PGA DFS Rundown
No Cut, No Excuses
Baycurrent Classic · Yokohama, Japan · DraftKings Classic · locks Wednesday 7:45 PM ET
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Field
72, no cut
all six golfers play four rounds
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Course
Par 71
7,322 yards, 13 par 4s
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Weather
Dry
calm early, breezier weekend
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| Early lock: Wednesday at 7:45 PM ET. Thursday morning tee times in Japan mean lineups lock Wednesday evening in the US, not Thursday morning. Set yours before dinner, and check for withdrawals before you do. |
Why this week is different
This is not a normal full-field event and not a signature event either. It is a fall stop in Japan with 72 golfers, about a dozen of them from the Japan Golf Tour, and nobody goes home after Friday.
- Every golfer gets four rounds. A $6,000 golfer who opens with a 75 keeps scoring all weekend instead of going home with a zero, so punts carry far less risk than in a week with a cut.
- The real player pool is small. Take away the long shots at the bottom of the price list and about 60 golfers are worth playing, so ownership piles up fast between $6,000 and $8,000.
- Finishing position decides it. With no cut to sort the field, the bonus points for finishing near first carry most of the difference between a good lineup and a winning one.
Course and forecast
Yokohama Country Club plays as a par 71 with 13 par 4s, more than any other course on tour, and only two par 5s, both on the front nine. The fairways and rough are Zoysia and the greens are bentgrass. We weight approach play from 150 to 200 yards, par-4 scoring and finding fairways, because a miss here often ends up in the trees.
A typhoon has been churning off Japan, but current forecasts keep it out at sea. Thursday and Friday look dry with light wind. The weekend stays dry, but north wind picks up with gusts into the 20s. After a month of rain in Tokyo, expect a soft course that plays long.
What wins here
We pulled the winning and best possible DraftKings lineups from the last two years of this event, plus every small-field, no-cut event we have.
| 2025 at this course | Xander Schauffele won and Michael Thorbjornsen finished third, and both were in the winning lineup and the best possible lineup. Max Greyserman, the runner-up, was in the best possible lineup at 6% owned. |
| Two years ago | Under its old name, the ZOZO Championship, and at a different course, Nico Echavarria won it at $6,400 and 2% owned, and posted the top DraftKings score of the week. |
| Cheap golfers | When nobody can miss the cut, 78% of winning lineups had a golfer under $7,000, against 48% in events with a cut. |
| Top of the board | 73% had a $10,000 golfer, but only 11% had two. |
| Ownership | Winners landed around 80% total ownership, about the same as a normal week. Fewer of them needed a golfer under 5% owned. |
| Salary | Median $100 left. Use the whole cap. |
See the winners for yourself. Perfect Lineups, part of Seeking Optimal Pro, shows the winning lineup and the best possible lineup for every DraftKings contest.
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Player board
Salary, our projection, our ownership.
Top of the board
| Xander Schauffele · $11,000 · 91.8 · 30% | Won here last year and has the best win odds in our model. He will be the most popular golfer in the field, and he earns it. |
| Jacob Bridgeman · $9,800 · 82.2 · 13% | Number one in our model this week and only 13% owned. Our favorite way to be different at the top. |
| Collin Morikawa · $10,400 · 85.0 · 19% | Sixth in our model, with elite irons on a course that rewards them. |
| Justin Thomas · $9,600 · 83.9 · 15% | Fifth in our model at $9,600, and owned like a mid-tier play. |
| Doug Ghim · $9,200 · 83.3 · 17% | Second in our model, and the field has noticed after his runner-up finish last week. Expect him to be one of the two or three most popular golfers by lock. Play him, but not in every lineup. |
Course history
| Michael Thorbjornsen · $9,000 · 79.6 · 15% | Finished third at Yokohama in 2025 and was in that week's winning lineup. |
| Alex Smalley · $8,100 · 75.9 · 10% | Tied for fourth at Yokohama in 2025, and his iron play fits a course that asks for so many mid-iron approaches. |
| Max Greyserman · $7,700 · 73.9 · 14% | Runner-up here last year, one shot back. Our model is lower on him, so we would not go overboard at 14% owned. |
| Takumi Kanaya · $6,900 · 69.2 · 9% | Also tied for fourth at Yokohama in 2025, and among the best Japanese golfers entered this week. |
Value
| Nicolas Echavarria · $6,700 · 68.4 · 9% | Our 6K punt. He won this event under its old name two years ago and finished ninth here last year. With no cut, his bad days cost you less, and his good weeks win tournaments. |
| Kris Ventura · $6,800 · 74.4 · 8% | The highest projection under $7,000. He will be popular for a reason. |
| Matthew McCarty · $6,600 · 69.8 · 8% | Shot 60 in the final round here last year, the event record. |
| Zachary Bauchou · $7,400 · 74.4 · 7% | Eleventh in our model at $7,400. |
Fades
| Min Woo Lee · $9,400 · 83.2 · 16% | One of the five most popular golfers in the field, but 37th in our model. |
| Kevin Yu · $8,000 · 77.3 · 10% | Twelfth in our model, but we expect him to be one of the most popular golfers in the $8,000 range by lock. Alex Smalley costs $100 more and finished top five at this course last year. |
| Ben Kohles · $7,900 · 70.8 · 10% | Projects several points below the golfers priced around him, like Johnny Keefer and Keita Nakajima, and we expect his ownership to climb past what that projection supports by lock. If you want exposure, take it in cash games. |
GPP Core
Jacob Bridgeman, Alex Smalley and Nico Echavarria: our model's top golfer at low ownership, a 2025 top-five finisher with irons that suit the course, and the punt with a winner's ceiling. $24,600 and about 32% combined ownership for the three.
Finish it yourself:
- Add one $10,000 golfer, not two. Schauffele if you want the chalk, Morikawa or Matsuyama to be different.
- Echavarria is your punt. A second golfer under $7,000 is a real option this week: about a third of winning lineups at no-cut events had two, twice the rate when there is a cut. Most winners still stopped at one.
- Spend to within $200 of the $50,000 cap.
- Aim for about 80% total ownership.
Cash Core
Schauffele, Thorbjornsen and Ventura: the best win odds, the best recent result here, and the best value under $7,000.
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Build yours in the optimizer
Open the PGA optimizer, lock your core, and let it fill the rest from our projections and ownership.
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Good luck this week. Reply to this email with questions, or come talk lineups in the Discord.
Salaries are DraftKings Classic prices. Projections, model rankings and ownership are Seeking Optimal's, as shown in the optimizer Tuesday night. Lineup findings come from past DraftKings PGA contests. Check withdrawals before lock. Play responsibly.
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