Daily Fantasy PGA Picks for DraftKings & FanDuel - The CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges

DFSR is proud to bring you, Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly PGA picks, analysis, and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings and FanDuel. As every week in DFS PGA changes with the course setup, field of players and weather, Chris will be providing a range of different picks for cash games as well as upside plays for tournaments. If you have any questions to lineup lock you can reach him a variety of ways. Leave your question/comment below in the comments section, find him in the DFSR Chat room or hit him up on Twitter(@Jager_Bombs9).

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The CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges

Welcome back daily fantasy golf fans. It is a big week for the PGA Tour as it visits Korea for the very first time for the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges. That means we will be throwing course history out the window this week and concentrating solely on players who fit the stats model and current form model on the cheatsheet. Speaking of the stats model, it will be pretty tough to narrow down specifically what will be the biggest impact so I am going pretty straightforward with the model this week. Strokes Gained: Ball Striking is always at the top of the list and with the course looking fairly tough with tons of sand and some tough greens, I will also be looking at Strokes Gained: Around the Green and Bogey Avoidance to go along with Birdie or Better %.

With all that said, let's jump in and take a look at some of the top picks for this week.

The Course

The Club at Nine Bridges - Jeju Island, KOR
Par 72 - 7,196 Yards

**Click to check out the Hole by Hole Breakdown at PGATour.com**

 

Top Stats in the Model

• Strokes Gained: Ball Striking(Off the Tee+ Approach)
• Strokes Gained: Around the Green
• Bogey Avoidance
• Birdie or Better %
• Par 5 Scoring

Top Current Form Targets

Paul Casey
World Golf Ranking (#14)
Vegas Odds (9/1)
Draftkings ($11,600)
FanDuel ($9,700)

Casey topped the current form section last week and it paid if you rostered him. It didn't look good early as he opened with a 77 but he bounced back in a big way with a 63 on Friday, 69 on Saturday, and capped off the weekend with a final round 65 to finish with yet another Top 10 and 102 DraftKings points. Dating back to last season(not that long ago), he has finished Top 10 in seven of his last 11 tournaments and has not missed a cut since the Sony Open in January. We don't have to worry about a cut again this week in Korea but Casey has also been providing top value when looking at fantasy. Over his last five tournaments, he has averaged 89.1 DraftKings points per tournament which rank fourth in the field. I would reserve him for GPP only on DraftKings at a mid $11K price tag but under $10K on FanDuel, he is safe in all formats.

Xander Schauffele
World Golf Ranking (#29)
Vegas Odds (18/1)
Draftkings ($9,800)
FanDuel ($8,900)

If you thought X would take it east after winning the TOUR Championship(I was one) you were wrong. He picked up right where he left off with three straight rounds in the 60's last week at the CIMB and was in contention to win before shooting par on Sunday but still finished with a T3 and 113.5 DraftKings points. Looking at the cheatsheet, he ranks 5th when looking at average finish over the last five tournaments and 3rd when looking at DraftKings points per tournament(89.4). He also comes with a sub $10K price tag on both sites and is safe in all formats this week.

Who the Stats Like

Kyle Stanley
World Golf Ranking (#53)
Vegas Odds (70/1)
Draftkings ($7,200)
FanDuel ($7,000)

I am going with a value play to kick off the stats section this week and it's a familiar name if you built any kind of stats model last season. He ranks 5th overall in my stats model this week(2017 stats) but what caught my eye the most was the Strokes Gained: Ball Striking (OTT+APP) where he ranks #1. On top of that he ranks 5th in Par 5 Scoring, 7th in Par 4 Scoring and 13th in Birdie or Better %. He hasn't shown us his upside since early on in the summer where he won the Quicken Loans National but finished the season with three Top 25 finishes in his last four tournaments and picked up another last week at the CIMB Classic. I think a Top 25 is his floor this week and I will be using him in all formats.

Tony Finau
World Golf Ranking (#45)
Vegas Odds (22/1)
Draftkings ($10,200)
FanDuel ($9,300)

Looking at that same Strokes Gained: Ball Striking stat, Tony Finau ranks #2 behind Stanley and sits ahead of him in the overall model. This is due to his 3rd rank in Par 4 Scoring, 2nd rank in Par 5 Scoring, 4th rank in Birdie or Better %, and 10th rank in Bogey Avoidance. Also, looking at the stats from the last 24 rounds using Fantasy National Golf Club, Finau has the edge in almost all categories. Finau also picked up where he left off last season (back to back T7's at the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship) as he finished runner-up at the Safeway Open two weeks ago. The cost is high but so is the upside, especially in a no-cut, limited field event.

Tournament Update Thread

**Weather Update**

Chris Durell has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for five years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is active player in college football, NFL, MLB, NASCAR, NHL and of course PGA. He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada with his wife and two daughters. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jager_Bombs9 for advice, strategy, answers to any PGA questions and how he copes with the winters up north.