The Cheat Sheet provides DraftKings fantasy golf players with course info, player history and the most noteworthy trends of the week to help them with their roster selections.

Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $300K Sand Trap [$100K to 1st]

The Field

The PGA TOUR heads off the mainland for three straight weeks as it will host events in Japan (for the ZOZO this week), Bermuda and Mexico over the next month. The only non-cut event of those three is this week in Japan, where a field of 78 golfers will tee things up for four rounds. This event was held in California in 2020 (where it was won by Patrick Cantlay, who is not in the field this week), but its initial running was won in Japan by Tiger Woods in 2019. In 2021, the event returned to Chiba, Japan, and was won by national hero Hideki Matsuyama, who also finished runner-up to Woods in 2019.

The field this week is headlined by Americans Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele, who is the event favorite at +400 on the DraftKings Sportsbook. Schauffele won the Olympic gold medal in Japan in 2021 and loves these no-cut events, while Morikawa won this event last season. The event has an $8.5 million prize purse and features three of the world’s top-10 golfers in Schauffele, Morikawa and Matsuyama. While there are numerous sponsor exemptions and players from the Asian Tour in the field, there’s also a much deeper top end of talent available for fantasy purposes than we have seen in recent weeks, making this a nice change of pace as we continue into the fall swing.

Let’s dive into the course and player preview below.

The Course

ACCORDIA GOLF NARASHINO CC, Chiba, Japan

Par 70, 7,079 yards

This week’s venue comes to us from Chiba, Japan. The Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club plays as a shorter par 70 but features some quirky layout designs that will make it a unique test for players. The course features smaller-than-average bentgrass greens that will likely make for tough targets. Narashino is also unique in that it features two greens per hole (one for winter and one for summer) and players may get free drops if they, for some reason, hit the wrong green this week. Overall, green in regulation percentages have trended about 2-3% below the PGA TOUR average at this venue and should put an emphasis on iron play and short game this week.

Layout-wise, Accordia is also unique from most PGA TOUR par 70s in that it features five par 3s, two of which feature water. These par 3s should act as solid risk-reward holes for the players, as poor shots could lead to double-or-worse (especially on the holes with water), while good shots can still be rewarded with birdies. All of the par 3s come in at under 200 yards, with three of them measuring between 175-200 yards in length, making them short-to-mid iron shots for most of the field. There are three par 5s on the course but the par 5 14th hole is a long, winding 600+ behemoth that has averaged 4.94 shots since inception — making it far more difficult than the other two par 5s.

Five of the par 4s measure in at 450 yards or greater. However, there are also several par 4s that play well under 400 yards in length and will require only iron shots off the tee. The venue is heavily tree-lined and features several doglegs, which makes it almost a certainty that players will need to emphasize accuracy a little more this week. Finding fairways at Accordia has also been tough, as driving accuracy numbers have trended 8-10% lower than the PGA TOUR average over the three seasons it has hosted this event.

This venue should play similarly to US venues such as Colonial or Hilton Head, where small greens, doglegs and accuracy all take precedence over pure length. In 2019, Tiger Woods won here by being one of the leaders in fairways gained while also shooting the lights out with his irons (on what was a very wet course). Supreme ball-strikers Keegan Bradley and Hideki Matsuyama won with similar formulas and last year Collin Morikawa ranked T-3 in GIR% and second in Putts per GIR.

Accuracy and elite iron play should be favored over power this week, but this is also a bit of a putting contest, and with slower bentgrass greens, we have seen more average putters (like Morikawa and Bradley) excel. Emphasize strong iron play but looking for players who could potentially mix that solid ball-striking with positive regression on the greens is also a must, as anyone losing strokes on the greens this week will have a hard time cracking the top 10.

2024 Outlook: The weather this week doesn’t look too uninviting as highs will be in the low to mid-70s this week, which is cooler than we have seen over the last couple of weeks, but not entirely uncomfortable to play golf in. The wind can play a big factor at this event, but with a tree-lined venue in play, if the wind stays down, it will make the course much more gettable. The first two days do have some gusts with Thursday having winds of 10-12 MPH throughout the day. Friday will be tougher with gusts rising in the afternoon up to 15-20 MPH. This is a smaller field so the gaps in tee times won’t be huge, but early starters on Friday would seem to be in the preferable wave right now as Friday afternoon seems likely to feature the heaviest wind of the first two days. With some gusts expected on the weekend, the current conditions certainly seem like they will help the elite ball-strikers this week and place a bigger emphasis on tee-to-green games.

Last 5 winners and Winning Trends

2023–Collin Morikawa -14 (over Eric Cole and Beau Hossler -8)

2022—Keegan Bradley -15 (over Andrew Putnam and Rickie Fowler -14)

2021—Hideki Matsuyama -15 (over Brendan Steele -10)

*2020—Patrick Cantlay -23 (over Justin Thomas -22)

2019—Tiger Woods -19 (over Hideki Matsuyama -16)

*Played at Sherwood CC (not this week’s venue)

• Tiger was playing his first fall event of the year when he won this event in 2019 and was coming off two months of competitive rest.
• The 2019 second-place finisher, Hideki Matsuyama, provides us with a little more info. He was busier around this time in 2019. His second-place finish to Woods was preceded by a T-3 finish at the CJ Cup and a T-16 at the Shriners, so he had some momentum.
• In 2021, Matsuyama had also already posted a strong finish prior to his win at this event, grabbing a share of fifth at the Fortinet in 2021 just a couple of weeks prior to playing in Japan.
• In 2022, both Rickie Fowler and Keegan Bradley had posted top-five finishes in the Fall series (Fowler at Fortinet and Bradley two weeks prior at the Sanderson Farms). Clearly, some fall golf (and good fall form) has not hurt the competitors here.
• The 2023 winner, Collin Morikawa, was also making his first fall start after two months off; but he did finish T-6 at the Tour Championship in August.
• As far as performance goes, we don’t have strokes gained metrics, but Woods was top eight in fairways gained and GIR%. He was smart enough just to hit fairways at this shorter course and then had elite iron play and a putter that got red-hot (led the field in PUTTS PER GIR).
• Morikawa was also a leader in GIR hit (T-3 in GIR%) and generally outperformed on the greens as well (second in Putts per GIR)
• From a putting perspective, this course does tend to yield fewer three-putts than an average venue, so average putters could find a bump this week. With bentgrass greens in play, looking at splits on those types of surfaces is also a good idea.

Odds to win are one factor to think about when picking players (but not the only thing, so be careful putting too much weight on them). This section is going to detail a few of the players who have the best fantasy value compared to their DraftKings Sportsbook odds of winning this week.

Comparables:

Comparables:

All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.

Recent Form

1. Beau Hossler ($8,900, Recent finishes: T-23; T-11; T-2): Hossler enters this event leading the field in strokes gained total stat over the last six events. His ball-striking fell off a bit last week, but he’s been showing improvement with his irons all fall.

2. Doug Ghim ($8,600, Recent finishes: Second; T-25): Ghim came close to grabbing his first win last weekend but ended up settling for second. He’s been in great form as of late and has gained over 5.0 strokes on approach in each of his last two starts.

3. Gary Woodland ($7,800, Recent finishes: T-9; T-16): Woodland has put together some strong results this fall, posting a T-9 last week where he gained 5.0 strokes on approach and 3.7 strokes on the greens. He finished T-5 at this event last season and looks to be regaining his peak, pre-brain surgery form.

4. Rico Hoey ($7,600, Recent finishes: T-3; T-21): Hoey has been trending well since the mid-summer (where he finished T-2 at the ISCO) and popped up last week with a T-3. He’s made nine cuts in a row on the PGA and is one of the most consistent players in this field off the tee.

5. Rickie Fowler ($7,600, Recent finishes: T-4; T-12): Fowler had his second straight quality start last week, as he managed a T-23 at the Shriners, putting together four rounds of 69 or better. Fowler gained 4.6 strokes on the greens but has improved with his approaches and could be a sneaky play this week based on his history (T-2 in 2022) at Narashino.

Cash Games: Make Morikawa your mark

The gap in price between the top two plays (Morikawa and Schauffele) is $1,000 this week, which seems a little high given how well Morikawa played in the playoffs and his history on this week’s course. The two-time major winner lapped the field on Narashino last season and gained 6.3 strokes ball-striking in his last start at the TOUR Championship in August. Schauffele is obviously coming off a better season but, all-in-all, when Morikawa is in form, there really should not be this big a gap between these two in price, making him the better value for me this week. Under Morikawa, I also like this setup for Kurt Kitayama ($9,200 – see below) who makes sense as a second man in for core lineups this week and view both Matt Kuchar ($7,400 – see below) and Rickie Fowler ($7,600) as solid values to target in the 7k range.

Tournaments: Zalatoris could surprise

We have seen players come into this event off a longer rest period and perform extraordinarily well. Having a leg up on travel (having not played the week prior) has helped out past champions at Narashino like Morikawa (’23) and Tiger Woods (’19) and seems to be a trend worth exploring this week. Will Zalatoris ($9,000) is following a similar path this season having taken lengthy time off after the TOUR Championship. Zalatoris showed glimpses of form to end his season in August, posting back-to-back top-15 finishes in the playoffs, and was trending up in his strokes gained approach stats, having gained 1.8 strokes in his final start. He’ll be playing this week’s venue for the first time in competition but certainly makes for a nice speculative play this week in GPPs, where he’s unlikely to be heavily owned given his lack of fall starts. Underneath Zalatoris, Tom Hoge ($8,400) also makes sense as a potential bounce-back candidate, as does Chan Kim ($7,400), whose ball-striking fell off the last couple of weeks but who does have experience playing in this portion of the world.

MY PICK: Kurt Kitayama ($9,200)

After another solid performance at the Shriners, where he finished T-9 despite losing 2.8 strokes putting, I’m very OK with going overweight again on Kurt Kitayama this week. The American is striping the ball at the moment and even with some of the top names on TOUR joining the fray this week, his stats stick out. Over his last four starts, he’s gained over 6.0 strokes on approach three separate times and has now gained over 11.0 strokes tee to green in three of his last four starts as well.

While he can be a little wild off the tee at times, Kitayama isn’t struggling with the driver at all lately, and the fact he was able to gain 2.3 strokes off the tee at the more target-oriented TPC Summerlin is another great sign that his long game is right where it needs to be to grab a second PGA win. We’re just waiting for the putter to click with Kitayama, which is a very similar story to Collin Morikawa’s leadup to this event in 2023, who put together a couple of elite ball-striking weeks ahead of his Zozo start, where he eventually got hot on the slower bentgrass greens at Narashino and lapped the field.

Kitayama was actually eighth in Putts per GIR at this venue last season, so he’s already proven that he can outperform to an extent at this venue with the flat stick. As a DFS play, he’s cheap enough to pair with another top name this week in stars and scrubs builds, and for betting, I’d have no problem playing him down to +2800 as an outright play on the DraftKings Sportsbook, which is bigger than the prices we were getting on him in a 150+ man field two weeks ago in Utah.

MY SLEEPER: Matt Kuchar ($7,400)

I think Kuchar has plenty of upside this week as the American has posted some sneaky good stats over his last few starts. He ranks second in GIR’s gained over the last 24 rounds and is still one of the stronger putters on the PGA at this stage in his career, ranking 19th in SG: Putting stats over that same span.

Kuchar has already put in two quality starts (T-14 Shriners, T-15 Sanderson Farms) over his three fall appearances and last week gained strokes across the board as he shot three rounds of 67 or better at Summerlin. The scoring this week should be a little tougher, which likely fits Kuchar’s game better at this point in his career given his solid short game. We have also seen veterans like Keegan Bradley and Tiger Woods excel on Narashino, which isn’t surprising as it does require a more thoughtful approach in terms of course management, thanks to its tighter fairways and layout.

To me, there is little downside in using Kuchar at his current price, given his recent form, in DFS, and betting his +7000 outright and +400 top-10 odds are both attractive enough to make him a solid add to cards this week.

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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is wavegoodbye) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.