Opening Course Preview
We fucking made it. The regular season is dead, the FedEx Cup Playoffs are here, and now the PGA TOUR starts cutting bodies. Seventy players earned their way into the postseason, although only 69 will actually tee it up this week after Daniel Berger withdrew with a back injury. There is no cut at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, so everybody who starts gets four rounds at TPC Southwind. But do not confuse no cut with no pressure. When Sunday night hits, this field gets chopped from 70 to 50. Those 50 advance to the BMW Championship. Then that group gets sliced again until only 30 are left standing for the TOUR Championship at East Lake. We spent an entire season accumulating points to get here. Now every shot starts carrying a little more weight.
Nobody crashed the playoff party harder than Michael Brennan. He entered the Wyndham Championship sitting 105th in the FedEx Cup standings and basically needed to kick the damn door down to get in. So that is exactly what he did. Brennan won the Wyndham and launched himself all the way to 47th, turning what looked like the end of his season into a ticket to Memphis. On the complete opposite end of the emotional spectrum was the battle for the final spot. Jackson Koivun survived at No. 70 and grabbed the last chair before the music stopped, while Steven Fisk fell out and finished 71st. And Fisk was not the only recognizable name sent packing. Keegan Bradley, Jason Day, Tony Finau, Denny McCarthy, and Brooks Koepka are among the names whose FedEx Cup runs are over. That is how thin the margin becomes this time of year. One great week can save your season. One bad week can end it.
Now we get to the group that should be especially interesting for DFS. The players sitting from roughly 50 through 70 are not all in the same situation. The guys sitting just outside 50 can move through with a strong, steady week. The deeper you fall into the 60s, the less useful conservative golf becomes. Maverick McNealy enters right on that No. 50 line, while names such as Harris English, Max Homa, Sungjae Im, Jordan Spieth, Shane Lowry, Nick Taylor, Brian Harman, Patrick Rodgers, Aldrich Potgieter, Ricky Castillo, Matti Schmid, and Jackson Koivun are all trying to climb. This is where I want to pay attention to motivation and Sunday decision making. If you are 64th in points and sitting 35th in the tournament late Sunday, protecting par might do absolutely nothing for you. At some point you may have to attack flags, challenge water, and take chances because finishing safely outside the top 50 still sends your ass home.
And that brings us to the battleground: TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee. This is a par 70 measuring 7,288 yards, designed by Ron Prichard with input from major champions Hubert Green and Fuzzy Zoeller. Southwind is not a golf course that needs ridiculous length to beat the hell out of you. It does it with positioning, water, tight landing areas, small Bermuda greens, and enough trouble around the putting surfaces to make slightly missed approaches extremely expensive. The course also underwent meaningful changes recently, including a conversion to Zeon zoysiagrass in the fairways, drainage work, recontouring, and additional length. The par 4 fifth alone was stretched to 529 yards. This place asks you to drive it into the correct spots, control your irons, and avoid the one disaster hole that can turn a great DraftKings round into a pile of shit in about five minutes.
Last year’s finish gave us a perfect example of what Southwind can produce. Justin Rose and J.J. Spaun finished regulation tied at 16 under par, and they needed three playoff holes to decide it. Rose eventually buried the winning birdie on the par 4 18th to take the title. And the way he got himself into that position matters. Southwind forces players to remain patient because stretches of this course can feel like survival, but there are still opportunities to attack when the irons are dialed in. The winner here does not need to overpower the property. He needs to stay out of trouble long enough to give himself chances, and when those chances show up, he better convert. Water comes into play repeatedly, the greens can punish poor proximity, and the closing stretch can turn a leaderboard upside down in a hurry.
So what is it going to take to take this bitch down? For me, it starts with elite ball striking and approach play, but it cannot stop there. You want golfers who can control where their drives finish, attack relatively small targets with their irons, survive Bermuda rough when they miss, and make enough putts on Bermuda to actually capitalize on good ball striking. Distance is always useful, but Southwind has historically been far more interested in asking, “Can you execute?” than, “How far can you hit it?” Add in a no cut playoff field, golfers fighting for their seasons, and a course loaded with water and positional demands, and we have one hell of a DFS tournament. Now it is time to figure out which statistics can separate the contenders from the land mines.
Metrics That Matter
Strokes Gained: Tee to Green
TPC Southwind is the kind of course where you need to be solid from the moment the ball leaves the tee until it finally reaches the putting surface. There is enough water, rough, positional trouble, and difficulty around these Bermuda greens that weak ball striking eventually gets exposed. Strokes Gained: Tee to Green gives us the complete picture of who is consistently controlling the golf ball across driving, approach play, and work around the greens. On a course where one loose stretch can completely wreck a round, I want players who are gaining strokes through multiple parts of their game instead of relying on a hot putter to bail them out.
Strokes Gained: Approach
Approach play is going to be one of the biggest pieces of my model this week. The greens at TPC Southwind are relatively small, and the course repeatedly asks players to hit precise shots into targets that become significantly more difficult when they are attacking from the wrong portion of the fairway or from the rough. The players consistently gaining strokes with their irons are going to create more realistic birdie opportunities while also keeping themselves away from the ugly numbers that Southwind can produce. If you want to win here, you better be able to control distance, trajectory, and location with your irons.
Approach 175 to 200 Yards
Southwind creates a significant number of longer approach shots, especially on some of the more demanding par fours. That makes the 175 to 200 yard range an important window for identifying players who can still attack greens when they are hitting longer irons instead of wedges. From this distance, simply hitting the green becomes valuable, but the elite long iron players can actually turn these holes into scoring opportunities. With water and difficult misses surrounding several greens, being able to consistently find the putting surface from this range can save a ton of strokes over four rounds.
Approach 200 Plus Yards
Once we get beyond 200 yards, the challenge becomes even more pronounced. TPC Southwind has several holes where players are going to be asked to hit long approaches into greens that are not particularly forgiving, and the margin for error gets extremely thin. I am not necessarily looking for somebody firing darts from 215 yards all week. I want golfers who can consistently give themselves manageable putts, avoid short siding themselves, and keep big numbers off the scorecard when the approach shot becomes difficult. Strong performance from 200 plus yards can separate players who survive the toughest holes from those who slowly bleed strokes throughout the tournament.
Bogey Avoidance
Birdies matter in DraftKings, but Southwind is also a place where avoiding disaster can be just as important. Water is involved throughout the property, the greens can be difficult to hit, and one bad decision can turn a routine par into a double bogey in a hurry. Bogey Avoidance helps identify players who manage difficult golf courses well and know how to limit the damage when something goes wrong. In a no cut event where every player gets four rounds, avoiding those ugly DraftKings scoring holes can become a major separator.
Scrambling
Nobody is going to hit every green at TPC Southwind, which makes scrambling a huge piece of the puzzle for me. When players miss these relatively small Bermuda greens, they need to be able to manufacture pars from difficult situations instead of giving shots back every time their approach game slips. Strong scrambling also gives aggressive players a little more freedom because they know they have another weapon when they miss their target. Over four guaranteed rounds, turning even three or four potential bogeys into pars can create a massive difference in both the leaderboard and DraftKings scoring.
Good Drives Percentage
I like Good Drives Percentage here more than simply looking at raw driving accuracy. Southwind rewards players who consistently put themselves in position to attack, whether that means finding the fairway or missing in a spot that still leaves a clean approach. With narrow landing areas, rough, water, and difficult angles into these greens, where you miss matters almost as much as whether you technically hit the fairway. Good Drives helps us identify players who repeatedly give themselves playable second shots instead of spending the entire round scrambling from bad positions.
Birdie or Better Percentage
Even on a course where Bogey Avoidance matters, we are still playing DraftKings, and birdies are where the points come from. With no cut this week, every golfer in the field is guaranteed four rounds, which gives strong scorers plenty of opportunities to pile up fantasy points even if they are not sitting directly on top of the leaderboard. I want players who can capitalize when Southwind gives them a scoring opportunity instead of simply grinding out pars all afternoon. The ideal profile this week is someone who can stay patient through the difficult stretches, avoid the blowups, and then step on the gas when the birdie holes arrive.
The Scottie Scheffler Conundrum
DraftKings finally pulled the price down a little bit, but let’s not pretend $13,500 is some kind of bargain. He is still sitting in a completely different pricing universe from the rest of this field, roughly $2,000 more than Rory McIlroy and $3,300 more than Tommy Fleetwood. In a smaller field like this, paying that kind of salary forces you into a much narrower lineup construction tree. There are only so many combinations that make sense once you lock him in, and you are almost certainly giving up access to another elite salary tier player in the process.
The problem is that the lower price is going to be incredibly tempting, especially if he comes in as the highest owned golfer on the slate. At this salary, I think his pathway to being truly optimal is still pretty demanding. He probably needs to win the tournament, or at the absolute minimum finish near the very top while one or two cheaper pieces in the lineup completely smash their salaries. A fourth or fifth place finish can still be a great real life golf result, but at $13,500 it may not be enough to separate a GPP lineup unless everything underneath him hits perfectly.
That is where the ownership game becomes the deciding factor for me. If he lands somewhere in that 30 to 35 percent ownership range, I do not feel any need to match the field. I am still going to have exposure because this is Scottie, and there is always a very real possibility that he simply beats the hell out of everybody and makes the entire salary discussion irrelevant. But I am probably going to land somewhere in the low to mid 20 percent range and take a slightly underweight stance.
Building around him is also going to require some discipline. I am not trying to pair him with Rory McIlroy or Tommy Fleetwood and then pray that three or four bargain plays survive. The builds I like more probably start with him and then drop into the $9,000 range and below, where we can hopefully find enough upside without completely gutting the rest of the lineup. His reduced price makes those constructions more realistic than they have been in some previous tournaments, but that added flexibility is exactly what could push his ownership even higher.
So this is not a fade. Not even close. It is simply a leverage decision. I want enough exposure to survive the week where he destroys the field, but I do not want one third of my portfolio tied to the most expensive and potentially most popular golfer on the slate when his salary still demands something close to perfection.
Elite Tier
Tommy Fleetwood – $10,200 – Overweight
This is probably my favorite leverage play at the top of the board. Fleetwood has been playing phenomenal golf, and when you look across his recent starts, there just are not many weaknesses showing up. He has consistently been gaining throughout the bag, and that kind of complete form is exactly what I want heading into a course like TPC Southwind. Then we add the course history. He has finished T3 here twice in the last three years, so we already know this place fits his game. With Scottie sucking up so much attention at the very top, I love the idea of getting aggressive on Tommy and making him one of my biggest overweight positions.
Cameron Young – $9,700 – Underweight
I understand the upside with Cameron Young, and he finished fifth here last year, so this is not some full fade where I think he cannot contend. My concern is the putter. He lost roughly seven strokes to the field on the greens last week, and this is becoming more than just one bad putting performance. He has lost strokes putting in the majority of his recent starts, and at $9,700 I need a legitimate top five ceiling with a real chance to contend for the win. Could he absolutely do that? Yes. I will have some exposure, but I am comfortable being underweight compared to the field and making him beat me with the part of his game that has been giving him problems.
Sam Burns – $9,500 – Overweight
Sam Burns is going to be a core piece for me this week. Pull up the recent form and it is basically a sea of green. He has been gaining throughout the bag, the approach numbers have been excellent, and then we already know what kind of damage he can do when that putter gets rolling. This has been a phenomenal season even with a couple disappointing major championship performances mixed in. At $9,500, I think we are getting a golfer with legitimate tournament winning upside at a course that fits exactly what he does well. I think Burns is live to make a serious run through these FedEx Cup Playoffs, and I want to be there from the beginning.
Hideki Matsuyama – $9,000 – Overweight
There really is not much I need to sell here. Hideki Matsuyama won this tournament two years ago, his game is trending in the right direction, and he is coming into Memphis during one of his better stretches of the season. He has the iron game, the scrambling ability, and the course history we are looking for this week. And at $9,000, I do not need him to be perfect to make the salary work. Hideki is due for another big one. I am going to have a lot of him.
Middle Tier
Patrick Cantlay – $8,800 – Overweight
This price immediately caught my attention. Patrick Cantlay has shown repeatedly that TPC Southwind fits his game, and he comes into the week with some confidence after a strong performance at the Rocket Classic. The approach game looked sharp there, which is exactly the part of his game I want firing heading into Memphis. At $8,800, we are not paying for the name or his historical ceiling anymore, and that creates some serious upside if he puts everything together. This is absolutely a golfer capable of finishing inside the top five and contending for the tournament, and I am going to be overweight.
Viktor Hovland – $8,400 – Overweight
Forget the Open Championship for a minute. Viktor Hovland has had time to reset, and we have already seen the ceiling this season when everything clicks. He is still one of the elite ball strikers in this field, and we know TPC Southwind can fit his game because he finished T2 here two years ago. This is admittedly a little more volatile than some of my other plays because Hovland can occasionally go completely sideways, but that volatility is exactly what I am willing to embrace in GPPs at $8,400. If the ball striking returns to its best form, he has tournament winning upside at a middle tier salary. I am going to have a nice chunk of Viktor this week.
Jackson Koivun – $8,200 – Overweight
The last couple starts have not been quite as explosive since the win, but I am still extremely interested in Jackson Koivun. He survived the Wyndham and got himself into the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and now I want to see what happens when that competitive fire gets another target. Making the playoffs was one accomplishment. Getting through Memphis and into the top 50 is the next one. His game is accurate enough, balanced enough, and talented enough to fit this golf course, and at $8,200 we do not need him to win the tournament to pay this salary off. I think there is plenty of upside here, and I am excited to get overweight again.
Justin Rose – Limited Exposure
The defending champion is going to get some attention simply because we watched Justin Rose take this tournament down last year, but I am not looking to make him a major piece of my player pool. When I dig into the recent numbers, I see too much volatility. The off the tee game has been shaky, the approach play has bounced around, and the around the green numbers have not been particularly consistent either. The putter has been better recently, and that is part of what makes Rose dangerous because when everything syncs up, he can still show up in a huge event and contend with anybody. We have seen that ceiling more than once this season. I want some exposure because I respect the upside, but if he comes in around eight to ten percent owned, I am looking at scattered shots rather than building a major position around him.
J.J. Spaun – Underweight
J.J. Spaun is one of those guys who can absolutely get hot and make you regret fading him, but I am not interested in matching a projected ownership number around 15 percent. He finished second here last year, which is obviously going to draw attention, but outside of that result his history here does not do much for me. His recent form has also been volatile enough that I do not feel comfortable making him a major piece of my pool. I will have a sprinkle because this is still J.J. Spaun and the ceiling is real, but I am planning to come in under the field.
Rickie Fowler – $7,500 – Overweight
I am excited about Rickie Fowler this week because the putter finally appears to be coming back around. Earlier this season, when the flat stick was cooperating, we saw exactly what the upside looked like with three consecutive top 10 finishes, including a runner up at the Truist. For a long stretch after that, the putting completely disappeared and took a lot of the ceiling with it. Now we are starting to see signs that the entire game is coming back together again. At $7,500 and what should be manageable ownership, I want a healthy amount of Rickie in my lineups.
Akshay Bhatia – $7,300 – Underweight
The course history is going to make Akshay Bhatia attractive to plenty of people, and he has shown he can play well here, including a sixth place finish despite losing strokes putting. My concern is that the overall profile has been too erratic for me lately. The off the tee numbers have not been strong, the approach game has bounced around, and the tee to green performance has not been consistent enough for me to trust at this price. There is obviously upside if everything clicks, but I am not sure which version we are getting. I will have some exposure, but I am comfortable coming in underweight.
Jacob Bridgeman – $7,200 – Overweight
Jacob Bridgeman is one of my favorite lower owned options in this part of the board. I do not necessarily think he has a great chance to win the tournament, but I absolutely think he has a ceiling that can land him in an optimal lineup. His short game is excellent, the approach play has been solid, and he has been good enough off the tee to give himself opportunities. If he can keep the ball out of the nasty spots and lean on that short game when he misses, a top 15 type finish is absolutely within reach. At $7,200, that is more than enough to make him interesting.
Adam Scott – $7,000 – Sprinkle
This is not some massive stand, but I definitely want some Adam Scott this week. He finished ninth in his last start, and there were plenty of encouraging signs in the tee to green game. The around the green numbers were not great, but the putter has been much better recently, and that gives me some confidence that the overall game is trending in the right direction. He also has enough history at this course to know he can handle what Southwind asks. I am not building around him, but I absolutely want some exposure at this salary.
Jordan Spieth – $6,900 – Gut Shot Play
I have talked plenty of shit about Jordan Spieth recently, so maybe this is the week he finally makes me look stupid. This is much more of a gut shot play than anything else. The recent results have not been spectacular, and his history here has been inconsistent, although he did finish sixth in 2023. What has caught my attention is that the tee to green game has started to look better, and the putter looked much more comfortable last week. At $6,900, I just think the price has gotten low enough that I am willing to gamble on the idea that the better golf we have seen over the last couple weeks continues.
Keith Mitchell – $6,900 – Sprinkle
There is a very clear pathway for Keith Mitchell to succeed here. He hits a ton of greens, gives himself plenty of opportunities, and when the ball striking is working, the profile fits this course extremely well. The question is always the same with Keith: can he make enough putts? At $6,900, I am willing to take a few shots and hope the flat stick cooperates for four rounds. I do not need him to become an elite putter overnight. I just need him to be average enough that the ball striking can do the heavy lifting.
DFS Outsider Dart Plays
Sungjae Im – $6,700 – Overweight
This is one of my favorite plays anywhere in the value range. Sungjae Im fits TPC Southwind extremely well, he is playing solid golf, and this price is simply too low for the combination of course fit and upside. He does enough well from tee to green, can scramble when he needs to, and has the type of complete game that can survive four rounds here without constantly putting himself in trouble. I am going to be aggressive. Sungjae is one of the players I expect to be significantly overweight on this week.
Corey Conners – $6,700 – Overweight
Corey Conners has not produced great results here the last couple of years, but I think the current form matters more to me than those finishes. The driver has been solid, the approach game has been good, and even the putter has shown enough life lately to make this interesting. Around the green remains the biggest concern, but if he can simply survive there, the rest of his game is built for a course that rewards precise ball striking. At $6,700, a finish somewhere around the top 12 to 15 could easily be enough to make him part of an optimal build. I like the value quite a bit.
Jordan Smith – Dart Play
Jordan Smith has never played this event, but I am not going to let that scare me away at this price. He has been playing very solid golf, he is extremely accurate, and he hits a lot of greens. That is already a strong starting point for TPC Southwind. The biggest question is whether he can get enough out of the putter to turn good ball striking into actual scoring. If he does, I think he has a very real chance to outperform the salary and become one of those low owned pieces that helps unlock the expensive builds.
Harry Hall – $6,400 – Dart Play
Harry Hall had been stuck in a pretty ugly funk, but we finally saw some signs of life at the Wyndham Championship. Sometimes one solid week is all it takes for a golfer to find something and start building confidence again. He also played well enough here last year to give me some belief that the course suits him. At $6,400, I am not asking for a miracle. I just want the recent improvement to continue and give me a cheap four round scorer who can outperform the salary.
Frankie’s Fade of the Week: Rory McIlroy – $11,500
Hey, meatballs, you know what excites Frankie more than Rory McIlroy this week? Finding a fifty in an old tracksuit pocket and realizing Ma made baked ziti.
That’s where I’m at with Rory right now. The talent is still ridiculous, obviously, but lately he just does not look like a guy dying to play golf. He is already in great shape in the FedEx Cup standings, and I am not convinced this week means all that much to him compared to some of the other guys in this field who are fighting for their season.
And on top of that, I have not seen enough in the recent form to make me want to pay $11,500. At that price, I need urgency, ceiling, and a guy I believe is ready to go take this tournament by the throat. Rory can absolutely show up and make me look like an idiot, but I am willing to take that chance.
So while everybody else pays premium price for the name, Frankie is gonna spend his money somewhere else.
Capisce
Final Thoughts
This is exactly the kind of week I love. We have guys fighting for their seasons, young guns trying to prove they belong, veterans trying to find something before it is too late, and a leaderboard that could get weird in a hurry. I am especially interested to see what Michael Brennan does coming off that massive win. Does he keep riding the momentum, or does the emotional high finally catch up with him?
Then there is Scottie Scheffler. Is he about to remind everybody that he is still the guy to beat and completely separate himself from this field? On the other side, what do we get from players who have not exactly looked sharp lately? Cameron Young looked rough last week. Does he bounce back? Does somebody who has been quiet all summer suddenly catch fire at the perfect time? Those are the questions that make this slate so interesting.
There are a lot of unknowns here. A lot of pressure. A lot of different motivations. And with only the top 50 moving on, there are going to be players forced to make decisions late Sunday that they normally would not make. Safe golf might not be enough. That is where the chaos can start.
And you know what? That is exactly how the DFS Outsider likes it. Give me the uncertainty. Give me the leverage. Give me the guys with something to prove. Let’s find the right six, take down a GPP, and see who survives to the next round.
It only takes one
