Arnold Palmer Invitational: Top PGA DFS Picks, Values, and Sleepers for Large-Field GPPs on DraftKings

The PGA TOUR is at the famous Bay Hill Club & Lodge for this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, which is the third Signature Event in the last four weeks. After plenty of excitement in the first PGA TOUR stop of the year in Florida, where Shane Lowry’s late-round meltdown led to a win for Nico Echavarria, the biggest names in golf are back in action for a high-profile event on an iconic course with an elevated purse.

The course at Bay Hill Club & Lodge is typically one of the most difficult the players face each season on the PGA TOUR, and this week should bring more of the same excitement with plenty of water, thick rough, fast greens, and wind in the forecast, making the long, undulating course a fair, well-balanced test. Good ball-striking and putting are the keys to success on this track, with Strokes Gained: Approach and Scrambling two metrics to target. For more on the field, format, courses, and what to look for from a statistical perspective this week, check out this First Look from RotoGrinders.

Especially in large-field GPP tournaments, you’ll want to make sure to target players who have lower ownership projections than their potential performance suggests. Finding high-leverage plays is critical for GPP success, so the picks here go against the grain, looking for under-owned options.

Usually, I rely heavily on the Strokes Gained Model in FantasyLabs, which is very predictive of results. I also tend to lean toward players who excel in Strokes Gained: Approach, which is more sustainable week to week than a hot putter.

Since these are GPP picks, we can accept more risk in exchange for getting a higher ceiling. High-risk, high-reward options with low ownership create the “boom-or-bust” style lineups that often lead to large-field success. To find guidance for all contest types, check out our full Daily Fantasy Golf coverage each week.

No matter what type of format you prefer, be sure to use the FantasyLabs PGA Models to help you make the best choices. These models use stats and simulations to highlight different players’ strengths and weaknesses. A few critical new stats for GPP play are Perfect% and SimLeverage, which are further explained here.

As you dig into the numbers, you can enjoy the many tools FantasyLabs offers, including the Lineup Optimizer, which effortlessly creates up to 300 lineups. Alternatively, you can use the Lineup Builder if you prefer a more hands-on approach.

Check out my top picks in each price range listed below.

Editor’s note: SimLeverage and Perfect% numbers may change after this piece is published. Be sure to check the PGA Models for any updates to the sims.

High-Priced PGA DFS Picks

Scottie Scheffler $14,100

Scheffler hasn’t won in over a month, and he’s looked very human in his last three events. He still has plenty of win equity and the potential to dominate this week, though, on a course that fits his game perfectly. He has a massive salary, though, which is keeping his ownership projection lower since it’s hard to leave out so many other elite options in this strong field by picking Scheffler as your anchor. With a lower ownership projection, he is a great source of pay-up leverage if you can make the rest of your roster work.

Scheffler has the shortest odds to win this week and the shortest odds to finish in the top 10. He has the highest ceiling, median, and floor projections by a wide margin and the highest Perfect% as well, meaning he is in the perfect lineup more times than any other player in our thousands of simulations.

His ownership projection is the highest of any player in the field, but it’s not much higher, especially compared to the margin that he’s ahead of the rest of the field in Perfect%. As a result, Scheffler has the highest SimLeverage in the field and can be a strong pay-up way to get leverage.

Scheffler has won this event twice in his career and finished in the top 15 in each of his five career appearances at Bay Hill. He has the kind of long drives and great tee-to-green game that typically leads to success at this venue, so even when he isn’t 100% locked in, he’s a threat to dial in and run away with the win.

Scheffler won The American Express for his 20th official PGA TOUR career win in January, and since then, he finished T3 at the WM Phoenix Open, T4 at the AT&T Pebble Beach, and T12 at The Genesis Invitational. In each of those three events since his win, he started with a bad round before turning things back around and charging through the weekend.

He still leads this elite field in many meaningful categories with the most Total Strokes Gained, Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and Strokes Gained: Par 4 over the last 24 rounds. He knows his way around Bay Hill so well that it makes an ideal bounce-back spot for him, and he hasn’t looked far away from going on a massive run in his last few tournaments.

For GPP, his win equity is outpacing his ownership projection enough to make him one of the best plays of the week.

Robert MacIntyre $9,000

MacIntyre’s SimLeverage is the third-highest of all the players at $9,000 or higher. He has the eleventh-highest salary, but he is outside the top 20 in ownership projection despite being just inside the top 12 in Perfect%.

Bobby Mac has played Bay Hill twice in his career, finishing T36 in 2021 and T11 last year. He has proven he can contend on difficult courses and in elite fields. He won the RBC Canadian Open and the Genesis Scottish Open in 2024 and finished runner-up at the U.S. Open and the BMW Championship (in the FedExCup Playoffs) in 2025. He also won last fall on the DP World Tour at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship before posting two more top-10 finishes at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and the DP World Tour Championship to finish the year.

In 2026, he started the year with a T4 in Hawaii and posted a T20 at The Genesis Invitational two weeks ago. He has made the cut in all four of his PGA TOUR events and ranks No. 34 in the early FedExCup standings.

MacIntyre’s past success at this track and solid recent form are enough to make him a solid pivot play at $9,000, and it’s not impossible to pair him with Scheffler in a two-star lineup if you are willing to go with a couple of bargain plays in your lineup as well. Bobby Mac’s salary also works well as an anchor for a balanced build overstacked with mid-range options.

Now available: our PGA DFS SimLabs Lineup Generator that creates advanced DFS lineups using the power of simulation.

Mid-Priced PGA DFS Picks

Check out my top picks in each price range listed below.

Editor’s note: SimLeverage and Perfect% numbers may change after this piece is published. Be sure to check the PGA Models for any updates to the sims.