Pick

Brian Harman $9,500

The Champion Golfer of the Year isn’t getting much respect this week and is only projected for just over 13% ownership, which is the fifth-lowest in the field and the third-lowest of players riced over $8.5K. As a result of the lower ownership, he has the sixth-highest SimLeverage in the field.

Harman’s dominant win at The Open Championship came as the culmination of a brilliant summer of play that included top-15 finishes at the Scottish Open, Rocket Mortgage Classic, and the Travelers Championship, where he finished runner-up to Keegan Bradley. Since winning his first career major, the lefty hasn’t slowed down very much. He finished T31 at St. Jude to start the playoffs and built on that with an impressive T5 last week at Olympia Fields with four rounds in the 60s.

He’s a Georgia native who should be very familiar with the twists and turns of East Lake. He was steady on this track last year with four rounds of 70 or better but started much farther back in the pack on his way to a T21. This year he starts as the No. 8 seed alongside Homa at four-under to start the week.

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Value PGA DFS Pick

Tom Kim $7,900

Kim is one of five players making the first start of their career at the TOUR Championship. It’s easy to forget that he’s just 21 since he has already accomplished so much since his breakthrough just over a year ago. The red-hot Lucas Glover is literally more than twice his age, but Kim has been playing very well despite an ankle injury and comes with a 22% ownership projection, which normally would be chalky, but in this field, and price range actually isn’t too bad.

Since finding his groove with a top 10 at the U.S. Open in June, Kim has exceeded salary-based expectations in six of his past seven tournaments, including a runner-up finish at The Open Championship. Last week at the BMW, he surged with a 66-63 weekend that vaulted him to a top 10 in that tournament as well.

While he’ll have to figure out East Lake, if he can stay in form, he could be the player that surges from back in the pack this season. Every year since starting strokes have been in play, at least one of the golfers that starts at -2 notches a top five.

Kim is my pick to be that riser this week, and he comes at a workable salary under $8K.

Sleeper PGA DFS Pick

Emiliano Grillo $5,700

The ownership percentages are going to be unusual for these ultra-cheap players this week. In fact, Sam Burns has the highest ownership projection in the entire field at 36%, with Sepp Straka just behind him at 31%. Grillo’s 28% is also high, for sure, but of the group starting back at even-par, he’s my favorite GPP play.

Grillo hasn’t made it to the East Lake finale since 2016 when he finished T10 (before starting strokes).

Part of the reason he isn’t getting quite as much attention is that he started last week slowly and only finished T31. Prior to that, though, he was on a nice roll with four top 20s in his previous five events. His SG: Approach is always strong, but his scrambling and putting have been coming around lately as well, and he has been +1 SG: Around the Green and SG: Putting per tournament over his last five events.

Of the six players at $6,500 and under, Grillo matches the most Pro Trends and has the second-highest ceiling, median and floor projections.

In what has already been a great bounceback season for Grillo, including his second career PGA TOUR win, he’ll look to put a bow on top with a strong week in the finale.