PGA Championship 2025 - Odds and Leverage Analysis for Draftkings Tournaments

dfsedric
May 13
4 min read

Updated: May 14

It is time for major number 2, where we get an interesting course with historical data that has been predictive of future results. That always makes things interesting because those types of courses (masters, quail hollow) tend to see some chalkier winners in the tournaments. However we do need to find differentiators - just not as extreme as usual. This writeup will be periodically updated so check back for updates!

Last updated: 5/14 12:47 pm CST

Odds vs Situations and Salary

Updated: Refreshed odds at 12:30pm CST

This is my primary visual that helps me build lineups. I filter out those who are negatively leveraged and focus on the plays that show value (above the trend line). We must also keep in mind who has upside in scoring - the left table. This course is typically Rory's and therefore most of the field will get to him. The interesting thing here is that Jon Rahm is a similar bomber style player who shows half the ownership for cheaper price. Then you get Colin Morikawa at half of Rahm's ownership but chasing Colin has not been profitable enough to say that makes sense this week. He is going to get some lineups regardless, as I'd hate to jump off knowing he is overdue a win. Rob Mac and Davis Thompson appear to be on the cheaper end to make expensive plays work.

Course Fits (datagolf)

I hinted at this already but the player profile we want in our lineups will be the bombers who can drive relatively accurately and putt well. Previous winners seem to have done well in putting strokes gained so we definitely dont wanna take chances on the worst putters this week. This explains why the course history seems predictive, as most of the same golfers have distance while others simply dont.

Top 34 in All Drives and top 30 in Putting (updated)

Here are a few names based on the top 34 in ranking for this stat. A few cheap names in the mix that may be worth peeking at for putting purposes. Rory still dominates this list, but Sam Burns and Justin Thomas start to show that they are good on this type of surface too.

Sorted by Off the Tee, to compare to SG putting

Rahm is sort of standing out as someone who does come off the tee and putts decently enough to gain strokes over the year. Rory seems to have the strongest profile otherwise.

Underowned but Optimal Draftkings Plays

This list does move around but i did want to post out the starters for now. Need to compare to the bombers and the people who have history to see where it makes sense to go this week.

Default Optimal (No adjustments)

This is NOT what I recommend playing, but this is what the 'average' lineup construction might look like. A payup option, a 9K option and maybe deep diving to the 5K range. However we will need to figure out if other options exist in this build that make sense, if this lineup construction itself is ideal vs balanced build, or if some of these pieces are good for the lineup. 13K means you better be winning with authority imo, and a handful of that top tier can do that. Rory is the highest owned golfer which opens up the ability to try Scottie.

Strokes Gained (Wells Fargo / Quail Hollow)

Both Scottie and Xander have gained more strokes at this course than Rory in the past 4 years (2020 through 2024) which makes them interesting. Rahm actually scored slightly better than Rory which makes that pivot real. Si Woo also shows up here with lots of rounds played here, but only 7700. Let me take another angle, where we compare the results of the most correlated courses with Wells Fargo -> which is a DFSed special.

Doing so brings Justin Thomas up close and center and Xander to the top guy. Last week he had a good showing. He's a bomber who can also putt well on the type of grass being used at this tournament.

Xander won the PGA championship with Wells Fargo finishing 2nd the tournament before last year (different course) so that is quite interesting for him to be there. Infact it is worth noting that last year at the PGA championship, several of the names who did well the week before finished in the top 10 of the PGA championship, so recent form is going to be helpful.

Looking specifically at 2024 Wells Fargo, where Rory was top chalk (30%ish), top odds to succeed, and top ceiling, he did infact win by 40 points (draftkings) over the 2nd place finisher - Xander. This was the optimal lineup at that event: