GOLF

PGA DFS: Top Cash Game Picks and Conviction Plays for the Memorial Tournament

By Landon Silinsky @landonjake24
May 31, 2023

The PGA DFS Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each week’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable golfers.

The PGA TOUR heads to Dublin, Ohio this week for the Memorial Tournament. The Jack Nicklaus designed Muirfield Village Golf Club, will host and measures as 7,500-yard par 72 with Bentgrass greens.

I’ll be highlighting the best cash game/single-entry plays on the DraftKings main slate, but these players are often great options in any contest.

My analysis will frequently 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.

There are a variety of Strokes Gained-related metrics, but the six main categories you need to know include:

Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (SG: Off-the-Tee)
Strokes Gained: Approach (SG: Approach)
Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green (SG: Around-the-Green)
Strokes Gained: Putting (SG: Putting)
Strokes Gained: Ball-Striking (SG: Ball-Striking), which is SG: Off-the-Tee + SG: Approach
Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green (SG: Tee-to-Green), which is SG: Ball-Striking + SG: Around-the-Green

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 to utilize our various PGA DFS tools like our Lineup Optimizer, Lineup Builder, PGA Correlation Dashboard, and our Trends tool.

The following players listed are based on DraftKings scoring and pricing.

PGA DFS Conviction Plays

Scottie Scheffler ($11,300 DraftKings)

If DraftKings is going to keep making it easy enough to fit in Scheffler, we are going to keep playing him. He was at it again last week at the Charles Schwab, finishing T3, which marked his third consecutive top-five finish. Scheffler gained FIFTEEN strokes from tee-to-green last week but lost a ridiculous 4.6 strokes putting. He finished one shot back from making the playoff with Emiliano Grillo and Adam Schenk.

Just to put this in perspective, Scheffler would have won by four shots last week if he putted to a zero. Just as a fun thought exercise, let’s say he gained seven strokes putting like Grillo did. He would have won by 11 shots (lol). He’s an absolute golf death machine and has shown zero signs of slowing down anytime soon. He’s not going to continue losing four strokes on the greens every week either, so just beware he could absolutely run away with this event this week. So far, in two trips to Muirfield Village, the World No. 1 has finished T22 and solo third.

It’s incredibly rare in DFS golf that you know what you’re paying for, but that’s exactly how it feels with Scheffler right now. He’s going to top five again if he doesn’t putt well and literally win the golf tournament if he does. So, truly fade at your own risk here.

Plenty will flock to Patrick Cantlay this week due to his course history here and just the way he’s playing right now. Just to be clear, I have no problem with that and am even considering it myself, depending on how the rest of my roster looks.

However, there’s only an $800 price gap between him and Scheffler, and it’s really hard not to just find that money with how locked in Scheffler is right now.

Cantlay is still an elite, elite play in all formats, however.

Aaron Rai ($6,500 DraftKings)

No, you do not need to adjust your televisions. Yes, Aaron Rai is my second conviction play.

Taylor Moore withdrew from the Memorial after pricing had already come out, so when Rai replaced him in the field on Monday, DraftKings egregiously priced him at $6,500. This is by far the biggest pricing error of any golfer on the slate.

Pinnacle — who I consider to be the gold standard in the sports betting world — has Rai at 150/1 to win this week. That’s shorter than guys like Harris English, Benny An, Tom Hoge, etc., All of whom cost $1,000 more than Rai this week on DraftKings. Matthew Nesmith, who is also $6,500 like Rai, is priced at 220/1. As you can see, there is massive value here.

Now, while using Vegas lines is part of my weekly process, it’s not simply the end all. Rai is not just a good play because of his price. He’s coming off a T12 performance at the Charles Schwab last week, where he gained 8.95 strokes ball-striking. He also has some experience at Muirfield, having made his debut here last year and finishing T26. I like targeting Rai on courses where scoring will be at a premium because he’s not one to go shoot 59. However, he’s a grinder with a strong short game who hits a ton of both fairways and greens.

I have been burned by this two-glove-wearing joker on multiple occasions in the past, so I understand if you have trepidations about playing him. I just want to be as transparent as possible because Rai will almost assuredly be on my single entry roster.

He allows you to get to Scottie without sacrificing elsewhere, and all the contextual factors are in place for him to make the cut this week.

Additional PGA DFS Cash/GPP Thoughts

Being that I am likely paying all the way up for the World No. 1, it takes pretty much everyone else above $9,000 out of play. However, if all of Scottie Rahm and Cantlay — who I touched on above — were not in the field this week, my favorite play would be Viktor Hovland. He was lighting it up last week at Colonial until he hit the water late in his round and spiraled into the abyss. This is part of the reason why I normally hate rostering Hovland because it doesn’t take much for him to unravel at any moment. Having said that, his ball-striking has been elite, ranking third in that department over his past 24 rounds, trailing only Scheffler and Cantlay. He’s 3-for-3 in made cuts at Muirfield and really should win a big boy event soon.

I do not trust anyone else above $9,000 this week. You could maybe talk me into Tyrrell Hatton, but being that he’s $9,300, there’s no longer value in playing him because he’s priced appropriately. JT would normally stand out at $9,200, but we already know the drill here. He’s a gutless loser that cannot make a putt. Let others deal with that headache. I promise it’s not worth it.

Moving on to the $8,000 range, this is where we will make our money this week. Some other considerations I had in mind for conviction plays were Shane Lowry and Adam Scott, both of whom very well might end up on my final roster. Lowry is priced at $8,100, which is $200 less than he was at the PGA Championship. That’s egregious. He struck it beautifully at Oak Hill, gaining 9.2 strokes ball-striking en route to his T12 finish. Lest we forget, Lowry also finished T16 at the Masters just seven weeks ago. The man simply gets up for big time events, and Memorial is one of those. The Irishman has a strong record at Jacks’s Place, having made four of his past five cuts with a T15 and T6 in that stretch.

We’re also going right back to our Aussie friend Mr. Scott. Hopefully, the psychology of him being $8,000 and not $7,800 will throw some people off. He’s coming off a T29 at the PGA Championship, which was on the heels of back-to-back top-eight finishes at the Wells Fargo and Byron Nelson. Scott has failed to miss a cut in nine PGA TOUR starts this season and ranks 19th in SG: Ball-Striking, third in SG: Putting, and seventh in SG: Total across his past 12 rounds in this field. His Muirfield Village record is also sterling, having made the cut in all seven appearances since 2013, with a T4, T2, and two additional top 16s.

I’m really considering Si Woo Kim as well at $8,000, which is pretty surprising for me. Very quietly, he’s made the cut in 13-of-16 starts this season with three top 10s and three top 25s. Kim ranks 11th in this field in SG: Ball-Striking over his past 24 rounds as well and has an elite track record at MVGC. In seven career starts at this event, he’s made the cut six times and withdrew once. His past three starts at Jack’s Place have resulted in finishes of T18, T9, and T13, respectively. He’s still a bit scary because, in the back of my head, I know he’s one shot away from melting down, but both his results and rolling stats speak for themselves.

Both Sahith Theegala and Corey Conners are on my radar also at $8,400 and $8,300. Theegala has seven top-10 finishes on the season, which rank him among the game’s elite, but he’s not been great of late. The dilemma arises when you see he finished T5 at Muirfield last year. He also finished T32 here in 2021, so this course obviously suits him. I am not surprised by this because the weakest part of Theegala’s game is his off-the-tee play, which is mitigated a bit due to the wide fairways at Muirfield.

Conners gives me a bit of sticker shock at $8,300. We are so used to rostering him in these fields in the mid-to-upper $7K range, so this might take some getting used to. He’s earned this tag, however, and is coming off a T12 at Oak Hill and T8 at Wells Fargo. He’s a tee-to-green machine and has been putting well lately. He’s also 4-for-4 in made cuts at Muirfield, with a pair of top-22 finishes. I am not sure I’ll end up here, but you can never go wrong by playing Conners.

I do like Rickie Fowler a bit as well. He’s having an amazing season and has a really strong record at Memorial. Of course, the one time I played him this season was at Oak Hill, where he missed the cut, but we must have a short memory in this game we play. He finished T6 last week at Colonial and is rolling right along.

Russell Henley stands out as another misprice in this field. He’s 50/1 on Pinnacle, which is by far the shortest of anyone in his price range on DraftKings. His history at Muirfield is a bit of a mixed bag, with three missed cuts in six starts since 2013. However, he’s only played here twice since 2018. Outside of a missed cut at the PGA Championship, he’s posted four top-19 finishes over his past five starts. Henley’s approach play has been rock solid lately, ranking 10th in the field in that department over his past 12 rounds. He’s very much in the mix for me.

Outside of a few guys, the $7K range is pretty barren this week. If you have the stomach, I don’t mind going back to Billy Horschel in this spot. He’s been lost all season but might be coming around after a made cut at the PGA and then a T40 last week at Colonial. He’s the defending champion at Muirfield and costs just $7,500. You can certainly do worse.

I also feel similarly about Matt Kuchar and Harris English. Kuch was playing great before missing the cut at Oak Hill, while English could have won at Colonial last week but imploded on Sunday. Both guys have good course history and are fine plays.

Keith Mitchell could possibly end up being chalky due to his price and course history, but his iron play has been legit ABHORRENT with a capital A, lately. I cannot in good conscience go there. Benny An is also going to be chalky, and while you cannot deny how good his ball-striking has been, I simply refuse to play a chalky Benny An.

A really cheap option I like quite a bit is Ryan Fox at $7,100. He’s a bomber from the DP World Tour who has played well on multiple Nicklaus designs in Europe before. Fox played well enough on the PGA TOUR this season to earn an exemption for the rest of 2023, which is honestly quite impressive.

So far this year, he has finishes of T26 at the Masters, T23 at the PGA Championship, T27 at THE PLAYERS, T14 at Arnold Palmer, and then T21 at Colonial last week. Fox is clearly uber-talented, and this $7,100 price tag is way too cheap.

If you like this content, please follow me on Twitter, as I usually post late-week thoughts on the slate.

Best of luck this week!

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