BMW Championship PGA DFS Stats Preview: Course Fits, GPP Picks, and Values

The PGA TOUR has reached the penultimate event of the 2023 season as we head to Olympia Fields Country Club in Olympia Fields, Illinois to play the BMW Championship.

The top 50 players left standing in the race for the FedExCup will tee it up this week looking to punch their ticket to East Lake.

This is the second time the BMW Championship will be played at Wilmington Country Club, with the first being in 2020 when Jon Rahm outdueled Dustin Johnson in an epic playoff.

The tournament will be held on Olympia Fields’ North Course, which is a par 70 measuring 7,366 yards and featuring Bluegrass greens similar to Poa annua.

The BMW Championship will be a no-cut event, with the top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings moving onto the Tour Championship next week.

For contests on DraftKings, I will be breaking down the key stats (past 24 rounds) and selecting golfers from different price tiers to provide flexibility for a DFS lineup.

And if you missed it, we added two new metrics in our models — Perfect% and SimLeverage. You can find an explainer on those metrics here.

The cliff notes version is that you can use SimLeverage to quickly find leverage plays in tournaments, while Perfect% is excellent for finding the best price-considered plays for cash games.

For large-field tournaments, you can utilize our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 150 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.

This analysis may reference Strokes Gained, a set of proprietary metrics generated by the PGA TOUR using millions of data points to calculate how many shots, on average, it takes a player to get the ball in the hole from every distance and situation.

Strokes Gained is now available in the FantasyLabs PGA Models.

Strokes Gained: Approach

SG: Approach tells us how close a golfer is getting to the hole on his approach to the green. When players are locked in on their approach game, they often have far more opportunities to putt for birdie. This should serve as a particularly strong indicator of success at the BMW Championship.

High-end target: Rory McIlroy — $12,100 (4th Strokes Gained: Approach)
Mid-range target: Hideki Matsuyama — $9,400 (5th Strokes Gained: Approach)
Value target: Adam Schenk — $6,500 (7th Strokes Gained: Approach)

Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee

Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee is a combination of driving distance and driving accuracy and will be an important factor this week. Olympia Fields’ sizable par 70 includes many long par-4s. Therefore, driving it long and in the fairway will be the best recipe for success.

High-end target: Rory McIlroy — $12,100 (1st Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee)
Mid-range target: Cameron Young — $8,500 (10th Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee)
Value target: Byeong Hun An — $7,500 (5th Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee)

Proximity 175-200

With many of the holes at Olympia Fields being relatively long, most of the approach shots will be coming from the proximity of 175 to 200 yards. It will be important to target good long-iron players.

High-end target: Rory McIlroy — $12,100 (1st in Proximity 175-200)
Mid-range target: Hideki Matsuyama — $9,400 (5th in Proximity 175-200)
Value target: Eric Cole — $6,300 (3rd in Proximity 175-200)

Par 4s 450-500

This course features seven par 4s playing at a difficult distance of 450 to 500 yards. A player’s recent success navigating long par 4s will be one of the most important indicators for success at the BMW Championship.

High-end target: Rory McIlroy — $12,100 (1st Par 4s 450-500)
Mid-range target: Tommy Fleetwood — $9,700 (4th Par 4s 450-500)
Value target: Brian Harman — $8,100 (7th Par 4s 450-500)

Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green

Tee-to-green success reports how efficient a player is at getting his ball to the green. It is a combination of Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green.

This statistic is especially important on long golf courses like Olympia Fields this weekend. Put simply, it indicates which golfer is in the best current form.

High-end target: Rory McIlroy — $12,100 (2nd Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green)
Mid-range target: Justin Rose — $7,900 (14th Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green)
Value target: Si Woo Kim — $7,600— (7th Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green)

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