Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2024 PLAYERS Championship

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2024 PLAYERS Championship  

PLAYERS Championship Fantasy Preview

Bad news, everybody: Scottie’s got a new putter….and he knows how to use it.

We’ve gone through our database for the past 12 months, and cannot find a better putting performance than the one Scottie Scheffler produced at Bay Hill last week – be afraid, be very afraid.

Nobody could lay a glove on Scheffler once he found his groove courtesy of his TaylorMade Spider Tour X, with a bogey-free 66 on Sunday seeing him cruise home – he won by five shots, but only four players were within ten of his -15 score.

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If Scheffler continues to putt like this, we may as well call off the rest of the season.

Golf fans with a decent memory may just recall last year’s PLAYERS Championship, when Scheffler….well, he dominated the field as merrily as he did at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Can anybody stop him from defending his title at TPC Sawgrass this week?

Last Event’s Fantasy Results

The best finish for us last week was Emiliano Grillo at T8 and 11 of our 12 total picks made the cut.

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2024 PLAYERS Championship Field

Although THE PLAYERS Championship isn’t a Signature Event, it would take wild horses to keep the world’s best away from TPC Sawgrass.

Scottie Scheffler boasts the unique distinction of being the defending champion while having won last week, while the likes of Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland will be looking to stop him from doubling up.

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A stack of players arrive at THE PLAYERS with top-10s to their name at Bay Hill – Max Homa, Will Zalatoris, Shane Lowry and Wyndham Clark chief among them.

With a slew of former PLAYERS winners – Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Si-Woo Kim, Rickie Fowler among them – also returning to TPC Sawgrass, there’s a classy feel to proceedings this week.

This Week’s Course Preview

It’s his most iconic work, and the golf course that Pete Dye will forever be remembered for.

TPC Sawgrass may be getting easier to beat in these longer-hitting days, but it’s still a brute of a test – featuring many of the Dye hallmarks.

No two consecutive holes play in the same direction, meaning that the players are unable to get comfortable in the wind, and there’s doglegging holes in both directions, so no one particular shot shape will thrive.

It’s classic Dye too in the sense that the rough is left up in his preferred tradition, while the smaller-than-average greens take some holding. Water is in play on 17 holes and there’s around 80 savage bunkers on the real estate too.

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The greens are Bermuda overseeded with Rye, leading to a pure and fast putting test, so there really is little in the way of relief on this 7,250 yard, Par 72.

You’ll know all about the 17th hole already no doubt – the iconic island green, but that’s a mere inconvenience compared to some of the layouts other holes; the 18th, no less, saw 33 double bogeys or worse at last years PLAYERS….compared to just 42 birdies.

The four Par 5s are easy enough, while the 360-yard, Par 4 twelfth is a straight drive, chip and a putt away from a birdie. But otherwise….well, strap yourself in lads.

Weather Forecast for Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

The weather forecast for Ponte Vedra is as mixed as it has been throughout this Florida jaunt.

Thursday could be the best day of the week, as per the early predictions, with sunny spells and a top temperature of 75 degrees.

And then….well. There’s rain in the offing for Friday through Sunday – how much falls remains to be seen. But expect some, with possible thunderstorms causing delays….if the PGA TOUR is as non-reactive as it has been in recent weeks.

Watch out for the wind too: predictions of 14-18mph have been mooted.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH WEATHER

Last Year’s Results from THE PLAYERS Championship

No matter how hard they tried, nobody could reel in Scottie Scheffler at last year’s PLAYERS Championship.

He was sat in solo second at the halfway stage behind Adam Svensson, before clicking through the gears with a sublime 65 on Saturday.

That gave Scheffler a two-shot lead over Min Woo Lee heading into the final round, but he appeared to be in a charitable mood on the Sunday – playing his opening seven holes in +1.

The problem was that Min Woo made a triple bogey at the seventh, so rather than being hauled in Scheffler got away Scot(tie) free – and made them all pay by birdieing five holes in a row around the turn.

He played his final holes in +1, but who cares? Not Scheffler; he rounded out a mammoth five-shot victory without anybody getting remotely close to him.

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for THE PLAYERS Championship this Week

The ‘fifth major’ deserves a fitting slate of contest: and it gets them, too. Here’s two to attack this week…

• PGA $2.4M Golf Premiere Millionaire: It’s the first milly-maker of 2024, with an entry fee of $25 for those aiming big. There’s a whole bunch of handy consolation prizes too, including $1k to the top 40 players.

• PGA $500k Drive the Green: If you’re operating on a tighter budget, the Drive the Green contest has seen its prize pool upped to $500k – with $100k of that going to the winner.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes

It’s Pete Dye week, so that can mean two things: hit your approaches well, and scramble efficiently when you don’t.

TPC Sawgrass is his masterwork, and while the media will focus on the island 17th, there’s so much more nuance to this track than that.

It’s true that Sawgrass is playing easier these days than in years gone by, but the small greens, myriad water hazards and Floridan wind is still a troublesome task.

There are holes when hitting big booming drives is a bonus, but for the most part Sawgrass is a less-than-driver layout in the same ilk as Bay Hill and PGA National in weeks gone by.

Wedge play has also been a useful tool at Sawgrass over the years – it’s a fairly small Par 72, so many of the Par 4s and the third shot at Par 5s will be in the 100-150 yard range; a bucket in which our champion will no doubt thrive this week.

As far as correlations are concerned, the Wyndham Championship is a useful marker – Si-Woo Kim, Kevin Kisner, Webb Simpson, Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Patrick Reed just some of those that have won or finished both at these events in recent years.

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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win THE PLAYERS Championship   

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win THE PLAYERS Championship  

Top Tier Pick # 1

Scottie Scheffler (Odds: 6/1, FPPG: 114.1, Salary: $12,800)

The world of golf has a problem.

The best ball-striker on the planet has figured out how to putt, gaining +1.30 on the greens at Bay Hill in one of the best putting displays of his entire career.

No wonder Scottie Scheffler effectively lapped the field at the Arnold Palmer, and now DFS gamers are left with the perennial problem – damned if you do pick him (at this salary point), damned if you don’t.

We wouldn’t normally engage in a chalk pick, but with such an attractive proposition available at $5,400 – with plenty of upside – we can at least balance the books and get the best player on the planet on side at a venue he has grown to love.

Key Stats:

• SG: Tee-to-Green – 1st
• Scoring Average – 1st
• Proximity to Hole – 9th

Top Tier Pick #2

Jordan Spieth (Odds: 30/1, FPPG: 84.3, Salary: $9,500)

There’s a danger we’re going to fall off a metaphorical cliff if we can continue to draft Jordan Spieth, but we believe he is fundamentally playing golf that is knocking on the door of winning.

Take a look at his data at Bay Hill: he gained strokes on the field on approach, around the greens and putting – only losing them off the tee, in a week in which he sacrificed some power for accuracy.

T6 at the Phoenix Open, Spieth was also travelling nicely at the Genesis before his bizarre disqualification, so there has to be plenty of confidence in the camp.

If you look at his underlying numbers, Spieth is playing as well now as he was when T4 at The Masters nearly a year ago – but right now he is driving the ball better than ever before. Surely silverware looms if he can maintain this form?

Key Stats:

• SG: Putting – 11th
• Scoring Average – 12th
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 28th

Mid-Tier Pick #1

Brian Harman (Odds: 66/1, FPPG: 80.3, Salary: $7,900)

As a major winner with three top-10s to his name who played well at Bay Hill, Brian Harman is a steal this week.

The lefty was solid off the tee, ranked fourth for SG: Approach and topped the field for GIR – ironically, it was his strongest suit (his putting) that let him down.

You don’t get two bad putting weeks in a row from Harman very often, so a further improvement is expected – he’s typically enjoyed his golf at TPC Sawgrass, too.

Key Stats:

• Proximity to Hole – 39th 
• Scrambling – 49th
• SG: Putting – 50th

Mid-Tier Pick #2

Tom Hoge (Odds: 80/1, FPPG: 75.5, Salary: $7,800)

To offer a flavor of the interest in Tom Hoge this week, the sportsbooks opened up with him at 170/1 – he’s now approximately half that following a flurry of public money.

Why? Because his approach play continues to reach elite standards – he topped the field at Bay Hill for that stat, and he was much more accurate off the tee too, which is a key foundation at Sawgrass.

Hoge had been putt positive – gaining strokes on the field – in each of his six outings prior to the Arnold Palmer, so last week on the greens has to be considered an aberration, rather than the norm. Therefore, all the ingredients are in place for a title tilt.

Key Stats:

• SG: Approach – 1st
• Fairway Proximity – 3rd
• Scoring Average – 25th

Low-Tier Pick

Cameron Davis (Odds: 125/1, FPPG: 79.3, Salary: $7,000)

There’s just something about less-than-driver golf courses that suits Cam Davis.

By sheathing the big stick, he ranked second for Driving Accuracy at Bay Hill – shooting out of the short grass more often in turn enabled him to rank tenth for SG: Approach, too.

It’s a strategy that should get its rewards at Sawgrass too, where he was sitting pretty in T3 after 54 holes last year prior to Scheffler’s masterclass. As if to complete the picture, Davis has played well at the correlating Wyndham Championship and St Jude too.

Key Stats:

• Fairway Proximity – 26th
• Birdie Average – 33rd
• SG: Putting – 58th

Sleeper Pick for THE PLAYERS Championship

Doug Ghim (Odds: 150/1, FPPG: 63.6, Salary: $6,800)

At the 2022 PLAYERS Championship, Doug Ghim found himself one-shot adrift of 54-hole leader Anirbhan Lahiri – marking himself out to be a player to watch.

His career perhaps hasn’t had the lift off many were expecting since, but his form right now is as good as it’s ever been on the PGA TOUR – four consecutive finishes of T16 or better, and in quality fields too.

Accurate off the tee, quality on approach and reliable around the greens, Ghim is just a good putting week away from potentially challenging for silverware – he was +1.26 ahead of the field on the greens at the Cognizant Classic, incidentally.

Key Stats:

• Scoring Average – 9th
• SG: Approach – 12th
• Driving Accuracy – 13th

Alternative Sleeper Pick for THE PLAYERS Championship

Lee Hodges (Odds: 400/1, FPPG: 54.7, Salary: $5,400)

Although his game hasn’t been in a particularly good place in 2024, there were signs of recovery for Lee Hodges at Bay Hill.

He ranked 12th for Driving Accuracy, 13th for Strokes Gained: Approach and seventh for SG: Putting, which is a tasty cocktail at less-than-driver, technical layouts like Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass.

Although his chipping game is a concern – you wouldn’t expect a pick of this price to be bulletproof, the hope is that a rain-softened Sawgrass will enable him to return a princely GIR count.

Key Stats:

• Driving Accuracy – 56th
• SG: Approach – 59th
• Scrambling from the Rough – 69th

This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup

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

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Fantasy Golf Predictions – This Season 

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