DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Helper: Workday Charity Open

Daily fantasy golf requires a new approach for each and every event.

The course and field change week after week, making no two contests alike. That means you need to refine your approach for each PGA Tour event to try to find golfers who are primed to excel for your daily fantasy golf lineups.

Each week, we have a course primer, and our daily fantasy golf projections and lineup builder can help you get started, but these golfers stand out specifically on DraftKings for the Workday Charity Open.

Key Stats

Let's get to the picks. For details on why these stats stand out this week, check out the course primer.

Stats are from Fantasy National Golf Club and are for golfers in the field over the last 50 rounds.

High-Priced Studs

Justin Thomas (DraftKings Price: $11,100 | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds: +1200) - Thomas ranks 1st in strokes gained: approach, birdies or better gained, and strokes gained: par 5s, 17th in strokes gained: around the green, and 24th in greens in regulation (GIR) gained. A two-time winner already this year, Thomas started strong back from the COVID-19 layoff with back to back top 10 finishes before a disastrous performance at TPC River Highlands. While not altogether uncommon to see Thomas lose strokes putting, more unusual was that he lost with his irons as well. It was just the second time he lost on both approach and putting since...last year's Memorial Tournament. The stats and recent form are there, but carpe diem with JT -- he has been hit or miss at Muirfield Village GC, with three missed cuts and two top 10s in the last five years.

Patrick Cantlay ($10,600 | +1500) - Last year's Memorial winner put on a clinic across the board, gaining 3.0 or more strokes in each of the individual strokes gained categories. He was not his sharp self in his return to action at the Travelers Championship, gaining just 0.7 strokes on approach but putting the lights out (+5.1 strokes) to finish T11. Cantlay's two other finishes at Muirfield are 4th and T35, with top-15 finishes at our correlated courses Augusta National, TPC River Highlands, and Innisbrook Resort over the past four seasons. He ranks 3rd in birdies or better gained, 6th in strokes gained: approach, 12th on par 5s, and 15th around the greens.

Xander Schauffele ($10,200 | +2100) - Schauffele missed the cut in his first trip to Muirfield but bounced back nicely with a T14 last year. He is 2nd in greens in regulation gained, 5th in strokes gained on par 5s and birdies or better gained, 16th in strokes gained: approach, and 35th in strokes gained: around the green. Top 25 finishes in six of his last seven starts despite really not being on his best game are a testament to his consistency and overall skill. If one piece of his game isn't working, he can make up for it elsewhere; if it all clicks, he wins.

Mid-Priced Options

Collin Morikawa ($9,200 | +3300) - Long term, Morikawa is about as consistent as they come. His missed cut at the Travelers Championship was the first of his career, and made all the more surprising in that it's a track that should suit him quite well. He's possibly in the first funk of his career, having lost at least 2.0 strokes to the field in three consecutive rounds between Sunday at Hilton Head and his two miserable days in Connecticut. A week off to reset should do him well, and while we are keen on around the green game at Muirfield, where he's a horrid 106th, Morikawa's overall profile is still enticing enough to garner a few shares this week. He is 2nd in approach, 3rd on par 5s, 9th in GIRs gained, and 15th in birdies or better gained.

Patrick Reed ($8,800 | +4000) - Here's that major champion with two wins in the past 10 months, leveled up in a Ryder Cup year, ranked 9th in the world, going off cheaper than Morikawa and fellow youngsters Viktor Hovland ($9,500 | +2200) and Sungjae Im ($8,900 | +4000). Two missed cuts in his three post-layoff starts will make us all very forgetful, but Reed should slot in nicely at Muirfield. He is four-for-four in made cuts with a best finish of T8 at the 2016 Memorial, and his success at both Augusta and Innisbrook ring true here. He ranks 2nd in birdies or better gained, 20th in strokes gained: around the green, and 31st on par 5s.

Joaquin Niemann ($8,400 | +4500) - Niemann is a tee-to-green god who profiles as exactly the type of player we can see breakthrough here. Truly, a world-class ballstriker whose deficiencies on the green are mitigated by the speed here at Muirfield. He was T6 on debut in 2018 and T27 last year, and he has sizzled each of the last two summers. His finishes in June and July in 2018: 6th, MC, 17th, 5th, 23rd, 37th. In 2019: 27th, 31st, 5th, 5th, 23rd, 10th, MC (at The Open). With a T5 at the RBC Heritage three weeks ago, Niemann earned his 11th career top 10 finish. Six of those have come in events in June and July.

Low-Priced Options

Byeong-Hun An ($7,900 | +7500) - Benny An was one of the most consistent tee-to-green players in the world last year, and after closing 2019 with three straight top 15s in Asia, he has been very inconsistent across the board in 2020. More than anything, though, he has been straight-up disastrous with the putter. He has lost six or more strokes putting in four of his last eight events, and while it is rarely a strength we are talking about more than three times worse than his 100-tournament baseline of -1.8 strokes. He was robbed of one of his best chances to win on the PGA Tour when losing here in a playoff in 2018. His last four years have yielded finishes of T17, T2, T25, and T11, and he still ranks 10th in strokes gained: tee-to-green in this field, including 5th in around the green and 39th in approach.

Joel Dahmen ($7,700 | +8000) - Dahmen has found some remarkable consistency of late, with just two missed cuts in the past nine months and top-20 finishes in six of his last eight events. He ranks 13th in strokes gained: approach and is passable at 45th in birdies or better gained. He failed to break 70 in his first trip to Muirfield last year and finished T68, losing 6.5 strokes tee-to-green along the way. That was his worst T2G performance in all of Fantasy National's tracked tournaments, and considering he ranks ninth in this field in the stat over his last 50 rounds that looks like an aberration he'll be anxious to correct this year.

Corey Conners ($7,600 | +9500) - Another ballstriking darling, Conners ranks first in greens in regulation gained and eighth in strokes gained: approach. His ugly mark of 139th around the green just means he'll have to hit every single one, and he is another golfer who can have his putting weakness mitigated this week. Like Dahmen he was uncharacteristically awful tee-to-green last year at Muirfield, losing 4.5 strokes himself and finishing T65.

Harold Varner ($7,500 | +9000) - Varner looks the part this week, ranking 6th in greens in regulation, 17th in strokes gained: approach, 34th in birdies or better gained, and 42nd around the green. He has played every week post-COVID layoff, so fatigue could be an issue, but he's been mostly reliable for this price point with finishes of T32, T30, MC, T19 in his last four events.

Mackenzie Hughes ($7,000 | +10000) - Hughes popped off with a stellar finish at the Travelers, tying for third thanks in large part to an electric 60 on Thursday. He gained 7.6 strokes around the green and actually lost 3.0 with his approaches, but he's worth a flyer in tournaments having flashed for two top-fives in his last four starts. TPC River Highlands is one of our comparison courses along with Innisbrook, where Hughes was T13 last year.

Bargain Basement

Chesson Hadley ($6,500 | +27000) - Hadley has the talent to reel you in and just enough inconsistency to let you down, but when the irons fire he can knock it close on even the tiniest greens. He ranks 8th in birdies or better gained, 25th on par 5s, and 29th in approach.

Carlos Ortiz ($6,400 | +30000) - Ortiz's long term stats are skewed by a great stretch in the swing season that saw three top 10s in six events, as he ranks 16th around the green, 29th in birdies or better gained, and 37th in strokes gained: approach. His recent finishes of MC, T33, MC coming out of the layoff don't look pretty, but he's played 8 of those 10 rounds in the 60s and the two others -- a 75 on Friday at Colonial and a final round 73 at Harbour Town -- were two of the 21 worst rounds of his career by strokes gained. He is playing better than the results show, and he can unlock a great lineup construction at this price.

Mike Rodden is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Mike Rodden also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username mike_rodden. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.