After a fun week at Quail Hollow for this year’s Presidents Cup, the PGA TOUR returns to a more typical format for the next few weeks. The Fall Series, which includes a wide variety of events and locations this year, resumes with the Sanderson Farms Championship, teeing off on Thursday.
This tournament will be played at The Country Club of Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi, as it has every year since 2014. Over the years, The course has typically surrendered plenty of low scores with each of the past seven winners going at least 18-under to claim the title.
Targeting players who have the ability to go extremely low in favorable scoring conditions will be key. While driving accuracy at the course is slightly below the PGA TOUR average, the rough is usually not especially penalizing, as shown by a slightly above-average GIR%. Length off the tee and accuracy on approach will be key to winning this week, and it always helps to catch fire on the green as well.
Last year, Sam Burns ($10,700) picked up the first of his three season titles on the PGA TOUR at the Sanderson Farms, beating out Cameron Young (not in the field) and Nick Watney ($6,200) by one stroke. Burns is the highest ranked player in the OWGR in the field this week, but there are some other previous PGA TOUR winners like Sepp Straka ($8,900), Seamus Power ($8,400), Harris English ($8,600), Keegan Bradley ($9,400), and J.T. Poston ($10,200) along with rising stars like Sahith Theegala ($10,400), local favorite Davis Riley ($9,000) and Taylor Montgomery ($9,600), who are all in search of their first PGA TOUR victory.
In this post, we’ll be focused on players who make strong plays for GPP contests, like DraftKings $300 K Pitch + Putt which pays out $100K to the winner. In larger contests like this one, it is critical to try and target players who will outperform their salary expectations and try to get leverage wherever possible by playing options with lower ownership and high ceilings. These players will be good options if they deliver in all formats, but they typically aren’t the safest plays, which should be the focus of lineups in cash and double-up contests.
To help pinpoint the top options, be sure to use the FantasyLabs PGA Models, which use stats and simulations to highlight different players’ strengths and weaknesses. A couple of key new stats to specifically use for GPP play are Perfect% and SimLeverage, which are further explained here.
For the most part, I prefer the Stroked Gained Model, which is very predictive of results. I also tend to lean into players that gain shots on approach since week-to-week putting performance is volatile.
As you dig into the numbers, you can enjoy the many tools that FantasyLabs offers, including the Lineup Optimizer which effortlessly create up to 150 lineups. Alternatively, you can use the Lineup Builder if you prefer a more hands-on approach.
There are still a lot of new names to get to know in just the second event of the season, and the models still have a lot of variety depending on how other tour results are weighted. There are some strong plays, though, and places where excellent leverage is available.
Check out my top picks in each price range listed below.
High-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Russell Henley $10,100
Of the top group of golfers, Henley is projected to offer the highest leverage based on his projected ownership and his ceiling. He has the most SG: Tee-To-Green and the most SG: Approach of any golfer in the field over his past 50 rounds. The weakness in his game has been SG: Off-the-Tee, but the course setup should minimize that issue. As a result of his strong recent play, he matches five of the Pro Trends for this week.
Henley did miss the cut at the FedEx St. Jude in last season’s playoffs but posted back-to-back top-10 finishes at the Rocket Mortgage and the Wyndham just prior to the playoffs.
The 33-year-old hasn’t won on the PGA TOUR since 2017, but he did get into a playoff within the past year. He has played this event twice in his career and made the cut both times, so he also comes with a decent floor in addition to his high ceiling.
Taylor Montgomery $9,600
Two weeks ago at the Fortinet Championship, Montgomery began his rookie season with a strong third-place finish, highlighted by an eight-under, bogey-free final round. He looks poised to make an early-season splash, and according to our projections, only Burns has a better ceiling in the field this week.
He finished last season with four straight top-10 finishes on the Korn Ferry Tour, and after several near misses, he appears ready to make the most of his first full season on the PGA TOUR.
Montgomery has a moderate ownership projection, but he still has the second-best SimLeverage Score in our models given how frequently he’s showing up in our perfect lineups when we run our simulations.
Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Thomas Detry, $8,800
The big-hitting Belgian made his way to fully exempt status on the PGA TOUR through the Korn Ferry Tour. He finished T12 with four steady rounds at the Fortinet Championship just a week after posting a strong T5 at the BMW PGA Championship on the World Tour.
Those two results continue a positive trend for Detry, who has been posting good results on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean throughout the summer. Detry and Montgomery are the only two players in the field that pop in six of our Pro Trends, so there is definitely a high ceiling to consider at his mid-tier price point for this global option.
Seamus Power, $8,400
The projections are also playing out in favor of Power, who has a ceiling projection in the top five despite his salary being the 17th-highest in the field. Power hasn’t played much lately, which helps him enter this event a bit under the radar. He does have a game that fits the course, though, as shown by his two career top 20s in Jackson.
According to our simulations, only five golfers have over a 19% chance of being in the perfect lineup this week, and Power is the only player under $9,500 in that elite group.
The Irishman can be a little boom-or-bust, but especially for GPP play, he’s worth a look due to his upside when on his game.
Value PGA DFS Picks
Adam Svensson $7,400
Svensson’s strong tee-to-green game makes him a regular favorite of the Strokes Gained Model. He has made the cut in 11 of his 12 most recent PGA TOUR events and started the season with a T12 in Napa. Svensson ranks in the top 25 of SG: Total over his past 50 rounds and has shown he can thrive on courses that are playing well below par.
Two of his three top 10s last season came at the Barbasol and the Sony Open on courses that have many similarities to the track this week.
He missed the cut last year at this event but did show a five-shot improvement from Round 1 to Round 2, missing the cut on the number.
Davis Thompson $7,200
Thompson was the youngest of the 25 regular season graduates from the Korn Ferry Tour, and the 23-year-old rookie has shown a strong game throughout his bag. He gained strokes in every category at the Fortinet Championship, where he logged a top-10 finish while tying for the highest GIR%.
Last season on the Korn Ferry Tour, he posted four top 10s, including a win at the REX Hospital Open where he finished 17-under. Thompson made the cut with a T35 at this track last season and has posted a top-10 finish in five of his past 11 tournaments across the PGA TOUR and the Korn Ferry Tour.
Sleeper PGA DFS Picks
Austin Smotherman $6,900
Smotherman has outperformed his salary expectations in five of his past six tournaments, including at the Fortinet Championship, where he finished T25. Smotherman ranks in the top 10 in the field in SG: Off-the-Tee and SG: Ball-Striking over his past 50 rounds, and he has the second-highest ceiling of all the players $7K and under, according to the projections.
He flipped his SG: Putting from -4.5 at the Wyndham to +3.5 at the Fortinet and should be in for another strong finish if his flat stick keeps running well.
Harrison Endycott $6,500
Endycott is a flier I like at a very low salary after he gained in each of the four major strokes-gained categories two weeks ago at the Fortinet on his way to a T12. He gained 1.24 strokes off-the-tee and added 5.24 strokes on approach. Due to that strong showing, Endycott actually has the highest rating in the entire field in the Strokes Gained Model (due to the small sample).
He’s a long shot, to be sure, but his 65 on Saturday in Napa showed that the 26-year-old Australian has a high enough ceiling to be a sleeper worth mixing into your GPP lineups this week.
