GOLF

DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Helper: The Memorial Tournament

The PGA Tour heads to Muirfield Village for one of the biggest tournaments of the year. We have a stacked field and lots of hard choices on DraftKings. Here's who we like this week.

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 our daily fantasy golf projections and lineup builder can help you get started, but these golfers stand out specifically on DraftKings for the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club.

Key Stats

Key Stats for the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village GC
Strokes Gained: Off the Tee
Strokes Gained: Approach
Strokes Gained: Par 5s
Birdies or Better Gained


Let's get to the picks.

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

High-Salaried Studs

Bryson DeChambeau (DraftKings Price: $10,900 | Golf odds Win Odds: +1400) - DeChambeau is a bit of caricature of himself at this stage, but when he first came up he already had a reputation for his emphasis on analytics and had enough talent that he would be able to hang around on the Tour. He picked up his first career victory at the John Deere Classic in 2017, but when he won the Memorial in 2018 his career catapulted to a new level. He's won six times on the PGA Tour since, and while he hasn't challenged again at Muirfield yet he knows his way around this course. Last year's missed cut isn't too concerning, just a bad week for him when the course was determined to put up a huge challenge. DeChambeau showed when winning the U.S. Open that he's plenty capable in difficult conditions, and with more reps, he's as good a bet as any to learn from a poor performance.

Collin Morikawa ($10,300 | +1600) - Morikawa leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained: approach, and he is the poster child this week for iron play as the key characteristic. While a T48 with 8.3 strokes lost putting at last year's Memorial looks ugly, Morikawa won the week prior at the Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village. He gained 9.2 strokes on approaches that week, and he's been in a similar groove of late and is due for the putting variance to swing back his way. Morikawa has gained at least 7.5 strokes on approach in all but one measured event in his last seven, a timeframe that goes back to the beginning of the year. He is also 16th in this field in both strokes gained: off the tee and birdies or better gained.

Justin Thomas ($10,200 | +1600) - Thomas comes at a discount this week and is a great play once again given his elite approach game. The occasional putting abhorrence aside, Thomas is the complete package and can compete at just about any course. He's had a few of those ugly performances here in fact, with three missed cuts where he lost 3.0, 4.2, and 2.6 strokes putting. He also lost strokes on approach in each of those events, most recently in the 2019 edition. In the intervening two years, Thomas has lost strokes on approach in just three measured events total. When he has made the cut he's put up T37 in 2015, T4 in 2017, T8 in 2018, and T18 last year. He was also runner up at the Workday Charity Open last year, losing to Morikawa in a playoff.

Mid-Salaried Options

Corey Conners ($9,300 | +3300) - Run it back! The names and dates of the tournaments change, but Conners once again leads our model thanks to his consistently excellent ballstriking. He began the 2020-21 season with missed cuts at the U.S. Open and the Corales Puntacana, but since then he's made the cut in 18 or 19 stroke play events with 7 top 10s and 8 more top 25s. That missed cut came at the Genesis Invitational in late February, and in the three months since he's gained at least 6.4 strokes ballstriking (off the tee and approach combined). Over the 50 round sample, he's 2nd in approach, 4th of the tee, 13th in strokes gained: par 5s, and 19th in birdies or better gained.

Joaquin Niemann ($8.800 | +4100) - Niemann could not get anything going at the Charles Schwab Challenge en route to a T50 finish, and it's a testament to the state of his game that he yet again made the cut despite not having his best stuff. He was 6th here in his debut in 2018 and has failed to return to those heights, but the game is in such a good place right now that he's bound to break through soon. Muirfield Village should suit his game to a tee, and the week he gets a little lucky around the greens will be the week he gets that marquee win we've been waiting for. Niemann is 6th in strokes gained: off the tee, 14th in birdies or better gained, 16th in strokes gained: approach and 20th in strokes gained on par 5s.

Matthew Fitzpatrick ($8,700 | +3400) - Fitz could draw some ownership given his win odds and third-place finish last year, but most DFS players will be inclined to lean toward Niemann's immense talent and flashier stats. Fitzpatrick is rock solid, with 5 finishes of T11 or better on the PGA Tour this season and a win at the end of last year on the European Tour. He typically shows up at the big boy events, and there are few non-major's bigger than this one.

Shane Lowry ($8,400 | +3400) - The stats and recent results should make Charley Hoffman ($8.300 | +4200) a popular play this week, and in the same price range we can pivot to the reigning Open champion Lowry. He was fourth at the PGA Championship despite losing strokes on the greens. With two other top 10s in his last few months, Lowry is in fine form but could be in far fewer rosters than Hoffman.

Low-Salaried Options

Adam Scott ($7,900 | +5000) - At $7,900, Scott looks like a good play off a missed cut at the PGA Championship. He'd made every cut since the PGA Tour's return to action last year, albeit not on a packed schedule. That made-cut streak was hardly mainstream thanks to just one top 10 finish in that span, but banking a weekend golfer at this price in your lineup has value even without upside. And while slightly arbitrary it's notable that Scott has not missed the cut at consecutive events since his last event in 2017 and first in 2018, split between the Australian Tour and the PGA Tour. He hasn't missed the cut in two straight PGA events since 2010, an impossible feat but emblematic of Scott's ballstriking prowess week in and week out.

Marc Leishman ($7,800 | +6500) - Leishman has made the cut at the Memorial each and every year since 2012, with two top 5s and two more top 15s along the way. He has a great feel for these bentgrass greens, as he's gained at least 1.3 strokes putting in all but one edition in that span. The recent form is up and down, with missed cuts at the PGA Championship, THE PLAYERS Championship, and the Arnold Palmer Invitational but a fifth-place finish at The Masters and a win in the team event. He won't pop up on many long-term stats models this week thanks to a disastrous end to last season, and that should keep his roster percentage down this week on DraftKings.

Max Homa ($7,500 | +10000) - Homa's two victories came at Quail Hollow Club and Riviera CC, in two of the Tour's biggest non-major events. The Memorial is right up there in terms of stature on Tour, and while the current form looks poor Homa is only a few months removed from a great stretch of golf. His last five are missed cut, missed cut, 6th at the Valspar, missed cut, and missed cut. He's had similar stretches throughout his career, but as he showed when he won the Genesis his best is good enough. That type of upside at a low roster percentage is worth the risk.

Kevin Streelman ($7,500 | +5000) - Streelman ranks 22nd in strokes gained: approach and 23rd in strokes gained: off the tee, and in fact, he has gained off the tee every week since missing the cut at the American Express in January. He's gained in approach in all but two events over that stretch, and recent finishes of T26, T8, and T20 show the fruits of his labor. He's played well at Muirfield as well, with two top 10s -- most recently at T4 in 2019. He was also seventh at the Workday Charity Open.

Lucas Glover ($7,200 | +13000) - Glover three-putted from two feet away on his third hole of the Charles Schwab Challenge and played well enough the rest of the way to finish tied for eighth. He actually finished the week having gained 4.1 strokes on the greens along with 4.4 strokes on approaches. It was the best he'd hit the ball since finishing fourth at the Valero Texas Open. He's made the cut in 10 of 13 events since the calendar turned to 2021, and he ranks 21st in strokes gained: off the tee, 38th in birdies or better gained, 44th in strokes gained: approach, and 48th in strokes gained: par 5s.

Bargain Basement

Luke List ($6,900 | +15000) - List is 11th in strokes gained: off the tee, another good driver who is a widely variant putter. He's gained strokes in all three tee-to-green metrics in each of his last four events, and over his last seven, he's gained more than 2.0 strokes putting twice and lost more than 3.5 five times. He's 26th on par 5s and 33rd in birdies or better gained.

Matthew NeSmith ($6,700 | +12000) - NeSmith was awful last week at Colonial, losing 3.4 stokes on approaches and another 5.6 putting and missing the cut by a mile. It was the worst putting performance of his career and the sixth-worst tee to green performance, according to stats from FantasyNational. That won't happen again this week, and the disaster dropped him from 8th on Tour in strokes gained: approach on the season to 12th. He's 7th in this field and 14th in strokes gained: par 5s.


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.