Daily Fantasy Golf Guide

A Masterclass in Daily Fantasy Golf

As the popularity of Daily Fantasy boomed in the US, it was only a matter of time before the big industry players set their sights wider: from American to worldwide domination, and from American Football and Baseball to new sports like Soccer, Basketball, MMA, and Golf.

DraftKings has been at the forefront of the multi-sports revolution, while FanDuel is coming on board too and their golf platform will launch in the Spring of 2017.

So the future is bright for DFS golf enthusiasts, and now is a great time to be getting involved.

Daily Fantasy Golf: The Basics

As you may know, there are two prominent tours in the world of Men’s golf: the PGA Tour and the European Tour.

The PGA Tour gets top billing as this is where the vast majority of the planet’s best golfers ply their trade. More DFS contests relating to PGA tournaments are available, with guaranteed prize pools regularly in excess of $500,000.

The European Tour is slightly more low key, and this is reflected in their DFS contests. Prize pools are lower, although with fewer people getting involved there is always the chance of a juicy overlay or two.

Our tip is to focus all of your energies into one of the tours, so that your research prior to making your draft is more in-depth and insightful.

Daily Fantasy Golf: Rules & Point Scoring

At the time of writing, FanDuel was still formulating their golf product, and so we will stick with DraftKings’ rules for now.

So what are the basics of DFS golf?

• You must draft six golfers who fit into the $50,000 salary cap.
• The Player Pool is published each Monday prior to the tournament start on Thursday.
• DFS managers can draft their line-up at any point, and make changes right up until the first tee.
• Each player earns points based on the screenshot.

Daily Fantasy Golf: Strategy

So what does the points scoring above teach us?

The first thing is that birdies are rewarded with +3, yet bogeys only lose -0.5. So, a risk-and-reward strategy is ideal, rather than one where players plot their way around the course making lots of par saves.

In DFS golf, we’re looking for pin seekers who won’t always get it right but when they do are capable of shooting low.

And a lot is made of the bonuses for finishing positions, but look at the maths: your player would need to get comfortably inside the top-10 of what are usually 150 or so man tournaments to earn the same points as just two birdies.

One more thing: only the top 50% or so of players make the cut, which means that some players only play two rounds and some four. Getting players on side who stand a great chance of making the cut is crucial; so ‘spreading risk’ with your salary cap is key.

Hopefully, this has helped to confirm how to make a strong Daily Fantasy golf draft!

Daily Fantasy Golf: Who to Draft?

We could write thousands of words on why some golfers perform well in a particular tournament, and why some don’t. But you don’t want to read thousands of words…

So we’ll try and break it down into a couple of bullet points; these will help you to get started:

• Current Form

Confidence comes from playing well; playing well leads to high finishes. For us, this is the key factor in a draft.

• Course History

Some players love certain courses. Maybe they suit their eye, perhaps it’s a homecoming (West Coast golfers tend to play well in California/Florida, for example). Check the past few years’ worth of leaderboards for each tournament.

• Course Layout

How does the golf course play? Is it long, and thus suits bombers off the tee, or is a shorter, technical test, where more accurate players will thrive? Maybe it’s a glorified putting contest with tough-to-read and sloping greens? Understand the course, understand who to draft.

• Stat Attack

When searching for low-price picks to help balance out your salary cap, studying the stats can be a great help. Who hits lots of greens? Who is long or accurate off the tee? Who is the best at putting from 15ft? Building a profile on each player, and keeping notes, is a great edge.

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