DraftKings PGA DFS Picks: TOUR Championship Cash and GPP Strategy

TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

Purse: $40M
Winner's Share: $10M 
Location: Atlanta 
Course: East Lake Golf Club 
Yardage: 7,440
Par: 70
2025 champion: Tommy Fleetwood

Tournament Preview

It was a year ago when the PGA Tour changed formats for the season-ending TOUR Championship. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's called: "The golfer with the best score wins."

Yes, after years of a flawed points system and then the widely panned "starting strokes format," the Tour put all 30 golfers in the field on equal footing. Whoever had the best 72-hole score would win the playoff finale and be the FedExCup champion.

Tommy Fleetwood captured the 2025 TOUR Championship for his first win on the PGA Tour in perhaps the most feel-good golf story of the year.

But, as with most things in life, it was not necessarily a perfect solution in everyone's mind.

Last week at the BMW Championship, Matt Fitzpatrick, who after a three-win season beginning in January racked up the second most FedExCup points behind Scottie Scheffler, was asked about the format.

"... Yeah I've said it a lot about the playoffs, that I understand the playoffs in the U.S. are a very big thing in other sports, and it's obviously hard to do that with golf because of the format of golf," the Englishman said. "I think the player who has played the best all year from January to next week deserves to be the FedExCup champion, the guy who has made the most points, which, you know, is going to be Scottie Scheffler pretty much. And that's how it should be."

It was a very thoughtful, measured take, and you can read Fitzpatrick's full answer and reasoning here:

Points are still used throughout the season to determine the top-30 golfers -- and to distribute $100 million in FedExCup bonus payouts. Scheffler, as the top golfer, will received $23 million. Fitzpatrick will get $13 million and Wyndham Clark will get $ million after moving up to third by winning the BMW. The player finishing 30th in points, the last man into the TOUR Championship, in this case Ryan Fox, receives $460,000. But the points that helped determine all that are now done. (Even players from 31st to 125th will receive at last $100,000.)

Fitzpatrick certainly has a point: Scheffler, despite being the best golfer over eight months, has no better chance to win the FedExCup than Fox.

While the Tour has returned to a traditional stroke-play format, don't get too used to it, as Fitzpatrick alluded to. CEO Brian Rolapp has already stated that as part of the many changes coming in 2028, there will be a season-ending match-play TOUR Championship -- and at rotating venues -- to determine the FedExCup champion. So this is expected to be the second-to-last time we'll see East Lake and, for many golf fans, the last time can't come soon enough.

We can review the field, as we always do, but there's not much to discuss this time. Just about all the usual suspects are here, including Scheffler, Fitzpatrick, Clark, Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy, making his ninth straight start in the TOUR Championship, tops in the field. Six golfers are making their maiden starts at East Lake: Fox, Ryan Gerard, Kristoffer Reitan, Min Woo Lee, Alex Smalley and Alex Fitzpatrick, Matt's younger brother.

The FedExCup champion may still be up for grabs, but it says here that it's a ***fait accompli** that Scheffler will take his fifth straight Jack Nicklaus Award as the Tour's Player of the Year -- even if Clark wins again this week. While the players won't even vote on all the postseason awards until after the fall portion of the schedule ends around Thanksgiving, the POY won't be affected by the autumn tournaments. The winner will be announced in early December.

Scheffler technically won the TOUR Championship two years ago -- in the eyes of the PGA Tour. But not in the eyes of the Official World Golf Ranking. In fact, according to the OWGR, Scheffler has never won the Tour's season-ending championship. The OWGR based its results on the 72-hole score, disregarding the starting strokes format. By that measure, Scheffler finished third in 2024 and Collin Morikawa won the tournament.

East Lake Golf Club underwent a full-blown renovation/restoration after the 2023 tournament. Noted architect Andrew Green's goal for the Tom Bendolow (1904)/Donald Ross (1913) design was to return the course to Ross' vision. As the 2024 official Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) tournament fact sheet put it: "The course was completely rebuilt from the ground up."

Using a previously undiscovered 1949 aerial photograph as guidance, Green rebuilt everything -- tee boxes, fairways, bunkers, greens, maybe even the snack shop.

The course went from 7.346 yards to the current 7,440. The Bermudagrass Greens were shifted, along with surrounding runoff areas, and are now bigger, at an average of 6,238 square feet, an increase of about 600 square feet per hole. There's more fairway and a lot less rough -- that sounds easier and it has been the past two years -- four more bunkers (78), more strategically placed bunkers to affect tee shots and water in play on eight holes instead of six.

There are eight par-4s of at least 450ish-plus yards, with two surpassing 500, including the massive 530-yard 14th, which is even longer than one of the two par-5s, the 525-yard 6th. What we have liked about the course all along is that accuracy off the tee counts more than in most places. Yes, there is now more fairway and less rough, but the newly placed bunkers helped to neutralize all that, and both Morikawa and Fleetwood were quite accurate off the tee (see the Champion's Profile below).

Let's talk lineup construction, because with such a small field, there are definitely nuances we don't see any other week.

The goal here, of course, is to win your game with your six-man DFS lineup. And with Scheffler, that will be hard. He is priced at $14,000, $3,000 more than No. 2 McIlroy and more than double all 10 guys in the $6,000s. If you play Scheffler, you will have $36,000 remaining, an average of $7,200 for the other five guys. Mathematically, of course, it's doable. But far from easy to win. You'd need to polish your crystal ball and not only find the three or four best $6,000 guys, but also hope they all will have high finishes. As always, we'll give you options in all price ranges below. But it seems an easier path to winning your DK games would be avoiding Scheffler, even if you are expecting him to win, as we are. Besides, at this point, Scheffler's status is not known after playing last week with hand, foot and mouth disease.

As for the weather, it will be hot but not unbearably hot, with high temperatures in the 80s during the four days. But there's a good chance of thundershowers from Thursday afternoon through Friday. The wind will be light.

TOUR Championship factoids: All 30 golfers in the field received a two-year exemption on Tour, even if they didn't win a tournament. They also receive berths into all the majors next season. They already got into all the signature events by reaching last week's BMW Championship. ... The "starting strokes format" died after a controversial six-year stretch. Imagine giving the best golfer, in most cases Scheffler, a head start. ... There used to be a points system in place. One year, in this case 2008, Vijay Singh actually locked up the FedExCup even before the TOUR Championship -- because he had such a big lead in points.

Key Stats to Winning at East Lake CC

The most important indicators every week are current form and course history. "Key Stats" follow in importance.

• Driving Accuracy/Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee 
• Strokes Gained: Approach/Greens in Regulation/Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green
• Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green/Scrambling 
• Strokes Gained: Putting 
• Par-4 Efficiency, 450-500 and 500+ yards

Past Champions

2025 - Tommy Fleetwood
2024 - Scottie Scheffler
2023 - Viktor Hovland
2022 - Rory McIlroy
2021 - Patrick Cantlay
2020 - Dustin Johnson
2019 - Rory McIlroy
2018 - Tiger Woods
2017 - Xander Schauffele
2016 - Rory McIlroy

Champion's Profile

We're gonna limit our analysis here to the past two years, since the major course restoration.

The lowest score in relation to par (not including the staggered start) is often in the mid- to upper teens, as it was last year with Fleetwood winning at 18-under. He was three shots clear of Cantlay and Russell Henley.

Fleetwood ranked only 23rd in SG: Off-the-Tee, losing more than a stroke to the field. But that was because he was short off the tee, not inaccurate. He ranked 23rd in distance and fourth in fairways hit. He also ranked seventh in SG: Approach and greens in regulation, and first in SG: Putting. He gained more than eight strokes on the field on the greens.

We don't want to say that if you putt like that, nothing else matters, but it goes a long way in covering up any imperfections in your game.

Henley ranked sixth in SG: Off-the-Tee, Approach and Putting. Cantlay ranked 13th, first and 12th, respectively.  None of it was good enough to overcome Fleetwood's putting.

Two years ago, scores spiked a bit with Morikawa getting the low-72 at 22-under. Sahith Theegala was a shot back and Scheffler was two back. So, three guys were 20-under or better.

All three were statistically sound in most areas, especially with their irons. All three finished in the top-5 in SG: Approach (Morikawa was fifth). All three were top-8 in both greens in regulation (Morikawa was eighth) and SG: Putting (Morikawa was seventh). They all finished top-5 in SG: OTT (Morikawa was second).

We still like guys who can get the ball in the fairway.

The over/under on the winning score at golfodds.com was set at 261.5, which is 18.5 under.

DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS

Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap

$9,000-$9,990

Ludvig Aberg - $9,700 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook +1375) 
As always, Scheffler will be near the top of the leaderboard. It's just hard to see a pathway to victory with five guys in the low $7,000s and $6,000s. So we start with Aberg. If you'd look at the number of high finishes he has had, plus his stats, strokes gained and otherwise, there's a good chance you'd think he'd have won a tournament this season. Maybe two. But he hasn't, so there's just something missing. But what? Aberg has five top-5s and eight top-10s this season. He's ranked top-20 on Tour in SG: Off-the-Tee and Approach, top-10 in Tee-to-Green and top-50 in Putting. He's getting more than 60 percent of his drives in the fairway -- good but not great. He is ranked seventh in a stat called Final Round Performance. It's all there but a win.

Sam Burns - $9,200 (+1475) 
Burns has not been very accurate off the tee and was under 60 percent last week, 31st in the field of 50. As a result, he tied for 28th. Not great. So why is he a pick? He's had a great season, with top-3s in three of his past five starts. And he was seventh here last year and fourth three years ago. Plus he's down toward the bottom of the $9,000s. For the fourth best putter on Tour season at a great price, we'll take our chances.

$8,000-$8,900

Patrick Cantlay - $8,900 (+1600) 
We liked Cantlay last week and we like him again this week. He's really been one of the better players over the second half of the season, after a brutally bad start, especially on the greens. He didn't putt all that well last week, yet still was runner-up to Clark. He also was 12th the week before in Memphis and eighth at the Rocket Classic. Cantlay was shared runner-up to Fleetwood here last year, sixth in 2023 and fourth in 2021.

Collin Morikawa - $8,100 (+2050)  
Morikawa had the low-72 here two years ago. He also finished fourth the year before. On a course that puts an emphasis on getting the ball in the fairway, Morikawa is an obvious consideration. He's not the best putter but also far from the worst -- ranked 86th on the season -- and he ranked 14th in the BMW field last week in tying for fourth.

$7,000-$7,900

Matt Fitzpatrick - $7,800 (+2000)   
This is simply a value-based play. The No. 2 guy on Tour this season is in the $7,000s. Fitzpatrick wasn't great last week, but he did tie for 12th in the playoff opener two weeks ago. He is ranked third on Tour in both SG: Approach and Tee-to-Green. He's 17th in driving accuracy. For all the success in Fitzpatrick's career, he's played East Lake only twice, most recently three years ago.

Russell Henley - $7,500 (+2900)  
The Tour's poster boy for hitting it straight. Is it any wonder Henley shared runner-up here a year ago and was fourth in 2024? No, it's not. Henley leads the Tour in driving accuracy. He had an under-the-radar decent tournament a week ago with a tie for 12th at the BMW, his 13th top-25 among his 16 made cuts.

$6,000-$6,900

Tom Kim - $6,800 (+4800)  
Kim snuck into the TOUR Championship at No. 29. Just two months ago, he was about 100th in the points standings. He was third at the U.S. Open, won the Scottish Open, then fifth at the Wyndham. Plus he was 12th two weeks ago in Memphis. He's ranked fourth on Tour in SG: Approach and 29th in driving accuracy, a number that was worse earlier this season. Kim has played East Lake just once, and that was three years ago.

Alex Smalley - $6,300 (+5900)  
Smalley has been one of the biggest surprises of the season and thus will be in his first TOUR Championship. He's coming off a tie for 16th last week at the BMW and for 24th at the St. Jude -- top-25s in the first two playoff events is pretty darn good, especially for someone now priced in the low $6,000s. Smalley is ranked in the top-40 on Tour in SG: Putting and top-25 n both SG: Approach and Total.

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