DraftKings PGA DFS Picks: Masters Cash and GPP Strategy

This article is part of our DraftKings PGA DFS Picks series.

THE MASTERS

Purse: $20M (estimated)
Winner's Share: $3.6M 
FedEx Cup Points: 750 to the Winner 
Location: Augusta, Ga. 
Course: Augusta National Golf Club 
Yardage: 7,555 
Par: 72
2024 champion: Scottie Scheffler

Tournament Preview

The Open Championship, U.S. Open and PGA Championship are all majors, all huge events on the golf calendar. So is the Ryder Cup, of course.

And yet, none of them are the Masters.

The tournament tucked away on the eastern edge of Georgia, one that began as the "Augusta National Invitation Tournament" long after all those marquee events had been established, has overtaken them as the top tournament of them all.

Welcome to the biggest week in golf. It's the 89th Masters.

No fewer than 95 golfers will compete, and you can find out where all of them are slotted in RotoWire's PGA Power Rankings for the 2025 Masters.

There never is a shortage of storylines surrounding the first major championship of the year. The two biggest are now annual affairs:

• Can the defending champion, in this case Scottie Scheffler, go back to back? No one has done that in almost a quarter of a century, since Tiger Woods in 2001-2002.
• Can Rory McIlroy -- and stop us if you've heard this one before -- end an agonizingly long major drought, now into its second decade, and in the process become only the sixth man to complete the career Grand Slam?

Those two storylines dovetail nicely with this little factoid: Four of the past five Masters champions -- including Scheffler in 2022 and 2024 -- had won multiple times in the calendar year leading up to Augusta. Take this for what you will, but so far in 2025, McIlroy is the only golfer to have won twice and Scheffler hasn't won at all.

Not only is it incredibly hard to repeat as Masters champion, only twice in the past 18 years has the winner even so much as finished top-10 the next year. Scheffler was one of them, tying for 10th in 2023, and Jordan Spieth was the other, winning in 2015 before finishing runner-up to Danny Willett in 2016.

So how will Scheffler and McIlroy fare? You might get a real indication very early in the tournament. Only twice in the past 20 years has the winner been outside the top-10 after the first round. And both times it was the same guy. And one of those times Woods was in 11th place.

For the first time in recent memory, Augusta National has not changed significantly -- not intentionally, anyway. Hurricane Helene roared through the Southeast in September, leaving a swath of destruction. Augusta, other than the loss of numerous trees, was largely spared, Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Fred Ridley said in January. Losing trees is not nothing, and it will affect some shots. Regardless, the course will be pristine -- and as diabolical as ever -- come Thursday morning.

Augusta remains at 7,555 yards after multiple years of being lengthened. But with the practice of mowing the fairways against the grain --  "backwards," if you will -- it blunts distance to the point that some say the course plays more like 7,900 yards. That would make it the longest course in major professional golf. Last year, the biggest change came at the par-5 second hole. The tee box was moved 10 yards back and to the left, making it play at 585 yards, the longest hole on the course. Two years ago, the pivotal 13th was lengthened by 35 yards. It's still short for a par-5 at 545 yards, but no longer baby short.

With all that, length would seem to be the most important skillset. But other considerations are far more important for the golfers. They better also bring their short game, as things get very dicey on and around the greens. There are only 44 bunkers on the entire course, but the bentgrass greens are dastardly all by themselves. They are above average in size (averaging close to 6,500 square feet) and lightning fast at about 14 on the Stimpmeter. Throw in all the undulations and run-offs, and it's enough to frustrate poor putters and any Augusta first-timers (and second- and third-timers). The hardest holes tend to be the long par-4s, notably the 495-yard 5th, 520-yard 11th and 465-yard 18th. There is water on five holes, all on the back nine, including the 155-yard 12th, which is smack in the middle of Amen Corner, plus the par-5s at 13 and 15, and the par-3 16th.

One course characteristic that TV does not do justice is the frequent and severe elevation changes from hole to hole -- and sometimes from shot to shot. And rarely do the golfers take a swing with a completely flat and balanced stance.

The 1933 Bobby Jones/Alister MacKenzie design -- MacKenzie died in January 1934, months before the first Masters -- almost always ranks among the 10 most difficult courses on the PGA Tour, and last year was no different: It ranked as the third hardest. Scheffler won at 11-under, four ahead of Ludvig Aberg and seven clear of third place. So, only two golfers on the course were able to beat 4-under.

This year, a rather large field of 95 is on hand. That includes 12 LIV golfers, down from 13 a year ago and 18 from 2023. There is the usual complement of five amateurs, plus five legacy champions, older winners no longer competing on the PGA Tour. Two-time champion Bernhard Langer, who last year at age 66 was slated to play in his final Masters only to tear his Achilles tendon, will be back for the 41st and final time in 2025.

While it's surely possible that some of those 10 amateurs/legacy champs could make the cut, we're basically looking at 85 golfers to be among the top-50 and ties to make the cut come Friday night.

So how should you construct your lineup? Let's start with trying to find the winner (duh). He usually comes from way up high. For years, he almost always was ranked in the the top-12 in the world. That's no longer an exact science with LIV guys not being ranked. Greens in regulation and scrambling have been vital over the years, scrambling maybe more than any other metric. No first-timer has won since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979, but today's young golfers emerge from college ready to compete. Will Zalatoris came close four years ago as the runner-up to Hideki Matsuyama and Aberg was second to Scheffler last year.

There are 20 first-timers this year, including the five amateurs. As we always see, some pretty big names are priced in the $8,000s and even $7,000s. There definitely is value deep down the DraftKings board. This would allow you to take a $10,000+ guy, plus maybe even a $9,000+ guy and still fill out your lineup with quality, Masters-proven golfers. After all, close to 60 percent of the aforementioned 85 golfers will make the cut. That means lots of $6,000s also will survive for the weekend.

As for the weather, it's looking pretty favorable right now. Aside from a mildly chilly Thursday, in which temperatures will be hard-pressed to break 70, temps should be in the mid-70s the rest of the way, with not much chance of rain and not much wind to speak of. But keep in mind that at Augusta, the wind has a tendency to swirl, and it doesn't take much of a swirl to wreck a shot. Last year, there was a slight rain delay on Thursday morning and significant wind the first three days.

Masters Champion Factoid: There have been only three repeat champions in the past six decades -- Jack Nicklaus in 1965-66, Nick Faldo in 1989-90 and Woods in 2001-02.

Key Stats to Winning at Augusta National

The most important indicators every week are current form and course history. "Key Stats" follow in importance.

• Strokes Gained: Approach/Greens in Regulation
• Strokes Gained: Around the Green/Scrambling 
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee/Driving Distance 
• Strokes Gained: Putting/Three-Putt Avoidance 
• Par-5 Scoring

Past Champions

2024 - Scottie Scheffler
2023 - Jon Rahm
2022 - Scottie Scheffler
2021 - Hideki Matsuyama
2020 - Dustin Johnson
2019 - Tiger Woods
2018 - Patrick Reed
2017 - Sergio Garcia
2016 - Danny Willett 
2015 - Jordan Spieth

Champion's Profile

For years, the vast majority of the time the winner has come from the top 12 spots in the OWGR. With LIV golfers no longer accruing world ranking points, that's a big wrinkle. But how many of them could/would be top-12? Maybe Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann. The only outliers in the past decade were Matsuyama ranked 25th and Reed ranked 24th -- and they had been in the top-10 at some point in their careers before winning.

In the past 10 Masters, every winner but one -- Reed, who ranked 21st - finished top-7 in the field in greens in regulation.

Some bad putters have won this tournament, but it's almost impossible if they are bad scramblers or have trouble around the greens. Only two of the past 10 winners have been outside the top-10 in scrambling (Woods 47th, Reed 16th). None of the past four winners has been inside the top-10 in SG: Putting -- Scheffler last year and Rahm were both 22nd. With putting, it's perhaps more important to avoid three-putting on the speedy greens than to make birdies.

You can really make up ground on the par-5s. Scheffler won at 11-under last year and was 6-under on the par-5s, which actually wasn't as much as other winners. Runner-up Ludvig Aberg was also 6-under on the par-5s, and he finished at 7-under. Two years ago, Rahm won at 12-under and was 10-under on the par-5s. Phil Mickelson and Koepka shared second at 8-under; Mickelson was 8-under on the par-5s, Koepka was 11-under (not a typo). Before that, Scheffler and Matsuyama both won at 10-under total -- Scheffler was 8-under on the par-5s and Matsuyama was 11-under.

If we're talking about who can win, we're almost surely talking about a longer hitter. But that doesn't mean a shorter hitter cannot contend or contribute to a solid DFS lineup.

As always at Augusta, there is one thing no statistical data can measure: the pressure a golfer feels on Sunday.

The over/under on the winning score as set by golfodds.com was 276.5 -- 11.5 under par.

DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS

Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap

$10,000 and up

Scottie Scheffler - $12,400 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +400)
Is picking Scheffler chalk since he's the favorite? He's also the defending champion, and not one of those has won since Tiger in 2002. Scheffler has not won in six starts in 2025, a far cry from how he arrived at Augusta last year. But he has a runner-up and a third. He's come as close to winning as possible without actually doing so. In fact, if you looked at his stats you'd think he had won, maybe multiple times. He's ranked top-10 on Tour in SG: Off-the-Tee, Approach, Tee-to-Green and Total. He's top-50 in Putting -- far better than a year ago -- and just outside it in Around-the-Green.

Collin Morikawa - $10,500 (+1800)
There aren't many golfers with top-10s the past three years at the Masters. In fact, there are only two: Scheffler and Morikawa. Last year, Morikawa tied for third. His game is well suited for Augusta, as the past three years confirm. Of course, his game is suited for a lot of courses and he hasn't been able to win. Morikawa is going on 18 months without a victory, and he has won only once in almost four years. This year, however, he's back to No. 1 on Tour in the all-important Strokes Gained: Approach category, and he also leads in Tee-to-Green.

$9,000-$9,900

Bryson DeChambeau - $9,900 (+1800)
DeChambeau was actually battling Scheffler for the lead on Friday last year. He couldn't keep up (nor could anybody else), but he had to come away feeling he had turned a corner at Augusta. He didn't so much as finish in the top-20 in his first seven Masters, missing the cut altogether in 2022 and 2023. So last year's tie for sixth was eye-catching and telling: DeChambeau finally played the course the way it needed to be played and not the way he wanted to.

Tommy Fleetwood - $9,100 (+4000)
We like Fleetwood but what we really like is Fleetwood at this price. He tied for third last year, his fourth top-5 in a major in the past three years. He has three other top-20s at the Masters. Fleetwood is ranked 11th on Tour in SG: Approach, he's very straight off the tee, he's one of the best wedge players around and was also a top-40 putter this season entering the Valero.

$8,000-$8,900

Cameron Smith - $8,200 (+6000)
We don't claim to be as smart as the DraftKings guys who set the prices. But we do know that Smith has finished second, third, sixth and 10th at the Masters over the past five years. Sure, he's not having the best season on LIV, but he hasn't fallen off a cliff like Max Homa, either. When Smith is on -- and he always seems to be on during the second week in April -- he's the best player in the world from 100 yards and in.

Robert MacIntyre - $8,000 (+6000)
MacIntyre has played the Masters twice and finished in the top-25 twice. One of them was actually a tie for 12th in his 2021 debut. MacIntyre has not been back at Augusta since 2022, and that's the equivalent of a golf lifetime ago for a player who has improved exponentially since then. MacIntyre is ranked top-10 on Tour in SG: Off-the-Tee and top-5 in Tee-to-Green -- the only four players ahead of him are Morikawa, McIlroy, Scheffler and Shane Lowry. He's decent around the green. His putting is a weakness -- he's ranked 137th -- but he's ranked far higher in three-putt avoidance, which might be the most crucial putting stat of the week.

$7,000-$7,900

Corey Conners - $7,900 (+6500)
Conners had a spectacular three-year run at the Masters from 2020-2022 when he finished T10-T8-T6. You know, back when he was a horrid putter. Conners' elite ball-striking is good for many top-25s, but his trouble on the greens prevented many top-10s. In other words, high floor/low ceiling. Now, Conners' putting has improved markedly. He already has four top-10s in 2025 -- to be more precise, four top-8s -- including T6 at THE PLAYERS. Conners is ranked 72nd in SG: Putting, a year after ranking 128th.

Patrick Reed - $7,300 (+10000)
Like with Smith, we can't quite figure out why Reed is so buried down here. He's a former winner, in 2018, but he's also finished top-12 in four of the past five years. Would you sign up right now for a $7,300 golfer to finish 12th? We would.

Keegan Bradley - $7,000 (+10000)
For someone soon turning 39, Bradley has not played in all that many Masters. This will be just his ninth. He's missed the cut only one time, and over the past two years has gotten better there, finishing top-25 both times. Bradley's strong play is one of the bigger surprises in 2025, though at some point he will have to shift his focus to his Ryder Cup captaincy. But not yet.

$6,000-$6,900

Harris English - $6,500 (+18000)
This will be English's sixth Masters. He's missed the cut once. In two of his past three, he's finished top-25, including last year. His current stats don't necessarily forecast a good week. But they also didn't forecast him winning the Farmers Insurance Open in January, either. English is a veteran who knows how to take what a golf course can give him. He's ranked 17th on Tour in SG: Putting.

Stephan Jaeger - $6,300 (+20000)
One of the things we like about Jaeger is that he plays well at the Houston Open, winning last year and tying for 11th in his title defense a few weeks back. Memorial Park has some real similarities to Augusta National. He missed the Masters cut last year, but that was right after his maiden Tour win. This year, he'll be more settled. Jaeger was ranked top-50 on Tour entering the Valero in every strokes-gained category but Off-the-Tee. Not many guys can say that.

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