After too much wind and rain washed out the final round at Pebble Beach, the PGA TOUR heads to the desert this week for their typical Super Bowl week stop at TPC Scottsdale. The iconic venue has hosted the WM Phoenix Open for the last 37 years. While it isn’t a major or even a Signature Event this season, it’s always an entertaining tournament to watch. It earns its nickname as “The People’s Open” since it typically boasts the biggest crowds of the season, and the raucous crowds pack the thrilling risk/reward closing holes.
Since it isn’t a Signature Event, the field isn’t quite as robust as it was last year, but many of the top golfers in the world plan to be in attendance. Leading the way is betting favorite and two-time defending champion Scottie Scheffler. Other past champions in the field include Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland, and Hideki Matsuyama. Justin Thomas, Max Homa, and last week’s winner, Wyndham Clark, will also tee it up this week.
The format this week is back to normal in many ways. With no course rotation or Pro-Am to worry about, all the golfers in the full-field event will play two rounds on TPC Scottsdale before the cut, and the top 65 (and ties) will tee it up for two more rounds on Saturday and Sunday.
On this track in particular, course history has been very predictive in the past. The course plays as a well-rounded test, demanding players showcase multiple skills throughout their bags. The finishing holes almost always provide a steely test of nerves, with the crowd very loud and very involved in close, exciting finishes.
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 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 $1M People’s Open Special, which awards $1,000,000.00 in total prizes, including $200,000 to first place.
The players highlighted 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, but in GPP tournaments, we can “swing for the fences.” 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
Justin Thomas $10,000
The top of the salary structure thinned out on Monday due to the withdrawals of Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland. Two-time defending champion Scottie Scheffler is drawing plenty of well-deserved attention and has a slate-high 36.8% ownership projection. He also brings an impressive 36% Perfect%, showing that you can build a strong lineup with a high ceiling around Scheffler. However, if you’re looking for a GPP pivot, I like Thomas in this spot a lot.
Thomas’s ownership projection is under 20%, and he has the second-highest Perfect% in the field at 27%. He also brings the second-best odds of winning and of finishing in the top 10 this week, according to Vegas. Thomas also has the third-highest ceiling, median, and floor projections on the slate but only the fourth-highest ownership projection. Due to his lower ownership projection, Thomas has the highest SimLeverage in the field.
While he hasn’t won since the 2022 PGA Championship, he is a proven winner with 15 PGA TOUR career victories. He seems to have re-discovered his form early in 2024 after a disappointing 2023. He notched a fifth place at the Fortinet Championship in the fall and followed that with a fourth place on the DP World Tour in the Nedbank Golf Challenge. In his two tournaments in 2024, he posted a T3 at The American Express and a T6 at the abbreviated Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he shot rounds of 68-67-68 and only made one bogey all week.
Thomas also has a strong history at this event, making the cut and finishing in the top 20 in six straight years.
J.T. Poston $8,900
The withdrawals of Schauffele and Hovland have resulted in the players between $9,000 and $10,000 all getting bit boosts in ownership projections and becoming a little over-saturated. To avoid choking on too much chalk, I prefer a more balanced approach this week, focusing on the next tier down, where there are some strong leverage options.
Poston is at the top of that list with the second-highest SimLeverage in the field, behind only the other JT, Justin Thomas. Poston is outside the top 10 in the field in salary but inside the top five in median, ceiling, and floor projections. He also has the third-highest Perfect% in the field, so he looks to be very under-owned at under 12% projected ownership.
Over the last six months, Poston has been on an impressive roll, exceeding salary-based expectations in 13 straight events dating back to last summer’s John Deere Classic. During that run, he has posted top 10s at the John Deere, the Scottish Open, the 3M Open, the Wyndham Championship, the Shriners Children’s Open, the Sentry, and the Sony Open in Hawaii. While he didn’t finish in the top 10, he was in the top 20 at The American Express and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am the last two weeks.
He has mixed history at this event, with three finishes in the top 26 but a missed cut last year. Given his current form, though, I like his upside at just under $9,000. He also brings added roster flexibility at this salary. Building around cheaper, high-priced options like Poston can be a key to getting your full team through the cut.
Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks
Min Woo Lee $8,700
Lee will be making his course debut at TPC Scottsdale this week, which may be why his ownership is lagging a little behind Byeong Hun An, Tom Kim, and Eric Cole in this price range. It sets the 25-year-old Aussie up as a great source of leverage, though, since he has the kind of game it takes to win at TPC Scottsdale.
Most of the golf course diehards recognize the top correlation for TPC Scottsdale to be TPC Sawgrass, where Lee finished sixth last season in his first big PGA TOUR performance. He built on that with a top 20 finish at the PGA Championship and a top 10 at the U.S. Open last summer. In the fall, he played on the DP World Tour, posting top 15 finishes at the Irish Open, BMW PGA Championship, and the DP World Tour Championship, in addition to a T6 at the ZOZO Championship in Japan as part of the PGA TOUR. He also claimed a three-stroke victory at the Fortinet Australian PGA Championship in November.
Lee began the year on the PGA TOUR with made cuts at The American Express and the Farmers Insurance Open. I’m hyped to go against the flow and back him to have a strong debut at TPC Scottsdale, where his showmanship should endear him to the crowd.
Adam Hadwin $8,000
Hadwin shows up on leaderboards with the Canadian flag next to him, so it might be a surprise to some that the Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, native is now based out of Scottsdale. He has played very well on desert courses like this one recently, posting a T6 at The American Express in La Quinta and a T2 last fall at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas.
His ownership projection is under 8% this week, making him a great pivot play at only $8,000.
Not only does he have a good record on similar courses, but he also has been in the mix at this specific course. Last year, he had the lead after Round 2 but faded to a still-solid T10. That was his best career showing at the Phoenix Open, but he has made the cut in each of the last seven years.
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Value PGA DFS Picks
Akshay Bhatia $7,800
There are 105 players in the field this week with salaries under $8,000. Bhatia has the highest median, ceiling, and floor projection of all of them but only the sixth-highest projected ownership at under 10%. He also has the second-highest Perfect% of players in this price range and matches the most Pro Trends.
Bhatia has exceeded salary-based expectations in 10 straight events, even though he missed the cut after three rounds of The American Express. He bounced back with a T13 at the Farmers Insurance Open before taking last week off.
The lanky lefty will be making his tournament debut, but his ceiling is incredibly high. He has shown a very well-balanced game the last few weeks, ranking fourth in the field in Strokes Gained: Total, 10th in the field in Strokes Gained: Ball-Striking, and even sixth in Strokes Gained: Putting over his 12 most recent rounds.
Erik Van Rooyen $7,100
EVR keeps on racking up high finishes while still being mostly overlooked as a strong value play. He has an ownership projection under 5% despite outproducing salary-based expectations in 10 straight DFS tournaments dating back to his top 10 at the European Masters last fall.
During that span, Van Rooyen claimed his first PGA TOUR win at the World Wide Technology Championship in the FedExCup Fall and began 2024 with three top 25s in four events. He finished in the top 20 last week at Pebble Beach with three rounds of 70 or better.
This week, Rooyen has the third-highest SimLeverage of all players under $8,000 and the third-highest Perfect% behind only Bhatia and Brian Harman. Unlike Bhatia and Min Woo Lee, Van Rooyen has played this event twice in his career. He missed the cut in 2021 but returned last year to make the cut and finish T50. His game has gone to another level over the last few months, though, so I expect him to post a stronger showing this week and possibly be in contention on Sunday.
Sleeper PGA DFS Picks
Sam Ryder $6,900
Ryder will always pop up in the X feed of golf fans when the PGA TOUR comes to TPC Scottsdale after firing a hole-in-one on the par-3 16th that sent the crowd into a frenzy. He rode that ace to a T23 in 2022 and improved on that with a T20 in 2023, even though he didn’t have the help of a hole-in-one. Ryder’s success on this course goes beyond just that one shot, though, and he made the cut in each of the last five years.
He returns to Phoenix this year with some good form as well. The 34-year-old has exceeded salary-based expectations in eight of his last 10 tournaments, including back-to-back top-15 finishes to close out 2023 at the World Wide Technology Championship and The RSM Classic. He had his best showing of 2024 last week at Pebble Beach, where he delivered strong returns despite his minimal $6,000 salary in the elite field.
This week, Ryder has a top-five ceiling, median, and floor projection among the players priced under $7,000. He has an ownership projection under 3% and is a solid bargain play at this course since he has so much history of making the cut with especially good finishes the last two years.
Grayson Murray $6,600
Murray surprised everyone by winning the Sony Open in Hawaii earlier this season, and he has exceeded salary-based expectations in each of his two tournaments since then as well. Murray has the highest SimLeverage of all players priced under $7,000 this week and the fourth-highest Perfect%.
Throughout the ups and downs of his career, Murray has always been able to turn in good weeks at TPC Scottsdale, with five made cuts in five career appearances. Due to his previous struggles, he failed to qualify for the last two years of this tournament, but he should be a good bargain flier this week. He brings a solid history of success, strong recent form, and an ownership projection of under 1%.
