Daily Fantasy Golf Helper: Charles Schwab Challenge

By now, you've probably dabbled in daily fantasy sports, but if not, don't worry. Now is a great time to start, especially with FanDuel's daily fantasy golf offering.

Golf can be one of the most exciting DFS sports to follow, as tournaments span four days and allow ample time to prepare each week. It's a great balance between time to research and time spent tracking your team.

But whether you're brand new to the PGA or daily fantasy sports in general, we have you covered -- and we have daily fantasy golf projections and lineup building tools, too.

Let's take a look at some golfers to target this week.

Key Stats

For a detailed breakdown of Colonial Country Club and why these stats matter this week, check out our course primer.

Daily Fantasy Golfer Picks for the PGA Championship

All stats cited below come from FantasyNational. Strokes gained data includes stats from the past calendar year and is adjusted based on my field strength and recency adjustments. Putting surface splits also come from FantasyNational and include the past 50 rounds when possible unless noted. All ranks and percentile ranks are among the field.

Best of the Best

Jordan Spieth (FanDuel Salary: $12,300 | Golf odds Win Odds: +1000) - Spieth leads the way this week as our favorite, a spot on the board we have not seen him for quite a while. He fits the bill here perfectly, a Texas native who has a win and two runner-ups as part of a sterling Colonial record. He's also the hottest golfer in the field, ranking 1st in total strokes gained, 2nd in birdies or better gained, 4th in strokes gained: around the green, and 10th in strokes gained: approach. His T30 finish at the PGA Championship and a T48 at THE PLAYERS are his only finishes worse than 15th in his last nine events. He won the Valero Texas Open and has four other top-fives in that span.

Collin Morikawa ($11,900 | +1200) - Morikawa opens shorter than Justin Thomas ($12,100 | +1300) and at a slight discount on FanDuel, and while both along with Spieth will be plenty popular we have to side to Vegas and favor the 24-year-old in this spot. Morikawa found Colonial to his liking on debut last year, shooting rounds of 64, 67, 67, and 67 and losing in a playoff in the first event coming out of the COVID layoff. He is first in strokes gained: approach, seventh in fairways gained, and ninth in birdies or better gained. He shot one of the best rounds of the day on Sunday and stormed to a T8 finish, his fifth top-10 since the calendar turned to 2021.

Daniel Berger ($11,600 | +1900) - The defending champion bested Morikawa on the first extra hole to break through and win for the first time in three years. He was one of the hottest players in the world before the season was put on hold, and he stormed out of the gate after the layoff. He has mostly kept it up since, picking up another victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. As one of the highest rostered players on the slate at the PGA Championship, he came out with a ghastly opening round and was largely forgotten over the weekend except as an expensive spare tire in stone dead 6/6 lineups on FanDuel. He has shown an ability to bounce back from his rare poor outings lately, winning off a missed cut at Pebble Beach and finishing T13 at the RBC Heritage after failing to make the weekend at The Masters.

Corey Conners ($11,000 | +2300) - Conners took the early lead at Kiawah Island thanks to a hot putter of all things. He gained 3.7 strokes putting to go along with his excellent ballstriking numbers on Thursday before fading in both over the weekend. He paid the price especially on the greens, losing 2.2 strokes to the field on each day Saturday and Sunday. He'll take the 17th-place finish, just one shot away from his 8th top-10 of the season. He's locked in tee to green and is a winner in Texas in the past, and Spieth demonstrated just a few weeks ago that the double at TPC San Antonio-AT&T Oaks and Colonial is more than reasonable.

Conners ranks 3rd in strokes gained: approach, 5th in fairways gained, and 13th in birdies or better gained. He's just 80th in strokes gained: around the green, but he doesn't have very many strokes to gain from there as he ranks 1st in greens in regulation gained. It's not all bad when he misses the green, as he ranks sixth in bogeys avoided.

Joaquin Niemann ($10,700 | +2800) - Niemann has turned into a reliable cut-maker with upside, and while around the green play has ruined his chances in a few recent events where he's putted well, we can size up the total package and find a golfer on the brink of putting it all together. He was 8th here on debut in 2018 and has put up finishes of T31 and T32 since, and he's driving it and putting it better than he was coming into any of those years. That's not exactly the recipe for success here, but with so many popular plays in the $11,000 range, this salary point could lead to a great leverage opportunity. We can differentiate on FanDuel if we grab just one of those golfers and move to Niemann and a balanced lineup behind him.

Mid-Range Picks

Sergio Garcia ($9,900 | +8000) - This is strictly a leverage play off the golfers directly around Garcia in FanDuel's pricing. Ryan Palmer ($10,000 | +6000), Emiliano Grillo ($9,900 | +7000), and a few others with good history or recent form should soak up all the roster spots instead of Garcia. Long known for his iron play, Garcia has pivoted to a driving beast now at age 41 and is one of the longest players on Tour this season. He's missed four straight cuts since finishing ninth at TPC Sawgrass, but he is always volatile and only has to beat 55 players to make the cut in this shorter field. That recent PLAYERS finish combined with some prior success in Texas and the South in general at a low roster percentage makes him a great outside-the-box play on FanDuel this week.

Matt Wallace ($9,800 | +6500) - Wallace has yet to truly break through on the PGA Tour but is the type of player who seems bound to win eventually. He won three times on the European Tour in 2018 alone, and since then has put up a goose egg despite four runner-ups and four third-place finishes in the years since, most recently at the Valero Texas Open. Based on datagolf's true strokes gained model, he is consistently gaining on approach in PGA Tour events for the first time in his career, and as a popular play the past few weeks, he could be skipped at Colonial after a disappointing T55 at the PGA Championship. We'll gladly jump in on the buy-low opportunity and add Wallace to our lineups.

Cameron Tringale ($9,700 | +8000) - Tringale rates out well across the board, ranking 6th in birdies or better gained, 15th in strokes gained: around the greens, 19th in strokes gained: approach, and 35th in fairways gained. He was in great form with finishes of T13, T9, and T3 before missing cuts at the Wells Fargo Championship and the PGA. Falling short at two strong events on long, difficult courses can be forgiven as we pivot to the more traditional layout at Colonial. His solid finishes came at windy Florida courses in the PGA National and Innisbrook, while the other came in Texas at TPC San Antonio-AT&T Oaks.

Si Woo Kim ($9,400 | +8500) - Kim has been up and down this season as we've come to expect, with four poor events on the heels of his win in California followed by three strong finishes before fading back again. In any given week he can be the best long iron player in the field, and what's really been a strength of late has been his short game. He ranks 13th in strokes gained: around the green and has been within a stroke and a half of average with the putter in all but one event since winning the American Express. We know he's capable of outlier putting performances, and the play this week in a strong field is to differentiate in this range.

Chris Kirk ($9,100 | +7000) - Another opportunistic option this week is Kirk, who like a few others here missed back-to-back cuts recently but was in great form before that. Kirk had posted consecutive top-10s before that, including a T7 at the RBC Heritage. Harbour Town is a link here, as is Waialae Country Club, where Kirk finished as runner-up back in January. He is 17th in birdies or better gained, 18th in strokes gained: around the green, 24th in strokes gained: approach, and 31st in fairways gained.

Low-Salaried Picks

Talor Gooch ($8,800 | +13000) - Many will see the fourth-place finish posted by Harry Higgs ($8,800 | +10000) at the same salary and forego Gooch entirely, and we'll happily grab the better long term iron player and short-game player at a reduced roster percentage. Gooch ranks 21st in strokes gained: approach and 35th around the green, excellent marks when compared to Higgs, who ranks 48th and 65th, respectively. The finishes haven't been flashy since a T5 at THE PLAYERS, but we know he has upside between that result and two more top-fives in the fall.

Doug Ghim ($8,600 | +14000) - Ghim's popularity this week will be something to monitor, as Vegas is clearly not convinced even if his recent form and stats make him a close to a no-brainer at this salary. He is 8th in strokes gained: approach, 10th in fairways gained, 23rd in strokes gained: around the green, and 28th in birdies or better gained. He's lost strokes putting in seven straight events but gained in approach in all but the most recent AT&T Byron Nelson. He was 5th at the American Express and played with Thomas in the final group at TPC Sawgrass before tumbling all the way to 29th, so he sneakily has the chops to get in the mix.

Brendon Todd ($8,300 | +12000) - Todd won't win any long drive contests, but at his best, he is a middle-of-the-fairway, middle-of-the-green machine. Despite a lack of high-end finishes, he's still a reliable cut-maker in this range and has played the weekend in 10 times in his last 12 events. He has lost strokes on approach in seven straight measured events but still ranks 16th in greens in regulation gained, and more importantly, he ranks 2nd in fairways gained. In the weekly march to 200 mph swing speeds and 350-yard drives, Todd gets left behind. At a course like Colonial where precision is required, he stands a fighting chance.

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.