Daily Fantasy PGA Picks and Betting Guide for DraftKings & FanDuel – BMW Championship

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BMW Championship

Welcome back golf fans. The FedEx Cup Playoffs continue this week as the field has been narrowed down to the final 70 golfers as they head to the second last event of the season, the BMW Championship. The course at this event rotates and will be hosted at Aronimink Golf Club this time around and it has not been used on Tour since the 2010(Nick Watney won at -13) and 2011(Justin Rose won at -10) AT&T National events. Using those events as a reference won't be of too much help this week as the course took on a big restoration that started in 2016 by Gil Hanse and saw the fairways widened out with more than 100 bunkers added and the other big change was green sizes being increased. I will be concentrating on Strokes Gained: Approach with emphasis on Proximity as my top stat this week as the fairways hit % should be high. I am thinking the winning score also goes lower than those previous two events here so I will also be looking heavily at Birdie or Better %. Being a Par 70 with 12 par 4's puts emphasis on that as well and if using Fantasy National Golf Club, be sure to look at the Par 4 Scoring from 400-450 yards as seven of the 12 come in that range.

With all that said, let's take a look at the course and then break down some of the top picks for this week.

The Course

Aronimink Golf Club - Newton Square, PA
Par 70 - 7,190 Yards
Greens - Bentgrass

**Click pic above to see a hole by hole breakdown over at PGATour.com**

Top Stats in the Model

• Strokes Gained: Approach
• Proximity(mid-range)
• Par 4 Scoring with emphasis on 400-450 yards
• Birdie or Better %

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 Tier Targets

Dustin Johnson
World Golf Ranking (#1)
Vegas Odds (10/1)
Draftkings ($11,600)
FanDuel ($12,400)

He didn't end up winning last week with thanks to another poor Saturday showing but there is a lot to take from the week overall. First of all, he didn't make a triple-bogey this week and was T3 in birdies(22) and DJ also ranked 5th in SG: Off the Tee, 10th in SG: Approach, and overall ranked 4th in SG: Tee to Green. I then started looking at the rolling reports (last 4, 8, 12, 24 rounds) over at Fantasy National Golf Club and DJ ranks 11th or better in SG: Approach, 6th or better in Proximity, and 12th or better in Par 4 Scoring from 400-450 yards. He missed the cut here at Aronimink back in 2010(AT&T National) but the course has been renovated and with wider fairways and bigger greens, DJ should be able to bomb away and wedge it into the greens giving him a terrific shot to make a ton of birdies again and if he can rid that one bad round should be in contention for his fourth win of the season. I also think he will be lower owned than Justin Rose in the same price range if people are looking at that course history as Rose won at this course in 2010 and was T15 in 2011.

Brooks Koepka
World Golf Ranking (#2)
Vegas Odds (15/1)
Draftkings ($10,500)
FanDuel ($12,100)

I would say he disappointed last week but if his bad is a T12 I will most certainly take that. He was a little off on his approaches(T37 in SG: APP) last week which held him to just 15 birdies for the week which tied for 41 in the field. Overall, however, he ranked 3rd in SG: Tee to Green and comes in with some nice form with a 5th at the WGC Bridgestone, win at the PGA Championship(second major of the season), T8 at the Northern Trust and T12 last week. During that stretch, he has shot under 70 in 14 of those 16 rounds. He sits at #10 in my mixed condition model(FNGC) with ranks of 14th in SG: Approach, 10th in Proximity, and 2nd in Birdie or Better Gained over the last 24 rounds. The only area that concerned me in that model was the 59th rank in par 4 scoring from 400-450 yards but with only 24 rounds of data that sample is likely a little small considering the different makeups of those courses. All things considered, he has a ton of upside and I will have plenty of exposure in GPP formats this week.

Mid Tier Targets

Francesco Molinari
World Golf Ranking (#6)
Vegas Odds (29/1)
Draftkings ($8,800)
FanDuel ($10,800)

After missing the cut at The Northern Trust to open the playoffs, Molinari took the week off at the Dell Technologies Championship. It's tough to tell if that will affect his ownership as he returns to action at the BMW Championship but either way, I will have exposure. The missed cut was his first since the PLAYERS back in May and in between he has won three times worldwide with six Top 10 finishes in eight events. He is an elite ball striker(4th in SG: Ball Striking on my sheet) and looking at my mixed condition model ranks 3rd in SG: Approach, 17th in Proximity, 4th in Birdie or Better Gained, and 10th in par 4 Scoring from 400-450 yards. It appears a bounce-back is in order this week and at these prices he is a great play in all formats.

Billy Horschel
World Golf Ranking (#69)
Vegas Odds (61/1)
Draftkings ($8,000)
FanDuel ($8,300)

If you go to Twitter and do a quick search for Billy Horschel you are going to find a ton of angry bettors and DFS players as Horschel withdrew from last weeks event. Recency bias is a thing and if people are going to fade him this week, I feel he makes an excellent GPP pivot. Before last week he had finished T3 at the Northern Trust to open the Playoffs and has Top 20 finishes in four of his last six events with two Top 5's. He also stands out in my stats model this week when looking at my mixed condition model on Fantasy National as he ranks 5th in SG: Approach, 1st in Proximity, and 1st in Par 4 scoring form 400-450 yards over the last 24 rounds. Be sure to check the ownership projections before making the final decision on exposure but I would suspect he is easily sub 10% in GPP's in probably closer to 5% meaning you don't need a whole lot to have more than the field this week.

Value Targets

C.T. Pan
World Golf Ranking (#98)
Vegas Odds (91/1)
Draftkings ($6,900)
FanDuel ($8,300)

With the field getting smaller once again there are a ton of very talented golfers who come at value prices and I will once again be going back to C.T. Pan. He has made the cut in 11 of his last 12 events and with this being a no-cut event, he has also stood out form an upside perspective with Top 5 finishes in two of his last three tournaments. The overall stats ranks on my sheet don't jump off the page but looking at the last 24 rounds, he sits at #8 overall in my mixed condition model with ranks of 10th in SG: Approach, 22nd in Proximity, 17th in Birdie or Better Gained, and 8th in Par 4 scoring from 400-450 yards. Pan is also tied with Zach Johnson and Emiliano Grillo with the best odds of any golfer in the sub $7,500 range on DraftKings. Considering the price and current form, I think it makes sense to use Pan in all formats this week.

Chris Kirk
World Golf Ranking (#130)
Vegas Odds (176/1)
Draftkings ($6,700)
FanDuel ($8,300)

Kirk has been very consistent lately making the cut in 11 straight events coming into this week and looking at my mixed condition model, he ranks Top 35 in SG: Approach, Proximity and Par 4 Scoring from 400-450 yards. The only concern is that this is a no-cut event and he ranks down a bit in Birdie or Better % capping the upside but I am willing to deal with that considering the low price that allows you to load up with two studs at the top of the salary. The other good news for Kirk is that he played here at Aronimink Golf Club back in 2011 at the AT&T National and impressed with a T8 finish.

Tournament Update Thread

**Weather Update(click pic below to link to WeatherFinder.com to see latest forecast**

Chris Durell has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for five years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is an 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.