Welcome back to Golf News Net's weekly fantasy golf picks. Each week of the PGA Tour season, we'll present our top picks for that week's tournament and make recommendations for DraftKings' one-week fantasy leagues and suggest daily fantasy golf lineups.
The new PGA Tour season rolls on as the CIMB Classic arrives in Malaysia. Justin Thomas is defending champion in a limited, no-cut field that includes Paul Casey and Patrick Reed.
For GNN Plus subscribers, you can access our NEW searchable database of PGA Tour results from 2011-present, our top-15 finish chart and season-long trends on DraftKings valuations. They'll be available at your disposal as part of a growing set of tools to help in your research.
2016 CIMB Classic top 10 picks
1. Paul Casey -- He's done everything in 2016 but win, and he's playing great golf wherever he goes. A win seems almost inevitable.
2. Patrick Reed -- Reed was brilliant at the Ryder Cup. He's a regular at this stop and finished T-10 last year.
3. Justin Thomas -- Thomas has been playing great golf since the FedEx Cup playoffs, and he's the defending champion here. His aggressiveness plays well at Kuala Lumpur.
4. Ryan Moore -- Moore is a two-time winner of this event, and he played some wonderful golf to get on the U.S. Ryder Cup team at the Tour Championship.
5. Adam Scott -- Scott could have won this event last year, but he let things slip down the stretch to Justin Thomas. He did miss a rare cut in Japan last week.
6. Hideki Matsuyama -- Matsuyama won the Japan Open last week while the Safeway Open unfolded, and he's been playing solid golf since August.
7. Kevin Na -- Na is off to a good start again to kick off a PGA Tour season. He was in a position to win in Malaysia last year, and he's been in the top three in his last two starts in this event.
8. Gary Woodland -- Woodland is twice a runner-up (both times to Ryan Moore) at this event, and he played strong golf in three of four playoff events.
9. Brendan Steele -- Can't leave off last week's winner, who was aggressive in coming from behind to pick up his first win in more than five years.
10. Sergio Garcia -- Garcia likes playing in this event, and he had a very strong effort to close the Ryder Cup against Phil Mickelson.
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My DraftKings team for this week:
1. Gary Woodland - $9,600
2. Brendan Steele - $8,800
3. Anirban Lahiri - $8,300
4. Tony Finau - $8,100
5. Kevin Kisner - $7,700
6. Jhonattan Vegas - $7,500
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If you want to win at DraftKings daily fantasy golf, you have to figure out a way to find six golfers that play all 72 holes and earn roughly 85 points each.
You likely have to identify a couple of players in the top five, at least the top seven, and you'd ideally not have a player finish outside the top 20.
Doing that takes research, looking at a variety of factors, including:
- Finish trends, both in recent weeks on the PGA Tour and at that week's event,
- Salary trends, deciphering which players are showing value based on their performance, and
- Statistical trends, identifying the common threads among winners in that week's event
That's what Golf News Net will deliver each week to GNN Plus members in this space, offering a complete research package which dives into these three areas to find the players that should be in your lineup for this week.
To access this research hidden below and MANY more fantasy golf tools, sign up for GNN Plus to gain access to the analysis! Your first two months' dues will be donated to one of two charities: Special Olympics or The First Tee!
