It is officially PLAYERS Championship week and we are staying in Florida for the third straight week. This week’s event is held at TPC Sawgrass – which, of course, is famous for the island green of the 17th hole. It’s a Pete Dye-designed par 72 that plays right around 7,200 yards. The course features Tifeagle Bermudagrass on the greens and celebration Bermudagrass on the fairways. With 88 bunkers and 17 water hazards, you can imagine that accuracy in all facets of your game are important here in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
We are used to a Mother’s Day finish for The PLAYERS but the schedule change for 2019 has pushed it earlier into March. From 1976 to 2006, this championship was held in March, so we do have some precedence for this as far as scoring goes. The scores were slightly different when it used to be held in March, winning scores were anywhere from 8-under to 13-under from 2001 to 2006 compared to 10-under to 18-under over the past five seasons.
PAST WINNERS
| Golfer | Year | Winning Score | DraftKings Points |
| Webb Simpson | 2018 | -18 | 130.5 |
| Si Woo Kim | 2017 | -10 | 102.5 |
| Jason Day | 2016 | -15 | 115 |
| Rickie Fowler | 2015 | -12 | 116 |
| Martin Kaymer | 2014 | -13 | 108 |
OFF THE TEE
We’re going to take a look at how the field has fared since 2010 at TPC Sawgrass. These numbers could be slightly different because it’s March, but the course will largely play the same way. Golfers who finished in the top 20 of driving distance here have averaged 72.2 DK points compared to those in the top 20 of driving accuracy, who have averaged 73.3 DK points. While that spread suggests a small margin, the correlations point to a larger gap in importance for the two tee stats. Accuracy explains about six percent of total DK points, compared with distance, which explains just one percent. To be clear, distance doesn’t necessarily hurt here, but you need to be able to find fairways as well.
| Driving Accuracy Rank (Last 24 Rounds) | Golfer (Salary) |
| 1 | Chez Reavie ($6,700) |
| 2 | Kevin Streelman ($6,500) |
| 3 | Jim Furyk ($7,100) |
| 4 | Matt Kuchar ($8,000) |
| 5 | Ryan Armour ($6,200) |
| 6 | Michael Thompson ($7,200) |
| 7 | Ryan Moore ($7,000) |
| 8 | Russell Henley ($6,900) |
| 9 | Keegan Bradley ($7,400) |
| 10 | Adam Hadwin ($7,200) |
ON APPROACH
Keeping it in the fairways at TPC Sawgrass will allow golfers to go after the flags and have birdie opportunities. Golfers that finished in the top 20 of greens in regulation have averaged 75.5 DK points since 2010. That same group has averaged a finish position of 24.4 in the tournament and 21.6 in DK scoring.
| GIR Rank (Last 24 Rounds) | Golfer (Salary) |
| 1 | Charles Howell III ($7,300) |
| 2 | Jason Kokrak ($6,700) |
| 3 | Rory McIlroy ($10,800) |
| 4 | Hideki Matsuyama ($8,300) |
| 5 | Tiger Woods ($10,500) |
| 6 | Justin Thomas ($11,100) |
| 7 | Keegan Bradley ($7,400) |
| 8 | Lucas Glover ($7,100) |
| 9 | Jim Furyk ($7,100) |
| 10 | Gary Woodland ($7,500) |
Pete Dye Specialists
Pete Dye courses are a different breed for many reasons. We won’t bore you here with course architecture, but suffice to say that some people are built for Dye courses and some aren’t. Using data from Fantasy National, I put together a leaderboard of the top DK scorers on Pete Dye designs with at least 10 rounds played.
| DK Scoring (Pete Dye Courses) | Golfer (Salary) |
| 1 | Brooks Koepka ($10,000) |
| 2 | Dustin Johnson ($11,400) |
| 3 | Justin Rose ($10,200) |
| 4 | Xander Schauffele ($9,000) |
| 5 | Jason Day ($9,200) |
| 6 | Adam Scott ($8,200) |
| 7 | Rory McIlroy ($10,800) |
| 8 | Justin Thomas ($11,100) |
| 9 | Sergio Garcia ($9,100) |
| 10 | Bubba Watson ($7,300) |
Key Stats
- Greens in Regulation
- Driving Accuracy
- SG: Off the Tee
- SG: Putting (Bermuda)
