Generally regarded as the “5th major”, the stage is set for the 2022 edition of The PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass as 48 of the top 50 players in the world will be in action this week. The most iconic Pete Dye course, TPC Sawgrass is a true Florida-style test and hosts perhaps the most competitive and thrilling tournament of the year.
Measuring out at 7,256 yards, TPC Sawgrass is a shorter, positional, “less-than-driver” course. Dye crafted a balanced layout that forces strategic positional tee shots and approaches around complex bunkers and numerous water hazards. There are dog-leg holes that turn both ways and overall, the course is routed so that no two consecutive holes play in the same direction.
Even with such a balanced layout, TPC Sawgrass is one of the most volatile courses on Tour. With so much trouble lurking, the line separating success from complete failure is minuscule. This is a big reason why there is such little correlation to past leaderboards. Overall, many of the top-ranked players have just as many missed cuts over the years as top-10 finishes. As Dye himself said, “The mark of a good golf course is when one player can be going for 63 while six others are struggling for 78.” Those that strategize and think their way around the course, combined with pure ball-striking, will be rewarded with the best chances to score.
DraftKings DFS Strategy
With soft overall pricing and volatile conditions, there are numerous ways one can attack this huge prize pool slate on DraftKings. Taking two players above $10,000 is very possible because of all the value down in the $6,000-$7,000K range. Starting in lineups in the $8,000 range is also viable this week because the winning equity there is simply amazing. Between Daniel Berger, Louis Oosthuizen, Brooks Koepka, Sungjae Im, and Shane Lowry, one could stay in that range alone!
With this being such a volatile tournament, and with rain and wind adding to the variance, I am enlarging my player pool this week. Twenty-four percent of players priced $9,000 and above have missed the cut there over the past five events. I typically like to take a strong stand with my player selection total, but am increasing that some this week to match the wide range of outcomes.
My “Core 4” splits in the model summarize the main stats I am analyzing as far as the most vital categories in which players need to excel. They are SG: Approach over the past 12 rounds, Fairways Gained over the past 24 rounds, my “Safety” model, and Par-5 scoring over the past 36 rounds.
Continue to check the weather all the way through Wednesday evening to see if any AM/PM wave tee times present any advantages. As of now, winds are definitely less gusty between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM, so perhaps a small edge to that early wave.
Player Selection
Each week this section will contain three main categories. They are my “Core” plays, my “Price Range” plays and my “Biggest Fades”. For those of you new to some of that DFS verbiage, a core play is a golfer I will be including in larger portions of my lineups. They will always be among the handful of my overall top plays for the week. A typical core contains anywhere between 2-4 golfers. After you establish your “pool” of players (the group of players you choose from to build your lineups with at different ownership percentages) for the week, you then surround that core by mixing and matching your other players from varying price ranges. A “fade” is a player you are choosing to either be underweight on compared to the field or not play at all. In the player picks below, unless otherwise specified, the numbers next to each of the categories or metrics is their ranking in this field out of 144 total golfers over the past six months.
The “Core 4” most important stats for the event will always be included among the stats chosen. Own % is referring to the estimated amount each player will be owned in the typical DraftKings contest. For this week, with accuracy OTT being so important, that rank is included. And with Course History being so volatile this week, “SG: Tough Weather Conditions” has been added.
Core Plays
Collin Morikawa
- Price: $10,700
- Own: 21%
- Model: 3
- SG: APP: 4
- SG: OTT: 5
- Scoring: 5
- SG: Weather: 22
- Core 4: 7
- Recent Form: 37
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 27
Louis Oosthuizen
- Price: $8,700
- Own: 8%
- Model: 13
- SG: APP: 83
- SG: OTT: 26
- Scoring: 14
- SG: Weather: 44
- Core 4: 59
- Recent Form: 49
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 35
Matt Fitzpatrick
- Price: $7,700
- Own: 18%
- Model: 4
- SG: APP: 49
- SG: OTT: 10
- Scoring: 13
- SG: Weather: 4
- Core 4: 4
- Recent Form: 22
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 40
Upper-Tier Plays
Jon Rahm
- Price: $11,100
- Own: 17%
- Model: 1
- SG: APP: 2
- SG: OTT: 4
- Scoring: 2
- SG: Weather: 3
- Core 4: 1
- Recent Form: 1
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 3
Hideki Matsuyama
- Price: $9,600
- Own: 16%
- Model: 10
- SG: APP: 5
- SG: OTT: 68
- Scoring: 10
- SG: Weather: 37
- Core 4: 8
- Recent Form: 10
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 9
Jordan Spieth
- Price: $9,000
- Own: 7%
- Model: 19
- SG: APP: 29
- SG: OTT: 108
- Scoring: 50
- SG: Weather: 4
- Core 4: 42
- Recent Form: 84
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 104
Mid-Range Plays
Daniel Berger
- Price: $8,800
- Own: 20%
- Model: 2
- SG: APP: 16
- SG: OTT: 8
- Scoring: 36
- SG: Weather: 12
- Core 4: 5
- Recent Form: 20
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 42
Shane Lowry
- Price: $8,000
- Own: 13%
- Model: 16
- SG: APP: 19
- SG: OTT: 77
- Scoring: 47
- SG: Weather: 36
- Core 4: 83
- Recent Form: 34
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 62
Sungjae Im
- Price: $8,300
- Own: 13%
- Model: 7
- SG: APP: 71
- SG: OTT: 3
- Scoring: 53
- SG: Weather: 43
- Core 4: 29
- Recent Form: 18
- DraftKings Pts Gained: 34
Value Plays
*In order of preference
- Alex Noren, $7,000
- Sergio Garcia, $7,400
- Talor Gooch, $7,200
- Tommy Fleetwood, $7,400
- Russell Henley, $7,400
- Paul Casey, $7,400
- Tom Hoge, $7,000
- Brian Harman, $6,900
- Gary Woodland, $7,400
- Corey Conners, $7,300
- Chris Kirk, $7,000
- Justin Rose, $7,300
Biggest Fades
- Rory McIlroy, $10,800
- Justin Thomas, $10,400
- Dustin Johnson, $9,800
Featured Image Credit: Tom Kershaw/Getty Images