THE PLAYERS Championship: Top PGA DFS Picks, Values, and Sleepers for Large-Field GPPs on DraftKings

After back-to-back exciting Florida finishes, the PGA TOUR heads to one of the best and biggest tournaments of the year. THE PLAYERS Championship has one of the biggest purses of the year, draws one of the best fields, and has one of the most well-known courses in the world to call its home. TPC Sawgrass will once again host the tournament, where players are required to balance risk and reward on almost every shot. The course is usually one of the most difficult the players face each season on the PGA TOUR.

Whether you buy the hype of this as the “fifth major” or not, it’s definitely a great week of golf with an elite field playing for big stacks on an iconic course. Strategy, accuracy, and mental toughness are key to success this week, in addition to Strokes Gained: Approach and Scrambling. 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 $14,200

Adding to the intrigue at TPC Sawgrass this week is the fact that the two overwhelming favorites are so shaky. Scheffler looked dominant early in the season but has struggled over his last few events, finishing outside the top 10 in each of the last two weeks and falling below his elevated salary-based expectations.

However, the models indicate Scheffler has a strong chance for a bounce-back week, and for GPP, especially, his ownership projection is low enough in comparison to his chances to rebound that he is a very strong place to start your PLAYERS build.

Scheffler won this event in back-to-back years before finishing T20 last year. He started this season with a dominant win at The American Express but faded to a T12 at The Genesis Invitational and T24 last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He still hasn’t finished outside the top 25 in any PGA TOUR event since August of 2024, but this is as shaky as we’ve seen Scottie in a long time.

Surprisingly, it’s actually been his approach game that has been the source of his struggles, along with some bad bounces and water balls that led to multiple double bogeys. He’ll need to clean that up this week, with water lurking on 16 of the 18 holes.

He still brings such a high ceiling, though, that for GPP builds, he has to be considered. 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 perfect% is all the way up at 37.4%, while Rory McIlroy checks in at 26.6%, and every other player is under 20%.

He has the highest SimLeverage in the field by a wide margin and also has the shortest odds to win this week and the shortest odds to finish in the top 10. Despite a couple of slips, he still leads this elite field in many meaningful categories with the most Total Strokes Gained, Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee over the last 24 rounds.

While he’s extremely expensive again this week, his chances to turn it around are good enough that he brings too high a ceiling to fade him at Sawgrass this week.

Chris Gotterup $9,200

Gotterup’s SimLeverage is the third-highest among players at $9,000 or higher, behind only Scottie and Rory. He has the second-lowest ownership projection of all players at $8,900 or higher and the fourth-highest Perfect%.

The public seems to be fading Gotterup. He missed the cut last year in his only appearance at THE PLAYERS. However, with so much volatility in play at this track, course history isn’t as important this week as it is in some other events.

Gotterup has already proven his upside this season with a pair of wins. He claimed wins at the Sony Open in Hawaii and the WM Phoenix Open and finished in the top 20 at the Farmers Insurance Open and last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.

He struggled a little off the tee in his last few starts, but he’s the kind of aggressive player who will have no trouble taking on the risk/reward challenges of Sawgrass. Over the last 20 rounds, he ranks third in this strong field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and in the top 16 in Total Strokes Gained, Strokes Gained: Approach, and Strokes Gained: Ballstriking.

His form and course fit are enough for me to overlook his course history this week, and he’s a solid source of leverage and salary savings for GPP lineups.

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.