Daily Fantasy PGA Picks for DraftKings & FanDuel - WGC Mexico Championship

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WGC Mexico Championship

Welcome back to another week of daily fantasy golf. The Honda Classic ended Sunday with Justin Thomas picking up his second win of the season and eighth of his young career as he beat out Luke List on the first playoff hole.

This week the PGA Tour heads to Mexico City for the second WGC event of the season, the Mexico Championship. Dustin Johnson took down the first Mexico Championship last season with a winning score of -14 and now has five WGC event wins in his career. This year's event has another loaded field with 45 of the World's Top 50 players and over 20 players from the European Tour. The lack of stats and course history clouds the model slightly this week so I will be looking heavily at form, especially DraftKings points. Also, just a note that this is a no-cut event so you will be getting all four rounds from every golfer.

One thing that stands out this week for me is a quote from last year(via Future of Fantasy Golfanac) where Tommy Fleetwood talks about the course.

This has me leaning heavily on the Euro players this week as you will see below. Let's take a look at the course itself, some stats, and then dig into some picks for the week.

The Course

Club De Golf Chapultepec
Par 71 - 7,330 Yards

**Click HERE or the pic above to see the hole by hole breakdown from PGATour.com**

Top Stats in the Model

• Strokes Gained: Approach
• Par 5 Scoring
• Birdie or Better %
• Strokes Gained: Putting(Poa Annua)

One little note before jumping into the article. I use multiple sources for my research to help determine key stats starting with Fantasy National Golf Club and their elite set of tools from course history, hole composition, past performance and much, much more. I also combine it with some of the information on Future of Fantasy including correlated courses and most importantly the quotes from players section to help determine what it takes to win here(key stats). When breaking down ownership and trying to come up with popularity, I love the tools over at FanShareSports as they break down every piece of information on articles and social media mentions to provide us with Tag COunts, Sentiment Ratings, Subject Tags, Salary Differential week to week and much more.

Top Course History Targets

Dustin Johnson
World Golf Ranking (#1)
Vegas Odds (6/1)
Draftkings ($11,900)
FanDuel ($12,800)

Cours history is a little tough to go off this week as the Tour has only made one stop at this course in the past so I will go with the defending champ in this spot. DJ tore the course up last year gaining over 12 strokes tee to green which led the field with 69% of those strokes coming from his approach shots as he gained 8.73 strokes which also led the field. He has also thrived in the no-cut WGC events as he now has five wins since 2013, at least one in each WGC. He is the most expensive option this week but with a stacked field, it won't be hard to fit him into your lineups comfortably.

Thomas Pieters
World Golf Ranking (#39)
Vegas Odds (50/1)
Draftkings ($8,300)
FanDuel ($9,500)

Pieters came in 5th last year but what stood out to me was that he was the only player in the field to shoot all four rounds under 70 showing some terrific consistency on a new course to the players. He only gained just over a  half stroke off the tee but was money on his approaches gaining 6.8 strokes for the week(3rd best) and also putted well gaining over three strokes for the week. He struggled in his first tournament on the PGA Tour in 2018 finishing T68 at the Genesis Open but turned it around in a big way last week finishing T13 thanks to some clutch putting as he gained over four strokes for the week which was 11th best. What I like most is the value price this week as he comes in the low $8K range on DraftKings and the mid $9K range on FanDuel making him a top target in all formats.

Top Current Form Targets

Tommy Fleetwood
World Golf Ranking (#11)
Vegas Odds (18/1)
Draftkings ($10,000)
FanDuel ($11,300)

Before coming over to the PGA Tour in mid-February, Tommy Fleetwood was on fire in Europe posting three straight finishes of 6th or better including a win at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. During those three events, he also recorded 12 straight rounds in the 60's. He then made the trip to California for the Genesis Open and while he finished with a T37, ended the tournament strong with a final round 69 and carried that momentum over to the Honda Classic last week where he came in fourth shooting 68, 67, 69 over his final three rounds. He not only has top form coming into the Mexico Championship but he also finished runner-up to DJ here last season and was one of just five players to tally more than 100 DraftKings points. Ride the hot streak in all formats this week.

Dylan Fritelli
World Golf Ranking (#44)
Vegas Odds (60/1)
Draftkings ($8,200)
FanDuel ($8,800)

Sticking with the European Tour angle this week, I like the projected value with Dylan Fritelli. So far in 2018 in four events on the European Tour, he has finished Top 20 in each with T6 or better in his last two(Omega Dubai Desert Classic & Maybank Championship). He then made his PGA Tour debut last week at the Honda Classic and after opening rounds of 71 & 72 put it together on the weekend with a 67 & 69 and ended up with an 11th place finish.

Who the Stats Like

Justin Thomas
World Golf Ranking (#3)
Vegas Odds (8/1)
Draftkings ($11,500)
FanDuel ($12,500)

Thomas hits in all areas this week but I will start with the stats. He is #1 in my model ranking 3rd in both Strokes Gained: Approach and Birdie or Better % which are my top stats this week. Looking more at recent stat ranks using Fantasy National Golf Club, JT ranks 1st in SG: APP over the last 4, 8, 12, and 24 rounds and is 2nd over the last 50 rounds. Thomas is the only other golfer on my sheet to rank inside the Top 6 in all four categories and while he finished T5 here last year he was 2nd in DraftKigns scoring behind DJ.

Russell Henley
World Golf Ranking (#55)
Vegas Odds (80/1)
Draftkings ($7,400)
FanDuel ($8,900)

Considering the stats trends and form for Henley recently, he is a terrific value on both sites. He ranks 12th in Strokes Gained: Approach on my sheet(combo of 2017 & 2018 stats) and looking at the rolling report on FNGC, he is Top 10 in that category over the last 4, 8, 12, and 24 rounds. He had a bad Saturday round of 74 last week leaving him with a T24 but finished T15 at Pebble Beach a few weeks back which was a huge bounce back after back to back missed cuts. This will be his first trip to play the Club De Golf Chapultepec but he has the game to come away with a Top 10 which is more than enough to hit value on both sites.

 

Who is being Mentioned on FanShareSports(DraftKings)

$10K+ Range

Tommy Fleetwood not only leads the tag count this week but he also leads the start call count and it makes sense as he has top form, performed well here last year and is 5th in salary on DraftKings. His ownership was 2-3% in GPP last year but he will definitely not be sneaking under the radar this time around and will most likely be #1 in ownership between 25-30%. Jon Rahm was the highest owned player last year(30% average) and will be top 3 once again as he sits not far behind Fleetwood in tags and starts calls. He was one of just two players to finish top 10 in DraftKings scoring and ownership last year. The other player who is going to be popular this week is Dustin Johnson who is #2 in tags and #7 in start calls. He won the event last year while only #14 in ownership(16%). He now has five WGC titles to his name and I am predicting he is around 20%+ owned this week. Neither of these players is fade worthy in my opinion in a no-cut event where scoring is at a premium.

If you are looking for some lower ownership in some of your GPP lineups form the top range of salary, consider Jordan Spieth who is currently T12 in tags and 10th in start calls overall. He has had some struggles early in the year and hasn't topped 75 DK points since the Sony Open but is coming off a T9 at the Genesis where he finally got the putter going a bit gaining 3.6 strokes over the four rounds(17th). He joined Rahm as the other one of two who finished Top 10 in scoring(95.5 DK points) while also sitting Top 10 in ownership(25%). I think he comes in under 20% this week and makes a terrific GPP play.

Rest of the Field

Tony Finau(5th in tags, 1st in start calls) and Patrick Cantlay(10th in tags, 3rd in start calls) are projected to be very high owned this week. Both players will be making their first trip to this course but the popularity comes from a combination of price, form, and stats.

If you are looking to pivot in the $8K range one player who will be low owned, in my opinion, is Tyrrell Hatton(T26 in tags, 30th in start calls) who let us down last week missing the cut at the Honda Classic. He was dealing with a wrist injury but got some extra time off to recover and you won't need much exposure to have more than the field. He performed well here last year with a T10 and scored 80 DraftKings points.

Another player in that range I am looking at closely is Dylan Fritelli(T17 in tags, 15th in start calls)who I wrote up above. He is coming in with some form on both the PGA Tour and European Tour and while he his stats don't yet rank the Euro Tour this season he finished fairly high up in stroke average and GIR last season.

Staying with the current form pivot narrative, another player I like as a pivot is Gary Woodland(T20 in tags, 18th in start calls). He is coming off a T49 at the Honda Classic and missed cut at Pebble Beach but has shown he can score and win as he took home the trophy as the Phoenix Open at the beginning of February. He was 22nd in DK points here last year but was 20% owned(8th most). He has upside for DK scoring and will be much less owned this year.

One last player I wanted to mention who will be very low owned and perfect for stars and scrubs lineups is Francesco Molinari(T34 in tags, 44th in start calls). He comes in with fairly poor form as he missed the cut at the Genesis and in four starts this season has yet to crack the Top 40. What I like is that he ranks 11th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee this season and 32nd in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green. The biggest issue has been the putter(197th in SG: P) but what I like is that he performed well here last year finishing T20 while scoring 76 DraftKings points(18th most). He was also aroudn 8% owned in GPP's and will liekly be less than 5% this year. In a no-cut event, it is worth a shot if you are trying to stack two players over $9K on Draftkings.

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.