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PGA DFS: Top Cash Game Picks and Conviction Plays for the U.S. Open

By Landon Silinsky @landonjake24
Jun 14, 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 Los Angeles, California, for the third major championship of the year. Los Angeles Country Club will host the U.S Open, and it’s going to be quite the test. LACC measures as a 7,421-yard par 70 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

Sahith Theegala ($7,600 DraftKings)

I am probably going to be on an island with Theegala this week, as there are a ton of strong plays between $7,500 and $8,000, but I am very much reading into the home game narrative. Theegala grew up in Orange County and has already come out and said he’s played LACC “30+ times.” This, of course, does not mean he’s a lock to play well this week, as we have seen for years with this narrative, most notably Ryan Palmer at Colonial.

There’s more than just the home game narrative playing into this decision, as I really feel like LACC is a strong course fit for Theegala. From all accounts, this is not going to play like a regular U.S. Open, as the line on the winning score is currently sitting a pretty low 8.5 under par. Multiple golfers have already come out and said that there are going to be quite a few birdie holes.

From everything I have absorbed about LACC, I believe this course will play like Augusta National. The fairways are wide, and you’re going to have to hit pretty creative iron shots, as well as being strong around and on the greens. Theegala’s biggest weakness is his propensity to spray it off the tee, which will likely not be an issue here.

We know he can score like crazy and that he already finished T9 at the Masters while posting a T4 at Genesis and T6 at Riviera, two difficult California tracks. He’s already posted seven top-10 finishes on the season, which is tied for fifth in this field.

At the very least, we can expect a made cut from Theegala, who’s failed to make the weekend just one time in 16 standard PGA stroke play events.

Mito Pereira ($7,200 DraftKings)

The first thing that stuck out to me when opening pricing this week was this $7,200 tag on Pereira. The Chilean is truly one of the best ball-strikers on the planet, and very few people are privy to this due to his defection to LIV. He gained 9.7 strokes ball-striking at the PGA Championship last month and 7.5 at Augusta in April. His poor putting prevented him from contending in both events, but he did post a T18 at Oak Hill.

In addition to the high PGA Championship finish, Pereira has posted a pair of top-five finishes across his past three LIV starts. His game is in a good place right now, and we know he should already be a major champion if not for a historic meltdown at Southern Hills in 2022, where he legit gifted the Wannamaker Trophy to Justin Thomas.

Either way, Pereira is simply too talented to be $7,200 and is an elite option in all formats.

Additional PGA DFS Cash/GPP Thoughts

The big decision point on the week will be whether or not to play Scottie Scheffler. It’s not hard at all to fit the No. 1 player in the world with all the strong options in the $7k range, and there’s no one on planet Earth playing better golf right now from tee to green. Scheffler hasn’t finished worse than T12 since the CJ CUP back in October, which was 16 starts ago. He’s an absolute machine and is so insanely likely to top five this week, if not win. It’s been regurgitated by everyone, but if he just doesn’t lose eight strokes putting, he could run away with this.

I don’t see a need to play anyone else above $10k this week outside of Scheffler, but if you showed up to a h2h against me with Brooks Koepka, I wouldn’t call you a fish.

Below $10k is where the money will be made this week, as all four of Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth, and Cam Smith are elite options.

I’m sorry, but under no circumstances should Rory be priced under $10,000 in any field, at any event. He’s been “bad” lately, according to most people, and has finished T9, T7, and T7 across his past three starts. That’s just how good Rory is that he’s held to this ridiculous standard.

People view DFS and sports betting way too similar when it comes to the Northern Irishman. You don’t have to win a golf tournament to pay off a DFS salary, so if Rory is T2 heading into Sunday and “chokes” and finishes T7, that’s still more than enough to warrant rostering him at $9,900. Oh, by the way, he’s finished T5, T7, T8, and T9 across his past four U.S. Open starts.

Schauffele is a California native who boasts arguably the best U.S Open history in this field. Dating back to 2017, he’s played in seven of these things, with his finishes reading: T5, T6, T3, solo fifth, T7, T14.

Yea, that’ll play.

Few golfers since Schauffele has joined the PGA TOUR have played better in majors than the X-Man has. At his best, he has zero weaknesses in his game, which is why he’s always had success in the game’s biggest events. Schauffele has a pair of top-four finishes across his past four starts and ranks second in this field in SG: Total behind only Scottie Scheffler in that time frame. He’s eventually going to win a major, and a U.S Open in his home state would be a pretty good way to get that monkey off his back.

Being that I am treating Augusta as pretty big course comp to LACC, it’s only fitting that Jordan Spieth gets mentioned, no? As mentioned above, the fairways will be wide this week, and a premium will be placed on creative iron shots and short game. Who on earth is better at that than Spieth?

Spieth is also a former U.S Open champ, taking home the title in 2015 at Chamber’s Bay, another course with wide open fairways. He’s always been a suspect driver of the golf ball, but when you boast the approach play and around-the-green game that Spieth does, you’re going to find yourself in contention on plenty of tracks like LACC. It appears that the wrist injury that was holding Spieth back is in the rearview, as he’s coming off a T5 at Memorial two weeks ago, where he gained 7.3 strokes ball-striking and 10.3 strokes from tee-to-green. At $9,200, I really like everything about Spieth this week.

Last but not least, we have Cam Smith, who is way too cheap at just $9,000. You can see the theme here, as guys who have trouble off the tee are shooting up my proverbial model. Smith is coming off a T9 at the PGA Championship, where he lost 2.4 strokes OTT. The fact he was still able to lock down a top-10 finish at a major despite his wayward driving speaks volumes about how elite the rest of his game is.

He’s another guy who’s been out of sight, out of mind on the LIV Tour, but it’s gotten a bit out of control. This man is the reigning (British) Open champion — which, by the way, he won at St. Andrews, a course with extremely wide fairways — who’s done his best work at courses like Augusta, Sawgrass, Liberty National, etc.

Smith is the No. 9 player in the world right now, and if you put him on a track where driving the golf ball is less important, he’s right up there with the Schefflers/Rahms of the world in terms of pure talent. When you combine just approach play and putting, I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who can hang with Smith. You get the point here.

I don’t like anyone in the $8k range outside of Hideki Matsuyama, who also boasts an elite U.S. Open track record. I just don’t trust his balky neck right now, and for that reason, I’m going to pass.

For the sake of brevity, I will try and keep the $7k range analysis short and sweet.

There are a million plays in this range, but the pool I will be fishing from (in addition to Theegala and Pereira) reads:

Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott, Patrick Reed, Russell Henley and Denny McCarthy.

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Fleetwood is coming off that gutless loss to Nick Taylor in Canada last week but feels like the type of player to shrug something like that off pretty quickly. He’s having his best season in some time and ranks third in this field in SG: Total across his past 24 rounds.

Rose is also having a renaissance season. He won at Pebble Beach earlier this year and has four additional top 10s. He played great at both the Masters and PGA Championship and is in a great spot heading to LACC this week.

Rickie has been a stalwart all year, playing his best golf at the toughest courses on the PGA TOUR circuit, including top 10s at Colonial and Muirfield, a T11 at Torrey Pines, and T13 at Sawgrass. His irons are back to their peak form, and outside of the PGA Championship, has been putting well. He’s a bargain at $7,500 here.

Adam Scott and Patrick Reed are just two veteran in-the-mud grinders who know how to attack U.S Open setups. Combined, the two have missed just three cuts in 19 starts at this event since 2013. Both are also former Masters champions, which, as you know, is important to me this week.

Russell Henley also has good Augusta history, having just finished T4 there this season. He’s also posted three top-27 U.S. Open finishes across his past four starts at this event. Henley is in the midst of a great stretch of golf as well, having finished inside the top 20 in five of his past six starts. His only weakness right now is his off-the-tee play, which should be mitigated this week. Henley sits fifth in this field in SG: Approach over his past 16 rounds.

Finally, we have Denny McCarthy, who should have posted his first career PGA TOUR victory at the Memorial two weeks ago. He got caught by Viktor Hovland, so there’s no shame in that. The runner-up marked McCarthy’s fourth top 10 finish of the season. He’s played quite well on difficult tracks this season, finishing T8 at Quail Hollow, T19 at Copperhead, T13 at Sawgrass, T4 at Pebble Beach, and T29 at the PGA Championship.

McCarthy is arguably the best putter on the planet, and what he lacks with his irons, he more than makes up for on the greens. He’s been good at making cuts in majors throughout his career as well and even finished T7 at last year’s U.S. Open. This was longer than I intended.

That’s all I got this week. 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!