DraftKings PGA DFS Picks: Baycurrent Classic Cash and GPP Strategy

BAYCURRENT CLASSIC

Purse: $8M
Winner's Share: $1.44M
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the Winner
Location: Yokohama, Japan
Course: Yokohama Country Club (West course)
Yardage: 7,315
Par: 71
2024 Champion: Nico Echavarria (Narashino CC)

Tournament Preview

It happens almost every year on the PGA Tour where a sponsor changes and a familiar tournament suddenly becomes unfamiliar. You know, like when the Honda Classic became the Cognizant. The what? Now we have another one and many of you are probably saying to yourself: "Baycurrent Classic? What the heck is the Baycurrent Classic?"

Well, the Baycurrent Classic used to be the ZOZO Championship.

New name, new course, same country.

The PGA Tour makes its annual return to Japan for what normally is the premier event of the fall season. That's not the case this year, after Team USA infiltrated the Procore Championship to tune up for the Ryder Cup (how did that work out again?). But what we have this week is the best field on Tour until January.

Hideki Matsuyama is the star attraction in his homeland. He won the ZOZO in 2021. Xander Schauffele and 2023 ZOZO champion Collin Morikawa, both with Japanese ancestry, are back for the seventh straight year. The 78-man no-cut field also features Adam Scott, Wyndham Clark, Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Chris Gotterup and Sungjae Im. Nico Echavarria is the defending champion.

The field has strict parameters: the top 60 available from the FedExCup Standings; the winner of the 2025 BMW Japan Golf Tour Championship, one of the tour's majors (No. 262-ranked Taiga Semikawa); the winner of the 2024 ACN Championship (No. 140 Takumi Kanaya); the top seven available from the Japan Golf Tour money list, among them No. 126 Kazuki Higa; four others from the Japan tour, notably No. 128 Keita Nakajima and No. 330 Ryo Ishikawa; and five sponsor invites, including the aforementioned Homa and Sahith Theegala.

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We can't lose sight that many PGA Tour golfers are still fighting for playing privileges and hierarchy for next season, trying to end 2025 in the top-100 in the FedEx Cup standings. After this week, just four tournaments remain, so each one is vital. Unfortunately for most of the guys fighting for their jobs, they aren't in this limited field.

This tournament had been played at Narashino Country Club since Tiger Woods won the inaugural edition in 2019 --save the 2020 pandemic year when it was redirected to Los Angeles.

Now it moves to Yokohama Country Club and the West course, which opened in 1960 (16 holes from the West will be in play and two from the East). The design team of Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore did a West remodel in 2015. It's a short course with a quirky setup: only two par-5s -- both on the front, both under 540 yards -- three par-3s and 13 par-4s. Only four of the par-4s exceed 450 yards.

Yokohama features very wide, undulating fairways lined with pine trees leading up to large bentgrass greens averaging 6,500 square feet and running a speedy 12+ on the Stimpmeter.

Crenshaw and Coore are known for their bunkering. But we shall see what they have come up with because a short course plus wide fairways plus big greens all add up to a track the golfers should tear apart, as is often the case with debuting courses.

As for the weather, Thursday is shaping up as a nasty day, with rain, wind and chilly temperatures barely reaching 70. After that, the rain and wind will largely be gone and it will warm up through the weekend.

Key Stats to Winning at the Yokohama Country Club

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

• Strokes Gained: Approach/Greens in Regulation
• Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green
• Approach from 125-150 yards
• Strokes Gained: Putting
• Birdie Average

Past Champions

2024 - Nico Echavarria (Narashino)
2023 - Collin Morikawa (Narashino)
2022 - Keegan Bradley (Narashino)
2021 - Hideki Matsuyama (Narashino)
2020 - Patrick Cantlay (Sherwood CC)
2019 - Tiger Woods (Narashino)

Champion's Profile

A new course. Always fun. An extensive search of the Internet uncovered very few tournaments previously played at Yokohama. There was something called the Yokohama Minato Championship there last year. Japan's Ren Yonezawa, who is currently No. 214 in the world, won it at 22-under -- and he is in this field.

When flying blind, it's best to get back to basics. Good approach play is always in vogue. And this week, that would be short approaches on a short track, generally inside of 150 yards.

The fairways are super wide, so golfers can let fly off the tee. But the course is so short, that might not matter. Don't discount anyone based on limited driving distance.

First-time PGA Tour courses tend to be easier, so let's plan on guys who can go low, make a lot of birdies. The greens are on the big side, and that often works in favor of the better putters.

The over/under on the winning score this week on golfodds.com was set at 264.5 -- 19.5 under par.

DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS

Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap

$9,000-$9,900

Alex Noren - $9,800 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +2200)
we are passing on the top four guys on the DK board -- Schauffele, Matsuyama, Morikawa and Gotterup -- and starting with the hottest player on the planet. After missing almost five months of 2025 while injured, Noren has won two of his past three starts to zoom inside the top-20 OWGR. Three months ago he was in the 80s. The two wins were on the DP World Tour. Before that, Noren had top-10s at the 3M Open and Wyndham.

Kurt Kitayama - $9,400 (+2200)
Our model puts Kitayama at No. 1 overall based on his past 24 rounds of play. Those 24 rounds aren't that recent, as he has been idle since the BMW in August. But Kitayama made a spirited late-season run -- highlighted by a win at the 3M Open -- that left him just short of the Tour Championship. Kitayama has been spectacular tee-to-green during his surge, and even his putting has improved.

Kevin Yu - $9,000 (+2500)
Yu is coming off a T11 last week at the Sanderson Farms, a very good result considering he was the defending champion. He is one of the top drivers on Tour combining distance and accuracy, with strong approach numbers, too. Yu played the ZOZO the past two years. While it's obviously not the same course, he showed he can travel halfway around the world and acclimate himself to the time change and everything else and still play good golf. Yu tied for 16th last year at the ZOZO.

$8,000-$8,900

Max Homa - $8,900 (+3500)
Homa has been grinding for months and the results ae starting to show. He had to swallow his pride and play in some lesser events as he's looked to recapture his game. He's had top-20s in the first two fall events, including at the Procore with all the U.S. Ryder Cuppers in the field. Homa doesn't have to finish inside the top-100 to keep his card -- he's exempt via multiple tournament wins -- but says he wants to. That's pretty darn dedicated. His top-20 last week at the Sanderson Farms moved him to 99th in points.

Min Woo Lee - $8,800 (+3000)
Anytime we see a course with wide-open fairways and also requires a lot of birdies to keep up, we think of aggressive players. And Lee is one of them. He went into a tailspin after his maiden PGA Tour win at the Houston Open in the spring. But lately Lee has been finding his game in Europe, with a T11 at the loaded BMW PGA Championship then a T5 at the Open de France.

$7,000-$7,900

Matt McCarty - $7,600 (+5500)
It's hard to believe that a guy who finished top-20 at the both THE PLAYERS and Masters didn't make the FedExCup Playoffs. That illustrates a guy with a high ceiling but also a low floor. McCarty shot a 64 at the Procore three weeks ago but also a 76. He is a top-25 putter who can catch fire, and he landed in the top-10 in our model -- not only because of putting but because of he's excellent on short approach shots.

Mac Meissner - $7,100 (+5500)
Meissner went through a brutal stretch midway through the season and couldn't recover in time to make the playoffs. But he was T14 at the 3M, runner-up at the Wyndham and, last week, T14 at the Sanderson. He has some of the strongest approach numbers in this field over his past 24 rounds. This is Meissner's second trip to Japan after tying for 27th last year.

$6,000-$6,900

Aldrich Potgieter - $6,700 (+9000)
We said earlier that you don't have to fade a guy because he's a short hitter. But there's nothing against going with the longest hitter on Tour, either, especially since his aggressiveness will be protected by the wide-open fairways. Potgieter just missed advancing to the second playoff event, finishing 52nd in points, after winning the Rocket Classic over the summer at 22-under.

Ren Yonezawa - $6,200 (+20000)
There are 14 Japanese players in the field and almost all of them are under $6,500. Yonezawa was the winner of that low-level Yokohama tournament mentioned earlier and is ranked higher than most of his countrymen playing this week. All the players this low on the DK board are a complete crapshoot, so why not go with a guy whose at least familiar with the course and played well there? Besides, Yonezawa also lands inside of top 45 in our model. Remember, there's no cut.

Scanning Len's picks for the Baycurrent Classic? See how they look in RotoWire's PGA DFS Lineup Optimizer.