Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the Charles Schwab Challenge  

Charles Schwab Challenge Fantasy Preview

If nothing else, Xander Schauffele is a quick learner.

Barely a week after shelling a handsome lead at the Wells Fargo, the Californian found himself in another position of power after 54 holes – this time at the PGA Championship.

Embed from Getty Images

But this time, Schauffele would not be denied. He made just one bogey on Sunday, picking up seven birdies along the way and finding 14/18 GIR – despite the pressures of being chased home by the fast-finishing Bryson DeChambeau and Viktor Hovland.

It was his first victory since the summer of 2022 – crazy for a player of his unquestionable talent, but means that at the age of 30, Schauffele is now a major champion and eight-time winner on the PGA TOUR all told.

You suspect he won’t have to wait another two years for his next title, although he will have to wait a couple of weeks or so for the chance – Schauffele is not in the field for this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge.

Last Event’s Fantasy Results

Last week was all about the Xander-Bryson combo. 

Embed from Getty Images

Those two together on a roster would have been the key to success, ours however was in the hands of Rory who fell to a T12 finish. 

Charles Schwab Challenge Field

What a few weeks it’s been for Scottie Scheffler, who has become a father for the first time and also made his debut as a prison lag in Louisville in a mad moment on Friday morning.

The world number one prepared for his second round at the PGA Championship from a jail cell, which it goes without saying isn’t ideal preparation. Scheffler is scheduled to play the Charles Schwab this week – as he has every year since 2020, but you wouldn’t be surprised if he withdrew and enjoyed some time away from the spotlight.

Embed from Getty Images

Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Jordan Spieth will also be making the trip to Fort Worth, as will reigning British Open champion Brian Harman, who has three top-10s at Colonial to his name.

Tony Finau, Keegan Bradley, Taylor Moore, and Austin Eckroat are just some of those who head to Texas on the back of a PGA Championship top-20, while Thomas Detry, Billy Horschel, Justin Rose, and Robert MacIntyre will be looking to follow up their top-10 finishes at Valhalla.

This Week’s Course Preview

Colonial Country Club is one of the great survivors of top-tier golf – first designed in 1936 by John Bredemus and Perry Maxwell, it continues to outfox elite pros almost a century later.

It’s a layout that proves that simply adding length to protect the course is not necessary. Colonial plays to about 7,200 yards for its Par 70, but smart routing and some tight doglegs prevents it from being overpowered off the tee.

Embed from Getty Images

Twelve of the holes dogleg in one direction or the other, while even the straighter fairways are flanked by thick trees. Water is in play on six holes, there’s more than 80 bunkers, and the Bentgrass greens are on the small side – some are elevated too, to maximize approach play difficulty.

It was the done thing once upon a time to have a trio of difficult, named holes when designing courses, and Colonial has its own such stretch – the ‘Horrible Horseshoe’, specifically holes three through five, played as three of the four toughest holes on the real estate in 2023.

The third hole is an extraordinary dogleg left at the sharpest of angles, while the fourth is a long Par 3 (think 250 or so yards) played into an elevated green. And the fifth is a humdinger: a narrow chute of fairway is flanked by water right and left, while the small green features a considerable slope from back to front.

With several tough holes and only two Par 5s to play with, Colonial provides a tough old test of golf.

Weather Forecast for Fort Worth, TX

Another week on the PGA TOUR, another set of freakish weather on the cards.

The dreaded T-word – thunderstorms – is mentioned a few times in the Fort Worth forecast, with rain at some point (potentially Thursday and Friday) seemingly a formality.

The weekend gives way to some extraordinary temperatures – warnings are in place for the mercury hitting 95 degrees by Sunday, with the wind also expected to hit 15mph by the weekend.

FORT WORTH WEATHER

Last Year’s Results from the Charles Schwab Challenge

Winning golf tournaments is hard – watch the final round at the 2023 Charles Schwab back for evidence of that.

Harry Hall led the way by three shots after 36 holes, was co-leader with Adam Schenk after 54, before proceeding to play his final 16 holes on the Sunday in +5.

Schenk himself had been rock solid for 54 holes, before finding the going tough on Sunday – he didn’t make a birdie until the 16th hole, and by then his title charge was all but over.

Or so he must have thought. Emiliano Grillo had played his final round in -4 up until the final hole, but the Argentine too found getting over the line difficult – he did the unthinkable, taking a two-shot lead into the eighteenth but turning it into a horror show. He just about escaped with a double-bogey; potentially snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

He and Schenk shared the first extra hole, before Grillo pulled off a masterful approach into the Par 3 sixteenth – tucking away the clutch putt and, at the end of an energy-sapping day, finally getting his hands on the trophy.

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for this Week’s Charles Schwab Challenge

This is more like it: a regulation PGA TOUR event at a layout we’ve seen many times before. Let’s try and make it count by entering the following pair of contests:

• PGA $300k Drive the Green: Here’s your standard $5 in, hopefully $50k out as winner. This contest appeals because there’s so many sizeable consolation prizes to be won even if you don’t claim the outright ‘W’.

• PGA $40k Albatross: With a solid top-tier to our lineup draft this week, perhaps a single-entry contest gives us a great opportunity to leverage our advantage – this $12 entry game pays $4,000 to its champion.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes

A tight, almost claustrophobic layout a week after a major has to be considered something of a field-leveller.

Last year, the playoff protagonists Grillo and Schenk had both missed the cut at the PGA Championship, while Hall hadn’t even teed it up in the major. Mind you, in 2022, Sam Burns beat Scheffler in a playoff, so it’s one of those weeks where writing off the studs is foolhardy, but at the same time ‘lesser’ players also have a chance to shine.

The first to note about Colonial is that it doesn’t really seem to matter much what the players do off the tee. For context, at last year’s event just four of the first 20 players home ranked inside the top-20 in the field for Driving Distance, and that number crept up to just 7/20 when considering Driving Accuracy.

Colonial is what we might call a second-and-third shot course. Hitting approaches into small, sometimes elevated, greens is rarely an easy task, so it’s no surprise that nine of the top-20 on the leaderboard last year ranked inside the top-20 for SG: Approach on the week.

But it’s reliability around the greens that can prove vital at this layout, particularly when the wind is up. Effective chipping and scrambling really was the value-adder for the likes of Hall and Paul Haley (T5) last year, who names are not regular features on the first page of PGA TOUR leaderboards.

Of course, our picks will need to show a sure hand putting on Bentgrass greens too, while an ability to combat freaky weather may also prove vital if the forecast is anything to go by.

There’s a couple of recent(ish) course correlations that catch the eye. Memorial Park, home of the Houston Open, is a Texas track with similar dimensions to Colonial, while the RBC Heritage is played out in breezy conditions with hard-to-hold greens. Plenty of players with previous at Colonial have shown up at one or both of those.

[membership level=”0″]

Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Charles Schwab Challenge   

You must be a Premium Member to view our exclusive fantasy golf picks.

Already a member?  Sign in Here.

[/membership]

[membership level=”1,2,3″]

Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the Charles Schwab Challenge  

Top Tier Pick # 1  

Collin Morikawa (Odds: 14/1, FPPG: 72.3, Salary: $11,000)

You can draw lines of symmetry through the careers of Xander Schauffele, Max Homa, and Collin Morikawa – three talented Californians, in roughly the same age bracket, who have had asterisks next to their careers.

Schauffele answered his critics at Valhalla, while for Homa the search goes on as he looks to contend in a major. As for Morikawa, there’s perhaps an argument that he hasn’t won enough times on the PGA TOUR for a man of his talent – ridiculous to say for a two-time major champion in his twenties.

Outside of majors, Morikawa has won just three times on U.S. soil, and none of them can be considered the PGA TOUR’s premier events. He’ll want to get his hands on more silverware soon, and hooking up with old coach Rick Sessinghaus is certainly working.

Morikawa has contended at The Masters and PGA Championship recently, and a step down in grade – at a layout where he’s lost in a playoff before – seems too good an opportunity to miss.

Key Stats:

• Fairway Proximity – 13th
• Birdie Average – 18th
• SG: Around-the-Green – 43rd

Top Tier Pick #2

Max Homa (Odds: 20/1, FPPG: 73.4, Salary: $10,400)

While Max Homa’s search for a maiden major continues, he will surely have been inspired by his friend Schauffele’s victory at Valhalla.

That’s not to say that automatically translates to a title challenge a week later, but Colonial is a good layout for Homa – he was T9 here a year ago, but has the technical ability to master this true shotmaker’s course.

His all-round game is in tremendous shape, with four top-20s in his last eight starts. Homa was one of the few to push Scheffler at Augusta, and he was keeping pace with Rory McIlroy at the Wells Fargo until the Irishman hit the after-burners over the weekend.

Key Stats:

• Approaches from Inside 100 yards – 20th
• SG: Around-the-Green – 25th
• Bogey Avoidance – 44th

Mid-Tier Pick #1

Si-Woo Kim (Odds: 40/1, FPPG: 77.8, Salary: $9,600)

Although it can be hard to explain to newcomers to golf statistics, for Si-Woo Kim to post three top-20s in a row prior to the PGA Championship – despite losing strokes to the field putting in all of them – shows just how good his tee-to-green game is.

The Korean will need to roll the rock better to win again, that’s for sure, but Bentgrass has typically been a kind surface to him – there’s no reason why that improvement can’t come this week.

A neat-and-tidy player with a brilliant wedge game, and who can scramble well, Si-Woo has all the ingredients for Colonial – despite the fact that his record here hasn’t been great.

But he’s playing so well right now that he’s simply too hard to ignore; if he putts better this week, the whole field is on notice.

Key Stats:

• Scoring Average – 5th
• SG: Approach – 9th
• SG: Around-the-Green – 23rd

Mid-Tier Pick #2

Mark Hubbard (Odds: 100/1, FPPG: 75.9, Salary: $7,700)

A player not blessed with distance off the tee, it was a surprise to see Mark Hubbard occasionally flirting with the top page of the leaderboard at the PGA Championship.

He ended up T26 at Valhalla, which is a fine effort, and a performance which provokes surprise that he hasn’t been more respected this week – particularly given that he finished T9 at Valhalla 12 months ago.

Hubbard has been putt positive in both of his last two outings, which have come on Bentgrass greens of course, and his reliability around the greens is another feather in the cap of a player who has got the game to win on the PGA TOUR.

Key Stats:

• Scoring Average – 15th
• SG: Approach – 41st
• SG: Putting – 60th

Low-Tier Pick

Lee Hodges (Odds: 100/1, FPPG: 52.8, Salary: $7,200)

Inconsistency is the name of the game for Lee Hodges; how else can you explain the second half of 2023, which saw him win the 3M Open and yet only post one other top-20 finish?

But he has little bursts of form where both his approach play and putting pop, and the 28-year-old appears to be in the midst of one of those right now.

In a world-class field at the PGA Championship, only Tony Finau gained more strokes on approach than Hodges – a true measure of just how well he played.

He was similarly good at the Wells Fargo, and he gained +0.74 strokes on the field in both with flat stick in hand. Hitting your approaches close and then making putts….it’s not a bad gameplan, is it?

Key Stats:

• Par 3 Scoring Average – 31st
• Approaches from 125-150 yards – 51st
• SG: Approach – 71st

Sleeper Pick for the Charles Schwab Challenge

Ben Martin (Odds: 200/1, FPPG: 59.2, Salary: $5,900)

When scoping out viable sleepers and bargain basement picks, you tend to settle on players that rarely make the headlines.

But Ben Martin has made the cut in each of his last seven trips to Colonial – aided, no doubt, by the fact that his lack of length off the tee isn’t penalized here.

There’s other reasons to be cheerful too. T7 in a recent trip to the Lone Star State at the Texas Open was strong, while even performances like T31 at the PLAYERS Championship have to be taken in context – that is a high-finish in a world-class field for a low-key player like Martin.

Key Stats:

• SG: Approach – 45th
• SG: Putting – 58th
• Scrambling – 66th

Alternative Sleeper Pick for the Charles Schwab Challenge

Davis Riley (Odds: 300/1, FPPG: 50.7, Salary: $5,800)

You have to take a calculated gamble when balancing out a top-heavy draft.

It’s not inconceivable that players like Davis Riley can knock on the door of a top-20 finish or higher – the sort of guy that can turn a decent week for DFS gamers into an outstanding one.

What’s the upside this week? Riley’s has popped in different departments of late – +1.26 on approach in a T14 turn at the Houston Open, +1.41 with his short game at the CJ CUP Byron Nelson – and don’t forget that he was T4 at Colonial in 2022.

He’s also typically very good within wedge range, and often putts well on Bentgrass. So there’s plenty of reasons to give Riley a go this week.

Key Stats:

• Approaches from 100+ yards (rough) – 49th
• Birdie Average – 73rd
• SG: Around-the-Green – 99th

This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup

Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only.  Be sure to mix-and-match to best fit individual contests.

[/membership]

Fantasy Golf Predictions – This Season 

Remember to visit our private Facebook group to discuss this week’s picks for the Charles Schwab Challenge with other Premium Members.

Cover Photo via Instagram