DraftKings PGA DFS Picks: Biltmore Championship Asheville Cash and GPP Strategy

BILTMORE CHAMPIONSHIP ASHEVILLE

Purse: $5M
Winner's Share: $900,000
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the winner
Location: Arden, N.C.
Course: The Cliffs at Walnut Cove
Yardage: 7,249
Par: 71
2025 champion: New tournament

Tournament Preview

And we're back.

The PGA Tour's regular season is over, the playoffs are over and now it's time for the fall season, officially known as FedExCup Fall.

The eight-event slate begins with a new tournament, the Biltmore Championship Asheville, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina.

For years, the autumn lid-lifter was the Frys.com/Safeway/Fortinet/Procore Championship in Napa, Calif., but the Johnny Miller-connected tournament is no more. The final winner was Scottie Scheffler, as the U.S. Ryder Cup team gathered en masse to stay fresh for the international competition two weeks later (it didn't work). This time around, the Presidents Cup is next week at Medinah. Jackson Koivun heads a list of seven players from both sides who will be on hand this week. More on the field in a minute.

The recently completed FedExCup Playoffs featured 70 golfers, and all of them have secured their playing privileges for 2027. The fall events will complete the top 100 players who will keep their full Tour cards for next season. There will be a break next week for the Presidents Cup, then the Tour will move on to Utah, Japan, Bermuda, Mexico (for two events) and Texas before the annual finale, The RSM Classic at Sea Island in Georgia, just before Thanksgiving.

Points already earned this season will stay with the golfers and most will keep accruing them though the fall. The only ones who won't are the top-50 who made the BMW Championship, because they've already done all they can do, securing their cards and getting spots in every signature event next season.

For everyone else, there's still a lot to play for in the fall. Those finishing between Nos. 51 and 60 in points will get into two early 2027 signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera.

The biggest names outside the top 50 right now are Jordan Spieth (No. 52), Max Homa (53), Corey Conners (59), Shane Lowry (62), Koivun (67), Keegan Bradley (74) and Brooks Koepka (94).

Koivun will headline this week's 132-man field, and he was set to be joined by Justin Thomas, who was a big get for this fledgling tournament. But he pulled out after the field was published. That left Jacob Bridgeman as the only other U.S. Presidents Cupper in the field. For the International side, Conners, Nick Taylor, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Ryo Hisatsune and Nico Echavarria will take part. Assistant captains Webb Simpson of the U.S. team and Taylor Pendrith and Camilo Villegas of the Internationals are also entered. Other names of note include Tony Finau, J.T. Poston, Davis Thompson, Lucas Glover, Kevin Kisner, Ben James and 18-year-old sponsor invite Tyler Watts, the world's No. 3-ranked amateur who attends the University of Tennessee and was just part of the victorious U.S. Walker Cup team.

The PGA Tour and the Biltmore Estate and Explore Asheville group signed a four-year agreement, meaning this event will continue into the revamped 2028 season and beyond. The purse is a mere $5 million total, one-quarter of that for a signature event.

This will be the first Tour stop in Asheville since 1942. As you'll recall, Ben Hogan completed a back-to-back-to-back of the Asheville Open to tie a bow on the brief and quirky history of a tournament played not too far where some 75 years later parts of "The Hunger Games" were filmed. There was one tournament in 1923, the Asheville-Biltmore Open, won by the Hall of Famer Walter Hagen, then a four-event run from 1939 to 1942.

Now, almost two years after Hurricane Helene roared through the region, the PGA Tour is back.

The Cliffs at Walnut Grove is a 2005 Jack Nicklaus design with the odd par-71 layout of five par-3s, 4 par-5s and nine par-4s. It is a course on the shorter side, with all the par-5s very short (568 yards or less), all the par-3s very long (all but one are 200-plus) and the par-4s largely balanced.

As the tournament website says, the "front nine holes wind across open fields of former farmlands, plays across soft ridges and features bunkers that create multiple risk and reward opportunities. The back nine plays into native woodland vegetation, criss-crossing over and around mountain streams."

As often is the case, tournament websites make their course sound like the second coming of Oakmont. Don't expect anything overly difficult this week.

The course is at roughly 2,100 feet of elevation, so that will provide a little kick for distance. And, with the fairways generously wide, we'll see a lot guys let fly off the tee with little hindrance. There is water on five holes leading to the bentgrass greens.

As for the weather, it's looking like there will be a lot of rain, thereby softening conditions and making the short course even easier. There are afternoon thunderstorms forecast throughout the tournament, but it's more of an all-day rain on Friday. The early forecast suggests there could be some second-round stoppages. Otherwise, highs will be in the upper-80s without much wind.

Key Stats to Winning at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove

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

• Strokes Gained: Approach
• Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green
• Strokes Gained: Putting
• Approaches from 150-200 yards
• Par-5 scoring, 500-550 yards
• Birdie Percentage/Birdie or Better

Champion's Profile

There is no course history of any consequence to help formulate a profile. So whenever in doubt, start with guys with great iron play -- SG: Approach and Tee-to-Green.

Distance does not seem paramount on such a short course and, with the fairways averaging 35-plus yards at the 300-yard markers, accuracy might not be vital either.

New courses and new Tour events tend to err on the side of ease, so we should expected this to turn into a big-time birdie-fest.

With the par-3s all long, it would be prudent for the golfers to tread water there and load up on the short quartet of par-5s.

Aggressive play will be rewarded, without much fear of disaster lurking.

As a reminder, much of the field has not played in more than a month, since the regular-season finale at the Wyndham or even before. There are some players who've been active on the DP World Tour. 

DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS

Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap

$10,000+

Jacob Bridgeman - $10,300 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +1850)
Bridgeman is the highest-ranked golfer in the field at No. 29, but is a shade behind Koivun ($10,500) on the DraftKings board. After a very fast start to the season that included his first PGA Tour win at Riviera, Bridgeman slumped midseason before finishing strong at the BMW (9th) and TOUR Championship (T4). He is ranked second on Tour in SG: Putting and eighth in birdie average.

$9,000-$9,990

Davis Thompson - $9,700 (+2600)
Thompson made a furious late charge to get into the playoffs, but wound up just short. In his final three tournaments, he tied for seventh at the 3M Open, for eighth at the Rocket Classic and for 14th at the Wyndham. He wound up 77th in the point standings but somehow is ranked 40th in SG: Total and 23rd in scoring average. Bizarre. Thompson also is ranked 40th in SG: Approach. Oh, and he also was first in model.

Ben James - $9,500 (+2450)
The rookie was 108th in points after the Wyndham, accomplishing that in just eight starts. He closed with a share of third at the Wyndham, where he got it to 18-under, illustrating that he can go low. The former University of Virginia also finished top-25 at the U.S. Open. James placed fourth in our model thanks to a strong, balanced game across the board. As of Monday night, he had the third-lowest odds in the field at the DK Sportsbook.

$8,000-$8,900

Blades Brown - $8,800 (+4100)
The 19-year-old Brown split time between the Korn Ferry and PGA Tours this season. He's done well enough on the KFT to graduate to the PGA Tour full-time in 2027. On the big circuit, he's made 8 of 10 cuts, six of which were top-25s with two top-10s. Brown didn't play enough measured rounds to qualify, but he would've been ranked 11th on the PGA Tour in SG: Approach and 22nd in SG: T2G.

Jackson Suber - $8,200 (+4200)
At 26, Suber is downright ancient compared to some of the other guys we've picked. He missed out on the playoffs, but not by much at No. 79 in points. He had three very high finishes in fields far stronger than this one: T4 at both the Byron Nelson and Canadian Open and T6 at the John Deere. Suber ranks 23rd on Tour in SG: Approach and 17th in birdie average.

$7,000-$7,900

Ben Kohles - $7,700 (+6000)
Kohles had a great start to the season on the Korn Ferry Tour, which included a win in June. He didn't do much afterward, in large part because he played a bunch of PGA Tour events. He had two top-10s and five top-25s in only 12 PGA Tour starts, including a top-5 at the Deere and a top-10 at the 3M Open. If Kohles had enough rounds to qualify, he'd be ranked first on Tour in SG: Approach (not a typo) and 11th in SG: T2G.

Kris Ventura - $7,100 (+5300)
Ventura has made only seven cuts all season, but he backloaded them with five coming in his final five regular-season starts, two of which were top-5s. In other words, he found something very late in the season to spark his game. As such, Ventura's odds at the DK Sportsbook are far shorter than other golfers similarly priced in DFS. Also as such, he popped at No. 15 in our model, which heavily weighs recent play.

$6,000-$6,900

Austin Smotherman - $6,700 (+15000)
Smotherman is another guy who finished not to far out of a playoff spot, at No. 80. His tee-to-green game is outstanding but he just couldn't putt a lick. Still, he somehow ranked 63rd on Tour in birdie average. Smotherman ranks ninth on Tour in SG: Approach, 54th in SG: T2G and 22nd in driving accuracy.

Gordon Sargent - $6,500 (+23000)
This is where we often put a disclaimer explaining that the $6,000s are really bad, especially at $6,500 on down, and we don't like any of them, but this is the one we like best, with "like" being a relative term. Sargent, the 23-year-old former Vanderbilt star, made only six cuts all season. One of them was a tie for second at Puntacana. Yes, that was an opposite-field event, but the Biltmore strength is opposite-field-adjacent. Really, this is a dart throw. But remember: More than half the field will make the cut, which means some low $6,000s will get to the weekend. (People reading this right now: "So, you're saying there's a chance????")

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