The Masters DFS Strategy & Tools – Using LIV Golfers

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The holy grail in DFS is finding players who project really well for their price, but are also going under the radar. It will be tough to find such players in The Masters, and it’s even tougher before we have actual ownership projections to work with, but I’m confident that one group of players will be under owned – the LIV golfers that we know are good but haven’t played well on LIV.

LIV Golfers to Use in the Masters

Here’s the thing – why should we care about how players like Cam Smith and Dustin Johnson play on LIV when we know that they don’t even care how they play on LIV? The hope is that most of the field will see how many poor finishes (and how few good finishes) these two have had on LIV this year and ignore them for the Masters. But these guys have tremendous track records of performing and contending in Major Championships, especially at Augusta National.

Cam Smith

Cam Smith is the easier sell. He’s a phenomenal course fit at Augusta because of his incredible short game, and he has shown exactly that, with four Top 10s in the Masters since 2020. He’s also established a precedent of playing poorly going into the Masters but finding form there, regardless. 

The other reason why Cam is such a great course fit is that his driving often gets him in trouble. He doesn’t have the speed to survive all week out of US Open rough, but he has the creativity to play out of the trees and pine straw of Augusta National. He even has one of my all-time favorite Augusta highlights, a brilliant 3-wood out of a bunker on 8.

Dustin Johnson

DJ is the harder sell because as good as we know he once was, he hasn’t just struggled on LIV, he’s also struggled in the Majors of recent years. His only Top 10 since joining LIV came a couple months after he signed with LIV in the 2023 US Open. But there’s reason for optimism – he just had his best finish on LIV in over a year and has reason to be a little extra engaged in this season’s Majors…

The US Open returns to Oakmont this year, where DJ won by three in 2016. An engaged DJ is a dangerous DJ, so look for him to have a better 2025 campaign than anything we’ve seen from him since his move to LIV.

Put it this way – if DJ flew out to an early lead at Augusta, how would that impact your expectations? Would you expect him to fall and fail like you would anyone else with his 2024 and 2025 resume? Or would you think “he’s back?”

Others to Consider

Everyone’s favorite LIV play will probably be Joaquin Niemann or Tyrrell Hatton since they’ve had strong seasons dating back to the fall. So the only other big name with a great track record worth mentioning as a potentially contrarian play is Jon Rahm. It’s not that Rahm is playing poorly, he just hasn’t won anything. And considering he was battling with Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy for the title of “best player in the world” when he left the PGA Tour, no wins is disappointing. Rahm was more expensive at last year’s Masters, but he was also the defending champ. His low ownership a year ago means he will almost certainly be low owned again this year since now it’s Scottie and Rory soaking up so much interest every time they tee it up.

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