The PGA Weekend Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for DraftKings weekend’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable players.
Birds Of Prey
Birdies are essential to success in DraftKings weekend golf games. If some dude goes six- or seven-under par in one of the weekend rounds and is not on your roster, you’ll have a difficult time taking down a large-field guaranteed prize pool. Using our Birdie Differential metric is a great way to target players who have made more birdies recently.
Son Of Bob
The son of eight-time PGA Tour winner Bob Tway, Kevin Tway ($8,200) has one of the two highest birdie differential ranks in the field, and his 17.5 Recent Adjusted Birdie Avg (Adj Bird Avg) ranks fourth overall. Tway managed just two birdies against three bogeys in the first round but he rebounded in the second and was able to set himself up for a weekend run.
Don’t Call Him William
A top-10 golfer in both the Bales and CSURAM88 Player Models, Bud Cauley ($8,400) has one of the top birdie differential ranks in the field. Moreover, his 18.5 Recent Adj Bird Avg is the second-best total in the tournament. Cauley continued his recent birdie barrage with five in the first round and is poised to make a run in the final two rounds.
Slanging Kang
Per our DFS Ownership Dashboard, Sung Kang ($8,000) had the second-highest ownership behind only Dustin Johnson in both the $1,500 Country Club and $333 Club Pro tournaments, so the sharps like him. Kang also has one of the highest birdie differentials in the field, and his 14.7 Recent Adj Bird Avg ranks 15th overall this week.
The Finely Coiffed One
Another recent birdie differential beast, Ollie Schniederjans ($7,700) has the field’s fifth-highest Recent Adj Bird Avg with 17.0. Additionally, Ollie’s overall game has been sharp: His 68.0 Recent Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score) is the eighth-best mark overall.
Make The World Go ‘Round
Smylie Kaufman ($7,700) is in excellent recent form: He has finished fifth and 12th in his most recent tournaments, and he is tied for 12th in the field with his 15.0 Recent Adj Bird Avg.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Jason Day ($9,500): A former winner of this event, Day has a top-10 score in both Long-term (LT) Adj Bird Avg (15.0) and Recent Adj Bird Avg (15.5). Day has somewhat quietly hung around in this one with an excellent seven birdies and an eagle in the first two rounds. Because of four bogeys on Thursday and a double-bogey on Friday, Day is off the lead and in excellent stalking position.
Tony Finau ($8,700): Finau struggled mightily on Thursday with a five-over par 75 round but he rebounded nicely on Friday with six birdies and will enter the weekend in prime position to go low. In his only four weekend rounds here at TPC Las Colinas, Finau has never shot worse than a two-under par 68.
Zac Blair ($7,200): Blair is not typically a birdie-making machine — his 10.7 LT Adj Bird Avg is one of the worst in the field — but he has played this course very well through the first two rounds. Blair kept his score under 70 in each of the first two rounds and enters the weekend in good striking distance at three-under par. In 2015, Blair shot under 70 in all four rounds of this event and finished the tournament T16 at 12-under par.
Grayson Murray ($7,200): While he may be hideous at playing Twitter, Murray has played golf reasonably well of late, making the cut in five straight weeks. While his weekend rounds have been uninspiring at best he did shoot a seven-under par 63 today with seven birdies and no bogeys. If he can come close to duplicating that type of production in just one round this weekend he will be well worth his salary, especially with his likely low ownership.
Scott Piercy ($7,200): Piercy has been playing terrible golf recently: He had missed four straight cuts coming into this event and shot two rounds of 80 or worse at THE PLAYERS Championship last week. That said, Piercy must’ve figured something out on his way to Texas because he’s tallied seven birdies and an eagle in the first two rounds. Per pgatour.com, Piercy’s 24.11 Birdie or Better percentage currently ranks 12th on tour.
Good luck this weekend!
