2018 AT&T Byron Nelson daily fantasy golf (DFS) preview
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2018 AT&T Byron Nelson daily fantasy golf (DFS) preview

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Coming off two straight weeks of tournaments loaded with top end talent, the PGA Tour returns to Texas for the AT&T Byron Nelson, which will be played at a new venue: Trinity Forest Golf Club. Unfortunately, a strong field won’t be making the trip to Trinity Forest, with Jordan Speith, Hideki Matsuyama and Matt Kuchar making up the class of the field. The middle and bottom end of the field this week is especially weak, so looking for value is going to be pretty tough this week.

Trinity Forest is a 7,400-yard American links style course. Off the tee, the fairways are wide and will play firm and fast. Although there have been reports of tournament organizers heavily watering the fairways, the conditions should still play faster than we typically see. With zero course history to lean on here, I’m going to be looking at pure ball striking as by far the most important stat of the week. Players who have seen the course say that its plays as a traditional links course off the tee, but will require you to fly the ball to the green, rather than play it on the ground like you can over in the U.K. I’m imagining something like a shorter, less hilly version of U.S. Open venue Erin Hills, or an American version of Open Championship venue Royal Birkdale.

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From an initial overview of the course, the par 5s should play fairly difficult and not concede many eagle opportunities. This leads me to weigh par-4 scoring more than usual this week. With so many unknowns, keeping it extremely simple and targeting birdie makers for pure DFS scoring purposes also makes a ton of sense. If the wind blows like it tends to do in Texas, then we could see some carnage out there and this is absolutely a week to check the weather forecast before lock to see if there is a tee-time advantage.

Lineup construction is going to be interesting this week. On one hand, Jordan Speith is the clear favorite and has some of the lowest betting odds that we’ve seen all season long. However, rostering Speith at his price will force you to basically skip over the very solid mid $9,000 or else be forced into playing 4 guys in the low $7,000, which is a risky proposition given the level of talent found in that price range. Speith will likely be the highest-owned player of the week, so fading him and praying he doesn’t lap the field in certainly in play in large field GPPs.

Key Stats 

  • Ball Striking
  • Strokes Gained: Approach
  • Birdie or Better Percentage
  • Par 4 Scoring

Players to Target 

$12,000-$9,000

  • Jordan Speith
  • Sergio Garcia
  • Brenden Grace
  • Marc Leishman
  • Adam Scott

$9,000-$8,000

  • Beau Hossler
  • Rory Sabbatini
  • Grayson Murray

$8,000-$7,000

  • Martin Laird
  • Keith Mitchell
  • Aaron Baddeley
  • Kevin Na
  • John Huh
  • Ricky Werenski

$7,000 and under 

About the author

Bennett Bedford

Bennett Bedford writes a pair of weekly daily fantasy golf (DFS) PGA Tour pieces, including a weekly tournament preview and ideal plays for both cash games and DFS tournaments.

Bedford works with RotoQL, and their RotoQL PGA Lineup Optimizer is a massive advantage when you're building lineups, regardless of contest size or site.