We are heading into the home stretch of the season as the BMW Championship will now feature just sixty-eight (Cam Smith and Tommy Fleetwood withdrew) of the top players left this week. It will be a no-cut event from Wilmington Country Club in Wilmington, DE. This will be the first PGA event hosted by this course and leave us with a little bit of uncertainty heading into the week.
My initial read in the analysis of this course was that it could set up to favor bombers as a long par 71 track of nearly 7,600 yards. The only other course of such length played on TOUR as a par 71 is Quail Hollow, which generally hosts the Wells Fargo Championship, though this year it is the site of the Presidents Cup.
Some players, including Patrick Cantlay, are quoted as saying that they agree that the combination of distance and accuracy off the tee will be a key factor in getting into position to score on this course. I’ll take that as a primary stat path for my DFS picks this week as we look to take down the big $20 Pitch + Putt with $300,000 going to first place.
As always, you can find the cash game plays, and GPP course fits right here at FantasyLabs to help you start your lineup builds.
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 great for finding the best price-considered plays for cash games.
And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 150 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.
High-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Jon Rahm $10,300
My favorite play at the top of the board this week is with Jon Rahm. He seems to be coming back into form after gaining 7.1 shots with his ball-striking last week at the FedEx St Jude. His T5 finish was a great sign for a player that has really lacked in top results over the past few months.
This week, he comes into a course that I think will be tailor-made for his game as for the second consecutive season, he ranks first on TOUR in Total Driving (Driving Distance + Driving Accuracy) and is really far and away the best in that metric.
It’s an area I really like to look to this week and even with him trending to be fairly popular with low twenties ownership, I’ll be looking to get to the Spaniard to start my lineups for the BMW Championship.
Tony Finau $9,700
The player that rates out the best in the entire field in the Bailey Model this week is Tony Finau and it isn’t particularly close. Finau has a three-point edge in that model over the rest of the field as he comes into the week on fire with his game after following his consecutive victories with a T5 finish in Memphis.
We know Finau has the distance to take on any course and with him around mid-teens in ownership, he will be a favorite piece for my large-field GPP lineups this week.
Editor’s note: Finau has moved down the ratings in the Bailey Model.
Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Cameron Young $8,900
This is a week where we should expect our lineups to be a little more chalky than a standard week due to the small field. Ownership will be condensed around some key plays, but with nearly all of the elites teeing it up, there should be some ownership spread too.
Cameron Young is one of the more popular players that I will be going to due to what I see as an excellent course fit, great form, and an affordable price. Young is one of the longer hitters on TOUR, and he comes in after gaining nine shots on the field at the St. Jude with his ball-striking.
When I saw that he was in the second tier from a price standpoint, he was an immediate core play for me in Wilmington.
Max Homa $8.500
The pivot in this range seems to be setting up to be with Max Homa, and he is the type of player I will buy in on when others are out and fade when he’s popular. Homa has immense upside and the talent to win in any field, but he doesn’t have the consistency that we see from many of the top players who will run off stretches of top 10s.
It seems that Homa is either at the very top of the field or the very bottom with little in between. That sets up for a great GPP play in my eyes, as with him projected currently for single-digit ownership, I’ll hope his iron play turns around, and we get the long-hitting ball-striker that can contend to win this event.
Value PGA DFS Picks
Cameron Davis $7,600
Any time I can get a guaranteed four rounds from Cameron Davis in DFS, I am interested. His biggest strength has always been his scoring ability as he tends to reel off birdies in bunches, even if they are often surrounded by bogeys or worse. Recently, the bogeys have been less frequent, which has put him in the top 15 in each of his past four tournaments.
Add in the fact that he’s a long hitter off the tee and everything sets up for the Australian to at the very least score well for us this week and now with a bit more of a ceiling to get us a nice finishing position too.
Keegan Bradley $7,200
The results lately haven’t been good for Keegan Bradley as he has missed three of the past four cuts, with a T44 finish sandwiched between. The good news is that he can’t miss the cut this week and with him, we know what his game is week in and week out. His big issue of late has been around some struggles on approach, but I don’t expect that to stay down long as you have to go back to 2019 to find another time where he lost strokes with his irons in three straight events.
He has the ability to find it again quickly, and if he does, this is a week that sets up well for his game tee to green, and we can get back to the usual need with his putter.
I’m willing to take more of a chance on someone like him this week; given the lack of a cut and at low ownership, he looks like a good, large-field play for the BMW.
Sleeper PGA DFS Picks
Emiliano Grillo $6,600
I can essentially just copy and paste the Keegan comments from above right here for Emiliano Grillo. The big difference is that Grillo is playing pretty well with runner-up finishes in two of his last four tournaments.
He’s also $600 cheaper, and again with four rounds guaranteed, I can be less worried about his putting as I know he is someone that will put himself in position for a bunch of birdies across four days.
Trey Mullinax $6,200
The prices on some players near the bottom of this tier make it pretty easy to go to them and add another top name in your lineup. Trey Mullinax and Brendan Steele are two of those, and I’ll comfortably use each this week in this no-cut event.
Mullinax gets the nod here due to his birdie-making ability that ranks him 11th in this field over the past 24 rounds. He is getting some traction in ownership, so I’ll monitor that closer to lock and pivot as needed to Steele.
