DraftKings PGA DFS Picks: World Wide Technology Championship Cash and GPP Strategy

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

WORLD WIDE TECHNOLOGY CHAMPIONSHIP

Purse: $7.2M
Winner's Share: $1.296M 
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the winner 
Location: Los Cabos, Mexico
Course: El Cardonal at Diamante
Yardage: 7,452
Par: 72
2023 champion: Erik van Rooyen

Tournament Preview

It's November. Baseball is now done for the year and golf is next. Just three tournaments remain on the 2024 PGA Tour schedule and the urgency many golfers feel is reflected in this week's 120-man field.

With the top 125 in the FedExCup Standings to be finalized before Thanksgiving -- and with that who has full playing privileges next season -- almost every golfer ranked 115th to 145th will tee it up this week at the second incarnation of the World Wide Technology Championship. Only three golfers from that section are missing and two of them -- No. 125 Matt Wallace and No. 135 Gary Woodland -- already have their PGA Tour card for 2025. (The other one is No. 133 Michael Thorbjornsen.)

The top of the field is expectedly barren, with world No. 32 Cameron Young the highest-ranked player. He's followed by No. 42 Max Greyserman -- who, like Young, is looking for his first Tour win -- and No. 47 Lucas Glover.

The other key race over the next three weeks besides trying to finish inside the top-125 is trying to finish from No. 51 to 60, the so-called Next 10, which would ensure those golfers spots in two early 2025 signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera. Only four of the 10 golfers currently residing 51st to 60th are in the field: Harris English, Patrick Rodgers, Maverick McNealy and Ben Griffin.

Some other names of note on hand include defending champion Erik van Rooyen, Austin Eckroat and Tom Hoge. Sponsor invites were issued to Neal Shipley, the low amateur at the Masters and U.S. Open now playing professionally; UCLA senior Omar Morales, who missed the cut here last year; Korn Ferry Tour player Emilio Gonzalez, who in September tied for third at Brandt Snedeker's KF event; European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald; and 60-year-old Champions Tour player Billy Andrade, who is making his first PGA Tour start in more than a decade, since missing the cut at the 2014 Canadian Open.

El Cardonal at Diamente is a 2014 Tiger Woods design (finally, a big-name golfer is mentioned in this article!). It's the first course he and his TGR design firm ever built and their first to be played on the PGA Tour. It is part of the golf hotbed of Cabo San Lucas, perched off the Pacific on the tip of the Baja California Peninsula.

"I set up the golf strategy to make golfers think and make choices," Woods said on the course's website. "There are going to be different ways to play every hole. Angles of approach are going to be very important and will dictate the type of shots you should consider. I love this kind of golf."

On the tournament's website, Woods said that "El Cardonal is going to remind people of the old-style California courses." Those are the courses Woods grew up on.

We're not sure what last year's tournament will remind Woods of, because the golfers absolutely tore the place up. van Rooyen won at a whopping 27-under, eagling the par-5 18th to finish two clear of Matt Kuchar and Camilo Villegas. In all, nine golfers reached 20-under. El Cardonal was among the easiest courses on Tour, ranking 47th of 58 in action in 2023. Only four holes played over par and the two easiest by far were the downwind par-5s at Nos. 1 and 18, both playing at only about 580 yards. Doesn't sound like a course Woods would've played back in the day, does it?

El Cardonal is on the long side, approaching 7,500 yards for a par-72. As we just noted, that didn't slow down the golfers in the least. At sea level, it will play every bit of that length, though there are a number of downhill, downwind holes. The fairways average 60 yards wide (really, what have they done with the real Tiger???).

Three of the four par-5s exceed 580 yards, six of the par-4s are at least 460 and three of the four par-3s are 190 or more. There are also two drivable par-4s of around 350 yards and maybe a third at a downhill 401. The golfers will have huge targets to aim for. Besides the ginormously wide fairways, the paspalum greens average 8,300 square feet, a number rarely if ever seen on the PGA Tour. The Stimpmeter will run 11-12.

There is no rough -- that's right, zero. So where does trouble lie? It's a desert-style track with arroyos, fairway undulations and sandy, rocky conditions greeting golfers who miss the fairway (if that's even possible). An arroyo, you may wonder, is a deep gully where water has traveled. There is actual water on only one hole. There are only 48 bunkers. So close to the mighty Pacific, the wind could be a factor. There are only 48 bunkers.

As for the weather, high temperatures in the upper 70s all week, virtually zero chance of rain and low-double-digit wind.

Cabo San Lucas golf factoids: There are now 18 courses in the area, including Davis Love III's Dunes Course, also at Diamante, plus four Jack Nicklaus designs and others from Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Tom Fazio ... The golfers may encounter wildlife at El Cardonal, including hare, deer, coyotes, iguanas, road runners, bobcats and rattlesnakes.

Key Stats to Winning at El Cardonal at Diamante

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: Putting 
• Birdie Average/Birdie or Better Percentage
• Par-5 Scoring, 550-600 yards

Past Champions

2023 - Erik van Rooyen (El Cardonal)
2012 - Russell Henley (Mayakoba)
2021 - Viktor Hovland (Mayakoba)
2020 - Viktor Hovland (Mayakoba)
2019 - Brendon Todd (Mayakoba)
2018 - Matt Kuchar (Mayakoba)
2017 - Patton Kizzire (Mayakoba)
2016 - Pat Perez (Mayakoba)
2015 - Graeme McDowell (Mayakoba)
2014 - Charley Hoffman (Mayakoba)

Champion's Profile

Barring tremendous wind, this is resort-style course that again will be quite gettable. Driving distance was a non-factor on the first page of last year's leaderboard. Ditto, driving accuracy. That's because more than a third of the field hit more than 90 percent of the fairways. And you had to hit more than 80 percent of greens in regulation to even have a sniff at the lead. van Rooyen and his two runners-up in Kuchar and Villegas all hit 86 percent of GIR. van Rooyen ranked third in putting average, Kuchar was first and Villegas was seventh. Enormous greens tend to favor the better putters and expose the weaker ones.

Last year's over/under on the winning score at golfodds.com came in well short at 264.5 -- 23.5 under par. This year, it's been lowered to 262.5 -- 25.5 under.

DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS

Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap

$10,000 and up

Max Greyserman - $10,400 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +1600)
Seeing Greyserman as the top-priced buy over Young might lead to a momentary double take. But Greyserman deserves it. He finished runner-up in three of his past five starts, including two weeks ago at the ZOZO, where he got to 19-under. If you see a player who hasn't gone low somewhere all season, he's probably not the best fit for this track meet disguised as a golf tournament.

$9,000-$9,900

Matti Schmid - $9,600 (+2200) 
Schmid missed his first six cuts of 2024, then had another five-event stretch midseason. But he's made his past eight cuts, finishing T16-5-T3 in the past three with scores of 17-, 18- and 19-under. He is ranked 46th on Tour in putting on the season and 27th in birdie average. That may not sound like a $9,600 golfer, but in this field that would get you in the Golf Hall of Fame.

Lucas Glover - $9,500 (+2800) 
Glover sits 63rd in points, just three spots out of the lucrative Next 10 from 51st to 60th. He has soared up the standings of late. After missing the playoffs entirely, Glover has finished T13-T3-T3 in his past three starts, reaching 22-under at the Sanderson Farms. For all the talk of Glover being a bad putter (he is), he has putted far better of late and is in the upper half in this field.

$8,000-$8,900

Harris English - $8,900 (+2500)
English sits 53rd in the point standings, virtually assured of finishing in the Next 10. He can thank twin top-10s in his past two starts. He is ranked 10th on Tour in putting this season.

Matt Kuchar - $8,500 (+3000) 
Kuchar was runner-up here a year ago. He missed the playoffs for the first time back in August, but he has been playing well the past few months. Kuchar has top-15s in four of his past six starts. He has one of the best short game/putting combos on Tour, even at age 46. He ranks 25th in SG: Around-the-Green and 32nd in SG: Putting.

$7,000-$7,900

Neal Shipley - $7,700 (+5500) 
The recent Ohio State alum, in on a sponsor invite, has missed just one cut in 10 Tour starts. His best was a T6 at the ISCO Championship, where he got it to 20-under. Shipley had been playing on the PGA Tour Americas and finished 20th in the standings in a  shortened season.

Joe Highsmith - $7,400 (+6500)
The 24-year-old out of Pepperdine finds himself in the precarious position of 126th in the point standings. But two months ago, he was 150th. He tied for 13th at the Procore, sixth at the Black Desert Championship and 16th at the Shriners. Highsmith is not a good putter but somehow ranks 14th on Tour in birdie average.

Pierceson Coody - $7,200 (+8000)
Anytime you come across an extreme birdie-fest, look for the putters. And this would be the perfect place for Coody to improve upon being in 130th place in the point standings. He's made the cut in 14 of his 24 starts, but high finishes have been elusive -- just three top-25s and two top-10s. Ranking eighth on Tour in putting, Coody has at least a puncher's chance for a good week.

Hayden Springer - $7,100 (+8000)
Springer sits in 123rd place. He has four top-25s this season, all of which have doubled as top-10s. One of them came in Puerto Rico. Yes, that's an opposite-field event but it's also played on paspalum greens. He also tied for eighth at the Sanderson Farms last month. Springer is ranked 20th on Tour in birdie average.

$6,000-$6,900

Wesley Bryan - $6,800 (+12000) 
Bryan has made only 15 tour starts this season. Yet he sits in the not-too-far-out position of 138th. That's due in large part to finishing runner-up at Puntacana -- on paspalum greens -- but also to two top-25s during the fall season.

Taylor Montgomery - $6,500 (+20000) 
The bottom of the field is among the worst there's been all year in a full-points event. Montgomery is our best play at $6,500 or under, and by "best" we mean the best of the worst. During the fall he has missed three cuts and withdrew from a fourth event. That's it. But he is 132nd in points -- one good week from cracking the top 125. So what makes us pick Montgomery? He's ranked first on the entire PGA Tour in SG: Putting. And he tied for 31st here a year ago.

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