This article is part of our FanDuel PGA DFS Picks series.
Sanderson Farms Championship
Course: Country Club of Jackson (7,461 yards, par 72)
Purse: $8,200,000
Winner: $1,476,000 and 500 FedExCup points
Tournament Preview
The Ryder Cup in Rome was an exciting event, but the focus quickly shifts back to the FedExCup Fall and all that there still is to play for before 2023 comes to a close.
The Sanderson Farms Championship will be the second of seven fall events to determine status for the 2024 PGA Tour season. The first event was a few weeks ago at the Fortinet Championship in Napa, where Sahith Theegala picked up his first PGA Tour victory. Troy Merritt made the biggest jump in the FedExCup Standings, going from outside full status at No. 133 to inside the top 125 at No. 118. Zecheng Dou enters the Sanderson Farms Championship holding onto that final spot at No. 125 and will need to stay there over the six upcoming tournaments in a seven-week span to lock up full playing status in 2024.
The only Ryder Cup participant making the trek to Jackson, Mississippi is rookie standout Ludvig Aberg. The Swede already has a PGA Tour card locked up for 2024 via his No. 1 ranking on the PGA Tour University rankings, but he can still improve his status by moving up from No. 136. Aberg already picked up a victory at the Omega European Masters on the DP World Tour, but his first PGA Tour victory could potentially help him finish 51-60 in the FedExCup Fall and earn a spot in the two West Coast signature events, as well as invites to the Tournament of Champions and The Masters.
Mackenzie Hughes will look to defend his title, and he just barely missed out on a coveted top-50 finish that would have gotten him into all the signature events in 2024. That being said, at 51st in the standings Hughes is in a good spot to gain access to the West Coast signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera. Five players who finished inside the top 50 in the standings will tee it up in Jackson, and those are Emiliano Grillo, Adam Svensson, Lee Hodges, Eric Cole and Tom Hoge. Grillo and Hoge are the only players currently in the top 50 of the OWGR playing this week, so there are certainly opportunities to be had in this event, which crowned six first-time winners over the last nine years.
Expect the Country Club of Jackson to play firm and fast after a hot summer with minimal precipitation. Temperatures for the practice rounds will be in the 90s before falling to the mid-80s for the first two rounds and then the mid-70s for the weekend. There's a slight chance for some rain early Friday, but it shouldn't be enough to change how the golf course will play. The highest winds will be on Saturday, but at around 10-15 mph that shouldn't be too tricky to handle.
The winning score since the tournament moved to the Country Club of Jackson in 2014 has been at least 16-under-par and the tournament has been decided by one stroke or fewer in four straight years.
Recent Champions
2022 - Mackenzie Hughes (-17)
2021 - Sam Burns (-22)
2020 - Sergio Garcia (-19)
2019 - Sebastian Munoz (-18)
2018 - Cameron Champ (-21)
2017 - Ryan Armour (-19)
2016 - Cody Gribble (-20)
2015 - Peter Malnati (-18)
2014 - Nick Taylor (-16)
2013 - Woody Austin (-20)
Key Stats to Victory
- SG: Approach
- SG: Putting
- Par-5 Scoring
- Driving Distance
Champion's Profile
The Country Club of Jackson is typically stingy off the tee, but with the dry summer the rough shouldn't be quite as penal as past editions. I'd look for the bombers to have an advantage at this par 72 that stretches over 7,400 yards where they will be freed up to mash driver. These four par-5's have also proven to be among the more difficult quartets on the PGA Tour, but I still think performance on the long holes will play a big outcome in a player's final position on the leaderboard.
Players will be able to be aggressive on the second shot as well with the green complexes here in Jackson relatively easy for PGA Tour standards. SG: Approach and proximity numbers should prove to be more important than GIR's. The last thing that needs to be brought up are the greens. They don't feature a ton of slope, but they are pretty slick at 13 on the Stimpmeter. They are also annually one of the toughest to convert inside of 10 feet. Players with experience at the Country Club of Jackson who have some idea of the nuances of these greens will have an advantage.
FanDuel Value Picks
The Chalk
Ludvig Aberg ($12,200)
Aberg certainly doesn't have the experience around this place, but he is quite clearly the most talented player in the field. He's young and new enough to the PGA Tour that I see him coming out just as motivated to move inside the top 125 of the FedExCup Standings as he was to prove himself in the Ryder Cup. There's a case to be made that Aberg might already be a top-5 driver in the world, and at this course he will be able to use that skill to great effect.
Stephan Jaeger ($11,900)
Jaeger just continues to roll. His last missed cut on the PGA Tour was 15 starts ago at the RBC Heritage. Over that stretch he has collected eight top-30 finishes. Jaeger has finished top-30 in three of his last four starts in Jackson. He ranks top-35 on the PGA Tour in SG: Tee-to-Green, birdie average and par-5 scoring. Expect him to be in the mix this week.
Emiliano Grillo ($11,600)
Grillo will be making his first start since the TOUR Championship. The Country Club of Jackson has been a comfortable spot for him, as he has made the cut in each of his four starts and notched a fifth-place finish last year. Grillo improved his putting a lot this season, which is a big reason for all the success he had in 2023. The ball striking is also still plenty good enough at 33rd in total driving and 51st in SG: Approach for the year.
Beau Hossler ($10,800)
Hossler has played some really solid golf over the last few months, scoring top-30 finishes in five of his last six starts. He's got the power you're looking for at a course like the Country Club of Jackson and is having yet another stellar putting season. The easy chipping areas should free his approach game up and he has a good chance to record a top-10 like he did back in 2017.
Longer Shots with Value
Akshay Bhatia ($9,700)
Bhatia is easily one of the best ball strikers in this field and checks in at a great price. The 21-year-old ranks top-35 in SG: Off-the-Tee, total driving, SG: Approach, GIR percentage, proximity and SG: Tee-to-Green. Bhatia is also top-25 in both birdie average and par-5 scoring this year. He's only played twice since his first career win at the Barracuda Championship in July, but I expect him to show off this fall and move up from 106th in the standings.
Dylan Wu ($9,600)
Wu has been a great cheap DFS option through much of 2023, and I am more than willing to pay up a bit for his services. Wu posted a pair of top-15s in his last three starts and ranks 16th in birdie average and 15th in par-5 scoring. The 27-year-old isn't a bomber by any means, but he does make up for it with consistent iron play and an effective putting stroke.
Hayden Buckley ($9,100)
Buckley is one of the highest-upside plays on the slate. He struggled toward the end of last season due to a rib injury, but with nearly two months off since his last start I expect to see the Buckley that posted nine top-30s -- including a trio of top-5s -- early in the year. The Mizzou product ranks eighth in both SG: Off-the-Tee and total driving. His biggest weakness is without question the short game, but the straight forward chipping areas in Jackson should mitigate that a bit.
Carson Young ($8,400)
Young got off to a terrible start as a rookie last fall, but he tossed up a top-25 finish on a pretty regular basis from the spring on. One of those was at the Fortinet Championship, where he was T19 and ranked third in SG: Off-the-Tee. Much like Buckley, Young's biggest issue has been the short game, but it shouldn't be as big of a factor this week. The approach play and putting should be enough to make this investment pay off in a big way if he drives is like he did in Napa.
Strategy Tips This Week
Based on a Standard $60K Salary Cap
This is even a weaker field than we saw in Napa and is probably what we should expect for the rest of the fall events, with the exception maybe being the ZOZO Championship in a couple weeks. We're in a tough spot to gauge form, as a number of these players haven't teed it up since August. As such, I think we can throw recent from on the back burner and try to target skill sets. Power, iron play, and putting will be the three biggest keys to success at the Country Club of Jackson. In this type of field it's hard to find a player who is really strong in all three of those, but if you can get two pieces of the puzzle that is who you want to roster.
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