I hope everyone enjoyed the week off from PGA DFS action because we’re back this week with one of my favorite events of the year, the Wells Fargo Championship held at Quail Hollow Club. As many of you remember, this event wasn’t held at Quail Hollow last year as the PGA Championship made the trip to QH for the first time.
With that being said, the layout and conditions that we saw for the PGA Championship here aren’t going to be what we see for the Wells Fargo this year. The rough will be significantly shorter and much less penal this week, and a few of the holes have been shortened. Quail Hollow will still play as one of the longest tracks that we see all year despite the shortening, measuring at just around 7,500 yards for a par-71 layout.
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The field this week is absolutely stacked as a ton of elite players are using this week as early prep for the U.S. Open and for The Players Championship next week. Former winners Rory McIlory, Rickie Fowler and Tiger Woods are some of the top headliners, and Justin Thomas will also have some fond memories returning to the site of his PGA Championship victory for the first time. Other elite players in the field include Jason Day, Masters champ Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama, Phil Mickelson, Tommy Fleetwood, Paul Casey and Brooks Koepka. Add that to an extremely deep mid-range of players like local Webb Simpson, Ryan Moore, Tony Finau, Alex Noren, Brian Harman, Bryson DeChambeau and Daniel Berger, and you have one of the strongest and deepest non-major fields that we’ll see all year.
The quality of the field this week is going to lead to some very difficult decisions on who to roster in each range. At the top I like Rory McIlroy the best, but it’s hard to ignore the histories of guys like Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler at this event. Then there’s Tiger Woods who is a former winner at this event. I haven’t heard much buzz around Tiger this week and if that continues, I think he will make an excellent pivot off of guys like Tommy Fleetwood and Phil Mickelson, both of whom I think are better plays without factoring ownership. A guy who is really catching my attention in the upper-mid range is U.S. Open Champion Brooks Koepka coming off his long layoff from a wrist injury. Koepka is an ideal course fit on paper and has had some decent finishes here at Quail Hollow. Add that to the fact that no one is going to be on him due to the amount of other attractive plays in this range and you have an ideal GPP play. Another guy to look at who I can’t imagine being owned at all is Masters champ Patrick Reed. He popped with a runner-up finish at the PGA Championship here last year and his game is basically a right handed Phil Mickelson, who is another guy who has a top-tier course history at Quail Hollow.
The sheer length of the Quail Hollow is going to force players to go to driver off the tee early and often, and while length is certainly important, I’m going to be focusing on a mix of accuracy and length (Total Driving) this week. Even though the rough will be short this week, the design of many of the holes around Quail Hollow will still require players to miss on the proper side of the fairway or face an impossible angle on their approach shot. Just go back an look at guys who have success here; Rory McIlory, Rickie Fowler, Webb Simpson, James Hahn, Ryan Moore, Justin Thomas to name a few, all are different style of players off-the-tee, but they all are either super long or super accurate off the tee.
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While there are only three par 5s around Quail Hollow, they are by far the easiest scoring holes on the course. All three are reachable in two for the longer hitters and elite scoring on the par 5s will be a major key to success this week. There aren’t going to be many wedge approach shots into greens at Quail Hollow, so targeting players who are solid with mid and long irons is another angle to attack this week, especially for some of the guys who aren’t as long off the tee as the elite bombers. As a final note on roster construction, the pricing in the low $7,000 is excellent so I feel that a “stars and scrubs” lineup build is in play this week, even in cash games.
Key Stats
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee
- Total driving
- Approach > 175 Yards
- Scrambling
- Par 5 scoring
Players to Consider
$12,000-$9,000
- Rory McIlroy - $11,800
- Jason Day - $10,200
- Hideki Matsuyama - $9,400
- Phil Mickelson - $9,200
- Tiger Woods - $9,100
$9,000-$8,000
- Tommy Fleetwood - $9,000
- Tony Finau - $8,700
- Brooks Koepka - $8,600
- Ryan Moore - $8,500
- Webb Simpson - $8,400
- Bryson Dechambeau - $8,000
$8,000-$7,000
- Brian Harman - $7,900
- James Hahn - $7,800
- Emiliano Grillo - $7,700
- Chesson Hadley - $7,500
- Adam Hadwin - $7,400
- Adam Scott - $7,300
- Jamie Lovemark - $7,100
$7,000 and Under
- Kyle Stanley - $7,000
- Grayson Murray - $6,900
- Danny Lee - $6,900
- Chris Paisley - $6,900
- Lucas Glover - $6,900
- Joaquin Niemann - $6,900
Fantasy golf can be one of the most fun and profitable sports in Daily Fantasy and there's plenty of strategy that goes into putting together a winning DFS lineup, and the best place to start is RotoQL’s DFS tools. Our RotoQL PGA Lineup Optimizer is a massive advantage when you're building lineups, regardless of contest size or site. I'm always there to help, too, so check me out on Twitter (@DFSBenj) for even more NFL, NBA, MLB and PGA daily fantasy content.
