DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Helper: THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK

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 CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK.

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-Salaried Studs

[Editor's Note: Dustin Johnson has withdrawn after testing positive for COVID-19.]

Justin Thomas ($10,800 | +1200) - So what if we aren't at Nine Bridges? Thomas has won two of the three CJ CUP installments held in South Korea, including last year, and since then he's picked up two more victories and seven other top 10s. He is 1st in strokes gained: tee to green, 2nd in approach and birdies or better gained, 13th on par 5s, and 17th putting on bentgrass. Arguably the premier iron player in the world, Thomas is in play every week even with DJ just a couple hundred more.

Xander Schauffele ($10,300 | +1100) - Strong field with no cut? Engage Xander protocol. He had just two finishes outside the top 25 in the entire 2019-20 season, including top fives his last two events. His season included seven events with no cut, and in those events, Xander finished 2nd (albeit with the best 72-hole score at the TOUR Championship), 25th, 6th, 14th, 2nd, 2nd and 10th. Schauffele leads the field in strokes gained on par 5s and is 4th in birdies or better gained and 10th in strokes gained: tee to green.

Mid-Salaried Options

Daniel Berger ($9,300 | +3000) - The pricing structure this week in a short field really seems like DraftKings is daring us to jam in two golfers over $9,500 and fill out the remainder in the low $7K and even $6K range. You can gain a ton of leverage on the field by starting with Berger and going balanced, and Berger has plenty of upside with a win and three other top-five finishes since the restart. His putter saved him at Winged Foot, but all in all it was just his second event losing strokes tee to green in the past 12 months. He ranks 3rd in birdies or better gained, 7th in strokes gained: tee to green and approach, and 10th on par 5s.

Viktor Hovland ($9,000 | +3300) - With so many elite young players, each gets their turn in the spotlight. Hovland is forever tied to two other studs who turned pro at the same time, and the pendulum is due to swing back to Hovland soon. Matthew Wolff ($10,000 | +2000) dominated in college, and Collin Morikawa ($9,500 | +2500) led the field in consecutive cuts last year and picked up two victories, including a major championship. But it was Hovland who was low amateur at both the Masters and the U.S. Open in 2019 before joining the professional ranks. Wolff was the first to win on Tour and Morikawa out-dueled Thomas and Johnson in the span of just a few months. Now Hovland gets his turn, and at a track where his tee-to-green game should shine, he sets up well for a signature win.

Harris English ($8,600 | +4200) - Like Berger, English has crashed the big-name party week after week in 2020, and after booking four top-six finishes last fall, English finally got back on the podium with a runner up at THE NORTHERN TRUST and a T4 at the U.S. Open. He's played well enough to win all year, yet he hasn't hoisted a trophy since 2013. It's fair to say his win was earned at TPC Boston but for the minor detail that Johnson went into video game mode and won by 11. Unlucky that week, English's ability to gain strokes in all facets every week should put him on the ride side of variance one of these weeks, and an outlier putting performance might be all he needs. Celebrity course greens await this week.

Low-Salaried Options

Brendon Todd ($7,900 | +7000) - As we approach the one year anniversary of Todd's back-to-back wins, we can't help but marvel at the consistency he's shown since those shocking victories in Bermuda and Mexico. His resurgence has been fueled largely by the putter, and he ranks third in putting on bentgrass. The tee-to-green numbers (51st) pale in comparison to the game's top players, but Todd finds himself in the fairway more often than not, and there's no reason to think the putter will cool off. With top-25 finishes in 7 of his past 11 starts, Todd offers consistency and will likely be undervalued by DFS players because there is no cut.

Joaquin Niemann ($7,500 | +6500) - As covered here before, we are to consider Niemann only if we are on bentgrass greens. We just so happen to be this week, so the ball-striking wizard is once again in play after a T13 at the Shriners despite losing strokes with his approaches. The irons will click at some point, and if he's feeling confident with the putter, there's no reason he can't contend. He ranks 14th in strokes gained: putting on bentgrass. To put that in perspective, if we expand it to putting with no qualifier for surface, Niemann ranks 57th in putting.

Alexander Noren ($7,400 | +8000) - Once a top-10 player in the world by the Official World Golf Rankings, Noren had slipped outside the top 100 at the beginning of the year but is finally showing signs of life against PGA Tour competition. With five finishes of T22 or better in his past five events, Noren has been dialed in with his irons. Over the last 50 rounds, he's just 47th in strokes gained: approach, but over his last 24 rounds, he's 40th, and over his last 12, he's 18th. Noren is on the rise but still not so on the radar that he'll be prohibitively popular for tournament lineups.

Bubba Watson ($7,300 | +7000) - Another guy on an upward trend in strokes gained: approach, Watson ranks 37th in strokes gained: approach for the long-term sample but is 14th in his last 24 rounds and 11th in his last 12. He was fifth in strokes gained: tee to green at the U.S. Open but had one of the worst putting performances of the week, losing 6.6 strokes putting en route to a 31st-place finish. We know Bubba can contend with the top players in the world when he is on his game, and with his iron play trending upward and the driver always a strength, we should take advantage of his low salary while we can.

Bargain Basement

Ryan Palmer ($6,700 | +15000) - Palmer may be worth fading in tournaments this week as he could be a chalk play for those who go with stars-and-scrubs lineups, but in cash games he makes a lot of sense. He's 8th on par 5s and 20th in strokes gained: approach, and with four top-15 finishes since the COVID restart. He has some upside even in strong fields.

Kevin Streelman ($6,500 | +15000) - Streelman ranks 2nd on par 5s, 12th in strokes gained: approach, and 23rd in both strokes gained: tee to green and birdies or better gained. Streelman missed the cut on the number at the Shriners and was one off the number at the U.S. Open, so even with consecutive missed cuts, he is not exactly exploding every week. He was third at the Safeway Open before that, which was his third top 10 since the restart.

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.