2021 Players Championship DFS preview

This week the PGA Tour will travel to Ponte Vedra for the Tours crowning jewel, The Players Championship, which is played at TPC Sawgrass. The PGA Tour does not run any of the majors, so this is their week to shine, show off new tech, and pump out “fifth major” content. The field is always great with the large prize purse attracting a large majority of the top golfers in the world to come play a course that can cause fits. 

TPC Sawgrass is a Pete Dye design with trouble lurking throughout the course. It is a par 72, playing close to 7,200 yards with Bermuda greens. Golfers will not be able to overpower Sawgrass off the tee and will need to lean more on precision. 

As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of trouble golfers can find at Sawgrass. Over the last five years, close to 4% of tee shots have found OB/water/tree-line/unknown, and to go along with that, almost 2.5% of approach shots have found the same trouble. All of this trouble adds to the already high variance of the sport. A golfer’s full game will be tested this week, avoiding the trouble with the long game, testy chips around the greens, and solid putting that is necessary to excel any given week. 

If you look at the approach buckets, it’s obvious Sawgrass tests golfers across all yardages, with the longest approaches coming on par 5s if the golfer chooses to attack and the short wedges would be on those same holes if laying up. There are at least four holes (not including par 3s) that a majority of the field does not hit driver on which is another factor that takes some advantage away from bombers than the average tour course offers up. 

I’m not sure there is a true “profile” fit for Sawgrass. A golfer will just need to play well across the four strokes gained categories, with none in particular leading to a huge edge. Accuracy off the tee is more important than most weeks, to keep golfers out of the trouble and rough. 

This may seem strange to many, but Muirfield Village has similar qualities; distance isn’t as big of an advantage, the rough is quite penal, and there is a higher penalty for missing GIRs. You can separate a hair more with irons at Muirfield, but overall, the two courses reward similar styles of golf from tee to green. 

Best tee-to-green golfers at Sawgrass

(min. 12 rounds, in this field)

1. Rory McIlroy
2. Adam Scott
3. Tommy Fleetwood
4. Hideki Matsuyama
5. Paul Casey
6. Si Woo Kim
7. Dustin Johnson
8. Russell Knox
9. Emiliano Grillo
10. Sergio Garcia

Best tee-to-green golfer at Muirfield Village

(min. 12 rounds, in this field)

1. Patrick Cantlay
2. Jason Dufner
3. Justin Rose
4. Hideki Matsuyama
5. Adam Scott
6. Charl Schwartzel
7. Harris English
8. Henrik Stenson
9. Kyle Stanley
10. Rory Sabbatini

Keep in mind, the above numbers are raw strokes gained, and not exceeding expectation (meaning, good golfers could appear on the list simply because they’re good golfers, not because they necessarily fit the course). 

Below are a couple of my top targets from each price range (DraftKings pricing).

Jon Rahm, $10.9k
Xander Schauffele, $10.3k
Patrick Cantlay, $9.3k
Tony Finau, $9.1k
Daniel Berger, $8.8k
Tyrrell Hatton, $8.5k
Joaquin Niemann, $7.7k
Will Zalatoris, $7.6k
Brian Harman, $6.9k
Brendan Steele, $6.7k