It’s a new year and the start of a new PGA TOUR season, so it makes sense that we have a new kind of tournament to tee off the season. This week’s tournament, called The Sentry, will be the first of this year’s eight Signature Events, a new PGA TOUR designation for their biggest events. The Signature Events are designed to bring together the top players on historic courses for boosted purses along with extra FedExCup points.
The tournament takes place Jan. 4-7 at the beautiful Kapalua Resort in Maui, which has hosted the Sentry Tournament of Champions for the past few seasons. This year, the format has been modified and will include all tournament winners from 2023, along with the top 50 in last season’s FedExCup standings. The field will feature 59 players in a no-cut event. For DFS purposes, all players have a higher floor than in typical formats since they will all play four rounds, barring injury, withdrawal, or DQ.
All four rounds will be played at the Plantation Course at Kapalua, which is unique as the only course in the regular rotation that plays as a par 73. The course features four par 5s and just three par 3s. The course is known for wide fairways, larger-than-average greens, and typically low scores.
The field this year is stacked and includes almost all the big names on the PGA TOUR, with the main exception being Rory McIlroy. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, FedExCup Champion Vik Hovland, and rising star Ludvig Aberg are some of the biggest names in the field. Defending champion Jon Rahm has left for the LIV Tour, but runner-up Collin Morikawa is back and coming off a win in the Fall at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in Japan.
In this post each week, we’ll focus on players who are strong GPP options. That means they have lower ownership projections than their potential performance. Finding this kind of high-leverage play is critical for GPP success. The picks here go against the grain to take advantage of players who may be overlooked and under-owned.
Since these are GPP picks, we can accept more risk if it raises the lineup’s ceiling. High-risk, high-reward options with low ownership create the “boom-or-bust” style lineups that usually lead to large-field success.
GPP contests are contests that have large numbers of entries and pay out huge prizes to the top few percent. This week, the largest GPP on DraftKings is the $600K Season Tee Off, which awards $200K to first place and is $20 per entry.
The players highlighted will be good options if they deliver in all formats, but they come with risk factors that usually keep them from being the safest plays. Safety and reliability should be the focus of lineups in cash and double-up contests, where finishing in the top spot isn’t quite as important. To find specific guidance for all contest types, check out our full Daily Fantasy Golf coverage each week.
No matter what type of format you prefer, be sure to use the FantasyLabs PGA Models to help you make the best choices. These models use stats and simulations to highlight different players’ strengths and weaknesses. A few critical new stats for GPP play are Perfect% and SimLeverage, which are further explained here.
Usually, I rely on 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 can be highly volatile, even for the best players on the PGA TOUR.
As you dig into the numbers, you can enjoy the many tools that FantasyLabs offers, including the Lineup Optimizer, which effortlessly creates up to 300 lineups. Alternatively, you can use the Lineup Builder if you prefer a more hands-on approach.
Check out my top picks in each price range listed below.
Editors note: SimLeverage and Perfect% numbers may change after this piece is published. Be sure to check the PGA Models for any updates to the sims.
High-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Patrick Cantlay $9,900
The very top of the salary structure features three players with five-figure salaries, but all three of those players have extremely high ownership projections. While there are strong cases for Scheffler and Hovland, Cantlay is a great pivot play at just under $10,000.
Cantlay matches the most Pro Trends of any player in the field and is tied with Xander Schauffele for the highest Perfect% score. He is also in the most optimal lineups in our sims with a 25.4% Perfect%. As a result of that and his reasonable 19.4% ownership, he has the second-highest SimLeverage in the field.
While he didn’t pick up any wins in 2023, Cantlay had two runner-up finishes and posted 10 top-10 finishes, including a fifth-place finish at the TOUR Championship at the end of last season and top-20 finishes in each of his last three starts.
Cantlay also has a good course history at Kapalua, finishing in the top 15 in each of his five career appearances with two top-five finishes. He has putted very well at this course in the past and is one of the best overall putters in the elite field. He also typically contends at events where scoring is low relative to par.
This seems to set up perfectly for Patty Ice to start 2024 with a strong showing and outperform salary-based expectations.
Collin Morikawa $9,100
Morikawa brings a 97% Bargain Rating on DraftKings, where he seems to be a little underpriced. He is getting plenty of attention due to his affordable salary and has a 28.6% ownership projection, but this is a place I’m willing to eat the chalk to get the upside at this salary.
Last season, Morikawa finished second to Rahm and has finished in the top seven in each of his four career appearances at this event. Morikawa finished in the top five at last fall’s TOUR Championship and then put together a dominant showing at the ZOZO Championship in October in Japan.
He has the fifth-highest Perfect% in the field and a top-six median and ceiling projection in the entire field, making him a good play at the 10th-highest salary.
Zach Thompson breaks down some Hero World Challenge PGA DFS leverage plays for large-field GPPs on DraftKings.
Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Tom Kim $8,900
Kim has exceeded salary-based expectations in eight straight tournaments, with top-20 finishes in five straight worldwide appearances. He won the Shriners Children’s Open in the FedExCup Fall and has shown he can content in elite fields on top courses.
He finished in the top five in his debut at Kapalua last season, and he has a 19.3% Perfect% this week with a 90% Bargain Rating.
Kim has looked to be in top form since returning from his ankle injury at The Open Championship, and he could be on the verge of a breakthrough season. Like Cantlay, he’s one of the better putters on tour, so he should be able to exceed expectations from under $9,000 this week.
Rickie Fowler $8,600
Fowler has just a 10.9% ownership projection, the third-lowest of the players priced between $7,700 and $9,200. He turned his career back around with a strong 2023 and will be able to return to Kapalua for the first time since 2020.
In each of his four previous appearances at this course, Fowler has finished in the top six but hasn’t cracked the top three. His form faded a bit towards the end of 2023, but he has the potential to contend if he’s at his best.
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Value PGA DFS Picks
Lucas Glover $7,500
Glover has the third-highest SimLeverage in the entire field and just a 5.1% ownership projection. He won back-to-back events at the Wyndham Championship and St. Jude Championship at the start of the FedExCup Playoffs last summer and finished 20th at the TOUR Championship.
He played two PGA TOUR events in November and made the cut in each event, but he didn’t finish in the top 40. Glover has played at Kapalua twice in his career and finished in the top 15 in 2010.
With such low ownership but the ability to contend in elite fields when he’s in top form, Glover is a great leverage option under $8,000.
Cameron Davis $7,100
Davis has the second-highest ceiling and median projection of all the golfers priced under $8,000, but his salary is just over $7,000. He has a lot of upside as a value play and shows up in the second-most optimal lineups in our sims in this price range as well.
Davis finished in the top 10 two years ago in his only career appearance on this track, and he comes in with good momentum after exceeding salary-based expectations in seven of his last nine DFS events. He finished last season strong and carried that over into the fall when he finished third at the Fortinet Championship and tied for seventh at the Shriners.
Cam does have negative SimLeverage, so you may need to differentiate elsewhere around him.
Sleeper PGA DFS Picks
Chris Kirk $6,800
Kirk has the second-highest SimLeverage of all the players under $8,000, behind only Glover. Of the 23 players priced under $7,000, Kirk has the best Leverage rating and the highest Perfect%.
This will be his first appearance at Kapalua since 2016, but he did finish in the top 10 back in 2012. He was boom-or-bust as 2023 wound down but is coming off a strong showing at The RSM Classic in his last tournament when he finished T28 after shooting 67-67-66-66 at Sea Island.
Akshay Bhatia $6,200
Bhatia enters the week as a great course fit since his best results have come on easier resort-style layouts like this one. He broke through for a win at the Barracuda Championship and finished runner-up at the Puerto Rico Open while also notching a top-five at the Mexico Open at Vidanta. Islands and warm climates seem to play to his strengths, and he also does well when the wind kicks up a bit.
Right after breaking through for his win, he missed two cuts. However, he turned things back around in the fall with six straight made cuts, including a top-10 at the World Wide Technology Championship and a top-20 in Bermuda.
His putter has held him back on tougher greens, but if he can get things rolling this week, he has a very high ceiling.
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