The Byron Nelson Championship at TPC Four Seasons in Irving, Texas is one of the more challenging PGA Tournaments for DFS we have had in some time. Making fantasy picks wasn’t actually that difficult. The top tier is pretty deep, and there are a few players who cost between $6,600 and $7,100 who are really interesting at that price. I feel pretty confident my picks will do better than last week, when several of my picks missed the cut.
The challenge this week is finding a way to fit those picks into a lineup that makes sense. Jordan Spieth is the obvious favorite this week, and while I am willing to pay for him, it is really tough. I could play Spieth, my four cheapest picks from the Playbook and Marc Leishman, but I think that lineup is a GPP play only. Leishman is too risky to be the second-best player in that kind of lineup. I would love that lineup if I could play Jimmy Walker or Matt Kuchar instead of Leishman, but that lineup is just over the cap.
I had similar issues when I tried to play Walker, Jason Day and Keegan Bradley together. I can make it work, but it means plugging in some cheap player I don’t really like this week. What I usually do when I am stumped on lineup construction is identify the two or three players I really want to use, and then fill in around them. This week that meant using Jason Dufner, Walker and Bradley. I was able to use those three and three other players from the Playbook to construct a lineup I believe can work for cash games and tournaments.
A good question to ask yourself when constructing your PGA DFS lineup is: Which players would make me most disappointed if I did not play them this week? Put those guys in your lineup, and then see if there is a way to fill in around them that doesn’t leave you hating your lineup. If you can’t fit the guys you really like into the same lineup, that may be a good time to play two different lineups. There is nothing worse than watching a guy you really liked hoisting the trophy on Sunday and knowing he didn’t wind up in any of your lineups.
| Player | DraftKings | Comments |
| Morgan Hoffman | 7000 | The other Hoffman finished T16 at the 2014 Byron Nelson and T5 in 2013. |
| Marc Leishman | 8800 | Four straight top-30s. Has finished third, 12th and third in his last three Byron Nelsons. |
| Colt Knost | 6600 | Coming off a top-10 at the Crowne Plaza Invitational. |
| Jordan Spieth | 13300 | Spieth has nine top-10s this season; no one else in the field has more than five. |
| Matt Kuchar | 9500 | Safest player in the tournament; has never missed the cut at TPC Four Seasons. |
| Charley Hoffman | 8400 | Has finished T11 or better in four of his last six tournaments. T8 in last Byron Nelson start. |
| Jimmy Walker | 9400 | Two wins this year and just one missed cut. |
| Jason Dufner | 6900 | He won this event in 2012 and has finished in the top 50 in four consecutive years. He has just four missed cuts in 13 events this season. |
| Russell Henley | 7900 | Top-25s at The Masters and PLAYERS Championship. |
| Keegan Bradley | 8400 | Won in 2011, T24 in 2012, runner-up in 2013, T29 in 2014 |
| Martin Laird | 7100 | Laird has three top-10s against two missed cuts this season. He has made the cut in all three Byron Nelson starts. |