PGA Tour DFS Golf: Arnold Palmer Invitational FanDuel picks

The PGA Tour presents the DFS/FanDuel community with the Arnold Palmer Invitational! Let’s take a look at this event from a fantasy golf perspective!

Before I dive into my DFS player selections for the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational let’s take a look at the golf course the field will play and review the key statistics that I feel are the most important to a golfer’s success at this week’s tournament.

This week, the PGA Tour travels to Windermere, Florida for the second leg of the Florida swing. The Arnold Palmer Invitational will be contested at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge. The Bay Hill course is a par 72 that measures 7,454 yards. The track features rather wide generous fairways and minimal rough. This course also presents golfers with a large number of bunkers which are in play on nine of the holes. It should also be noted that Bay Hill has several long par three holes that average 217 yards in length.

Key Facts

• Four of the top ten golfers in the current official world golf rankings will be in this week’s field, including world number one Rory McIlroy.
• Eight time Arnold Palmer Invitational champion Tiger Woods will not be in this week’s field due to ongoing back stiffness.
• Last year, the Bay Hill track ranked ninth out of 49 golf courses on the PGA Tour schedule in terms of difficulty.

In my opinion, the key statistics that are the most important to a golfer’s success this week are GIR (greens in regulation), strokes gained tee to green, strokes gained approach and strokes gained putting.

Here are my DFS/FanDuel player selections for the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Rory McIlroy $12,200

Rory McIlroy has certainly been putting on full display why he is currently the number one golfer on the planet. Quite simply, the man has been playing some unbelievably consistent and quality golf over the last year. How good you may ask? In his last ten events worldwide (PGA and European Tours combined) McIlroy has a very impressive eight top five finishes, including a win at the Tour Championship in August.

Rory also has outstanding previous event form at the API. Let me be more specific. McIlroy has played the Arnold Palmer Invitational five times since 2015. In those five events played, Rory has four top 11 finishes, including a win in 2018.

McIlroy certainly checks the box for me when it comes to key statistics. Rory currently ranks first in strokes gained tee to green (2.351), third in strokes gained approach (1.089) and first in scoring average (68.20) on the PGA Tour.

The Bay Hill golf course that the field will play this week features bermuda grass greens. It should be noted that Rory McIlroy has won six PGA Tour events that featured bermuda grass greens. McIlroy is the only golfer in this event’s field that has five or more wins on Bermuda grass greens.

Bryson DeChambeau $11,700

DeChambeau currently ranks 11th in strokes gained tee to green (1.253), 20th in GIR (greens in regulation-71.46%) and fifth in scoring average (69.257) on the PGA Tour. He finished second at the WGC-Mexico in his last event on Tour two weeks ago.

Byeong Hun An $10,300

An started last week’s Honda Classic with a horrendous first round 76. However, he bounced back in impressive fashion. An shot a cumulative score of nine under par in the last last three rounds enroute to a fourth place finish. It should also be noted that Byeong Hun An finished tenth at the 2019 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Maverick McNealy $8,800

McNealy has made an impressive ten consecutive cuts on the PGA Tour. More importantly, Maverick arrives at this week’s tournament on the heels of three consecutive top 15 finishes, including an 11th place result at last week’s Honda Classic.

Patrick Rodgers $8,100

Rodgers has three top 21 finishes in his last six events, including a 16th place result at the Waste Management Phoenix Open last month. He also finished seventh at the 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Matthew NeSmith $8,000

He finished 17th at the American Express in January. NeSmith followed up that quality result with an 11th place finish at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February. Additionally, NeSmith has been a consistent cut maker this season. He has made the cut in seven consecutive PGA Tour events.

As always, good luck!