This article is part of our DraftKings PGA DFS Picks series.
LEGACY SHOOTOUT
Location: Phoenix
Course: The Legacy Golf Resort
Yardage: 6,801
Par: 71
Tournament Preview
It's not the PGA Tour, but it is golf. If you had't heard, DraftKings is now offering contests for the Outlaw Tour, the Arizona-based mini tour. RotoWire posted an Outlaw Tour primer last week, and that should help fantasy players learn about the Tour and formulate a lineup. This week, we'll dive deeper into the field.
Unfortunately, this week's Legacy Shootout is the penultimate event on the Arizona-based mini-tour's 2020 calendar. Fear not, though, because after the Outlaw Tour season ends, the affiliated Golden State Tour resumes its season with two more events in May before the PGA Tour's tentative return to action June 11. The jury is still out on whether that event will take place, but that's a story for another day.
Right now, we're talking Legacy Shootout. There are 57 golfers in the field for the 36-hole, no-cut event that begins on Tuesday. Lineups lock at 10 a.m. ET on Tuesday, with DraftKings offering Showdown games with entry fees from as little as a dime -- that's right, 10 cents -- all the way to $5,300. There are many increments in between. It's the same as a regular golf week: pick six golfers using a $50,000 salary cap.
Several semi-notable golfers have played in Outlaw Tour tournaments this season, such as Alex Cejka, who won last week's event, and Brandon Harkins, who won earlier in the season. This week, there is no one entered with even that profile. The field has about a dozen guys who have played either this year or last year on the Korn Ferry Tour or the Mackenzie Tour in Canada and thus are ranked in the OWGR. That's not to say no one has played in a PGA Tour event. Some have. But the vast majority of the field has never played in an event.
The Outlaw Tour season spans 22 events; but only one player, Matt Gurska -- who is in the field this week -- has played in as many as 10 events. With such a short season, and with tournaments only two or three rounds and all in Arizona and spanning eight months, it's conceivable that a player could have played in every event. But that hasn't even come close to being the case. Many golfers have dipped their toe for maybe two or three weeks, so it's challenging to formulate a lineup because it's hard to determine who has been playing well, especially for golfers under $8,000. The Outlaw Tour website does list money leaders and stats leaders. For stats, we recommend concentrating on the counting stats rather than averages. A guy with a low scoring average may have only a half dozen rounds since there does not appear to be a minimum qualifying total. Something such as total birdies would be a better indicator as to who is playing well. Coincidentally or not, Gurksa leads that category at 130 birdies in 24 rounds across his 10 events. Gurska leads the season with two wins, though he is third on the money list behind Riley Wheeldon, who is in the field, and Sam Triplett, who is not. The money is microscopic by PGA Tour standards. Wheeldon has won $18,816 in his nine starts. Gurska won $2,000 and $3,000 in his two wins. The big individual winner this season was Harkins, who took home $7,000 for his victory earlier this season.
The Legacy course is a par-71 track, but interestingly it has four par-5s and five par-3s. That means only nine par-4s. Weird.
Weather-wise, it's getting hot in Phoenix. The high temperature is expected to be in the mid-80s on Tuesday but in the mid-90s on Wednesday. No rain, little wind, moderate humidity. Still, hot is hot.
Key Stats to Winning at Legacy
• Greens in regulation
• Putting average
• Total birdies
Champion's Profile
Who are we kidding? Nobody knows much about the golfers, much less the course. But as we mentioned above, there are about a dozen guys with far more pedigree than the rest of the field. It would not be a bad plan to stock up on as many as possible. Chances are very good that one of them will win -- though remember, there are only Showdown contests, not Classic.
DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS
Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap
Tier 1 Values
Dylan Wu - $10,800 (Winning odds at golfodds.com: 7-2)
The top guy on the DraftKings is by far the top-ranked player in the field, a more-than-respectable 304th in the OWGR. That's higher than many guys playing in PGA Tour and European Tour events. Wu is a Korn Ferry regular, who, with three top-10s in six starts in 2020, sits fifth in that Tour's standings and is in good position to earn a PGA Tour card. He played in a PGA event last fall -- the Sanderson Farms Championship -- but missed the cut. The 23-year-old Northwestern alum played two Outlaw events this season, tying for sixth and for 16th, earning $2,300. Both those events were back in December, but still, at $10,800, Wu seems underpriced.
Riley Wheeldon - $10,000 (12-1)
Wheeldon, pictured above, is far and away the leading money winner on the Outlaw Tour, more than $5,000 ahead of the second-place golfer. Wheeldon, 29, also leads the Outlaw Tour in top-10s, with eight of them in 10 starts. He has a win and two seconds this season. Wheeldon is a Canadian who played 12 events on the Mackenzie Tour in 2019, with one top-10 and three additional top-25s.
Tier 2 Values
Jeremy Paul - $9,800 (12-1)
Paul, 26, has played seven Outlaw Tour events this season and has finished top-10 in all of them -- three of them runners-up. Not to shabby. He is also 10th on the Tour in earnings. Paul is a native of Germany who played 11 events in Canada last year and notched six top-25s, two of them doubling as top-10s. He attended the University of Colorado.
Matt Marshall - $8,600 (30-1)
Yet another Mackenzie Tour player, the 35-year-old Marshall teed it up 11 times in Canada last year and finished with two top-25s. He is sixth on the Outlaw Tour in earnings, having collected almost $10,000 in six starts. That's because he has a win, two T3s, a top-10 and a top-20. Pretty impressive, actually, for the Nevada native.
Tier 3 Values
Alberto Sanchez - $8,000 (50-1)
Another from the Mackenzie Tour, Sanchez made the cut in seven of 11 Canadian starts last year. He has played in only one Outlaw Tour event this year, in early April, and finished 20th. Sanchez is Arizona through and through, a Tucson native who attended Arizona State.
Mitchel Carlson - $7,900 (60-1)
Carlson has made two Outlaw Tour starts, one a tie for 12th and other a tie for 26th. The T12 came just last week at the Arrowhead Classic. Carlson played one Korn Ferry Tour event last year and missed the cut.
Long-Shot Values
Zach Giusti - $6,700 (250-1)
Giusti is a 28-year-old from Ontario, Canada, who made it to the U.S. Open sectionals last year. He did not make it to Pebble Beach. Giusti is a burly 6-foot-1, 250-pound left-hander. He has made three Outlaw Tour starts, with a tie for fourth, a tie for 18th and a tie for 29th.
Jeff Galloway - $6,400 (300-1)
The 29-year-old California native -- a huge Kobe Bryant fan based on his Twitter account -- has made three Outlaw Tour starts this season. He has posted one top-10, another top-20, and he just missed a third top-25 with a T26.
