After winning back-to-back big tournaments the last two weeks and in back-to-back years at THE PLAYERS Championship, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler gives the rest of the golfers on the PGA TOUR a chance to step into the spotlight this week. The PGA TOUR travels from TPC Sawgrass to Innisbrook Resort as the players tangle with The Snake Pit in this week’s Valspar Championship. This year’s Valspar is the last of four consecutive tournaments in Florida before a two-week stop in Texas leads up to The Masters, the first major championship of the year.
The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook is most famous for “The Snake Pit,” which is an extremely difficult three-hole finishing stretch. Overall, the course is very difficult relative to par, with the winning score going lower than -10 just three times in the last 11 years. The layout emphasizes accuracy rather than distance off the tee and forces longer approach shots with tight dog legs. Iron specialists and players who excel putting on Bermuda greens typically do well on this track and course history has typically been repeatable.
The field this week gets a boost from no WGC Match Play next week. Historically, the Match Play event drew plenty of big names to Texas, leaving this field short on big names. This year, 15 of the top 40 in the Official World Golf Rankings are scheduled to tee it up, and several big names will be making their Valspar debut, including Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young, and Daniel Berger.
Xander Schauffele and Brian Harman are near the top of the salary structure as each tries to move on from last week’s narrow loss to Scheffler at TPC Sawgrass. Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Sam Burns, Tony Finau, and defending champion Taylor Moore are some of the other notable names in the field.
This week’s tournament is not only a standard full-field event, but there are even a few extra spots added to accommodate as many PGA TOUR members with fully exempt status as possible. Normally, full fields land around 144 players but this week’s currently has a massive 155 players ready to tee it up in Rounds 1 and 2. After the first two rounds, the typical cut will reduce the field to the top 65 and ties.
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.
In this post, all Strokes Gained metrics referenced are from the Rabbit Hole.
Usually, I rely on the Stroked Gained Model in FantasyLabs, 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.
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 can 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 $750K Pitch + Putt, which awards a $200K top prize to first place.
The players highlighted below will be good options in all formats if they deliver, but they come with risk factors that usually keep them from being safe plays. Consistency 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 as in GPP tournaments. 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.
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
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Jordan Spieth $10,200
There are four players with salaries over $10,000 and six more with salaries of at least $9,000. Of those top 10, four players have projected ownership of over 25%, led by Schauffele, whose ownership is almost 40%. That group includes all the players over $10,000 in salary except for Spieth, whose ownership projection is much lower at closer to 15%.
Of all the players in action this week, Spieth has the second-highest median, ceiling, and floor projections, behind only Xander. Getting him at such a low projected ownership is a great way to get leverage at the top of the salary structure. Spieth is also in the second-most optimal lineups in our sims and brings the fourth-best odds to win the tournament and the fourth-best odds to finish in the top 10, according to Vegas. He also has the highest SimLeverage in the field.
Spieth ranks in the top 10 in the field in Total Strokes Gained and Strokes Gained: Putting over the last 20 rounds. Although his recent results are a little wobbly, he did manage to post a top 10 at the WM Phoenix Open and The Sentry earlier this season, so the upside is still there if he can get his approach game dialed in again.
As he rolls into Copperhead, Spieth brings an excellent course history. He won the Valspar in 2015 and made the cut, finishing in the top 20 in each of his first four career appearances. After missing the cut in 2018, he didn’t return to this event until last season, when he finished T3. Where he has played so well before, Spieth should be in a good spot for a bounce-back week after missing the cut last week.
Sungjae Im $9,400
After a bit of a down stretch, Im seems to be rediscovering his game. He still has one of the lower ownership percentages of the options in the $9,000 range due to his sluggish start to 2024. Of the players with salaries under $10,000, he has the fourth-highest Perfect%.
He usually excels on tight, technical tracks like this one, and he has performed well in his two previous career appearances with a T5 in 2019 and a T29 in 2021.
He has started to find his groove with a T18 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, followed by a T31 finish last week at THE PLAYERS. Over those eight rounds, he ranks in the top 10 in the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, averaging 4.8 Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green in those two starts. He just needs to get his flat stick to cooperate, and he should be right back in the mix at the top of the leaderboard.
Getting him with an ownership projection under 15% won’t last long if he continues to trend in the right direction since his game is so well-rounded, and works in almost any field on any track when he’s at his best.
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Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Keith Mitchell $8,900
Mitchell has the second-highest ceiling projection of all players priced under $10,000, behind only Doug Ghim, who is one of my personal favorites but a little chalky for GPP usage this week. Mitchell brings projections very similar to Ghim’s but at about half the ownership projection.
Part of the reason that the majority of people are passing on Mitchell this week is that he put on quite the power fade over the weekend at TPC Sawgrass with back-to-back 76s to drop to a distant 73rd-place finish. Before those struggles, though, he had excellent form coming off of top 20s in Phoenix, Mexico, and the Cognizant Classic.
On the season, Mitchell ranks 12th on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and he’ll need to rely on his ball striking once again this week. He has performed well at the Valspar in the past, making the cut two years ago and finishing 11th back in 2017.
He always brings a high ceiling and is a nice play under $9,000 if he can turn things back around after last weekend.
Adam Hadwin $8,200
Hadwin is known for being boom-or-bust in DFS production, and that lines up with his track record at this event and his results so far this season. He brings the kind of high upside that is worth the risk in GPP lineups, where swinging for the fences is often the best strategy.
Hadwin won the Valspar in 2017 and has finished in the top 15 in each of the three tournaments in which he made the cut. His most recent strong finish was two years ago when he finished T7. On the other hand, though, he missed the cut in four of his seven career appearances, including last year.
His recent results have also been very volatile. He finished in the top five at The Genesis Invitational and the top 10 at The American Express, but he missed the cut last week at TPC Sawgrass and also at TPC Scottsdale at the WM Phoenix Open. While he’s too inconsistent for cash games, he fits very nicely in GPP lineups since he raises the ceiling. He has the second-highest SimLeverage on the whole slate behind only Spieth, so he’s a solid place to gain some leverage if you think he’ll end up more boom than bust at Copperhead.
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Value PGA DFS Picks
Sepp Straka $7,900
Straka is the kind of ball-striker that makes sense to target on a tough track like this that demands precision on approach. He became the first Austrian-born PGA TOUR winner last year at the Honda Classic but missed the cut in his title defense at PGA National a few weeks ago. He bounced back nicely from that by making the cut at Bay Hill and finding his form last week with a T16 at THE PLAYERS. Specifically, he turned things around in Strokes Gained: Approach, gaining over +2.0 strokes in that metric in two of his last three rounds after losing strongs on approach in six straight previous rounds.
Of the players priced under $8,000, Straka has the second-highest Perfect% and ranks in the top 10 of ceiling, median and floor projections. His ownership projection is a little higher than I’d like at around 10%, but he does have a high enough ceiling to still be a solid GPP option in this price range.
Ryan Fox $7,200
Fox will debut at Innisbrook, but he has shown signs of being on the verge of a breakthrough. He has the third-highest Perfect% of all golfers with salaries under $8,000 and the fourth-highest SimLeverage in that price range. Fox has the sixth-highest ceiling, median, and floor projections of that group but ranks outside the top 20 in projected ownership at well under 5%.
Last week at TPC Sawgrass, Fox opened with a 69 in Round 1, highlighted by a hole-in-one on No. 17. Unfortunately for him, his second round was seven strokes worse, and he missed the cut. In his previous tournament at PGA National, he also had a strong tournament except for one bad round. He finished T35 with three rounds under 70 and a rough 74 in Round 3.
If he can avoid that one ugly score on this week’s card, he could be ready for a breakout. The 37-year-old from New Zealand has more upside than his ownership projection, making him a high-risk but potentially high-reward GPP target.
Sleeper PGA DFS Picks
Andre Novak $6,700
Novak is a little bit of a shocker at this salary. He has the second-highest ceiling projection of all golfers with salaries under $8,000, so getting him for way under $7,000 makes him a great deal. On top of that, he only has an ownership projection under 5%, so he’s a good leverage play as well.
Of the 119 players with salaries under $7,000, Novak not only has the highest ceiling projection, he also has the fifth-highest Perfect% and the second-highest Projected Plus/Minus.
Novak missed the cut last week at THE PLAYERS, but he was red hot before that, posting top 10s at the WM Phoenix Open, the Mexico Open, and the Cognizant Classic. Maybe getting the extra rest will turn out to be a good thing as he returns to Innisbrook, where he posted a T27 last year.
Bronson Burgoon $5,500
With so many players going to miss the cut, going with a cheap flier is a game-theory strategy worth considering if it lets you squeeze in all your favorite top options. There are a lot of cheap options to choose from, but Burgoon pops as a strong play in our projections. He has the second-highest Perfect% of all players under $7,000, behind only Kevin Yu. He also has the third-highest ceiling projection of all golfers under $6,000, behind only Rafael Campos and Parker Coody.
Burgoon has a little bit of history at this venue, finishing T13 in 2021 and a few strong results from early this year with a T14 at The American Express and a T50 at the Farmers Insurance Open. Burgoon is still playing on his Medical exemption, but he brings good upside from among the ultra-cheap punt plays.
He has the potential to go off and make the weekend as a flier, but even if he doesn’t, his low salary will let you stack stars in other spots.
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