After a week in Mexico, the PGA TOUR has arrived in a great part of the schedule leading up to The Masters, which is just over a month and a half away. This week’s tournament begins the Florida Swing at PGA National for the Cognizant Classic. If you’re playing in “cash game” formats on DraftKings, my favorite three options are Russell Henley ($10,700), Alex Smalley ($7,900), and Lucas Glover ($7,800).
Earlier on Wednesday, I broke down my top three pivot plays for tournament lineups in a companion piece to this post. The picks in both posts have things that I like about them for this week’s event. The pivot plays for tournaments are more aggressive, while these three plays are safer options, but will also likely have much higher ownerships. Think of cash game picks as playing a par 5 as it was designed: Looking for a solid birdie; while the tournament plays are more aggressive picks that try to go for the green in two. There is potentially more reward with those picks but also more risk.
The picks I highlight here are designed for “cash game” contests, which are contests on DraftKings that pay out to about the top half of entries. Typically, they are in the 50/50s & Double Ups or Head-to-Head sections of the DraftKings lobby. In this style of contest, it’s important to minimize risk and try to focus more on the floor of your entry rather than the ceiling. Typically, cash lineups will be more balanced in their spending. In cash games, finding low ownership plays doesn’t matter as much since you’re just trying to finish in the top half of contests rather than finish at the very top of a GPP.
With those ground rules in place, let’s dive deeper into my top three cash game plays for this week at the Cognizant Classic.
Russell Henley ($10,700)
If you’re looking for the safest play in the field, the highest-priced option is a great place to start. Henley has an outstanding track record at PGA National, and his game is a great fit for the course on every level. He’s one of the betting favorites to win the week and has proven his game is in good enough form to win with several strong starts in 2025.
Henley has played this event 10 times in his career and made the cut nine times. He’d finished in the top 25 in four straight years before finishing T41 last season. He picked up one of his four PGA TOUR career wins at this event back in 2014 when he defeated Rory McIlroy, Ryan Palmer and Russell Knox in a four-man playoff.
As an approach-shot specialist, Henley’s game is a great fit for this track since he typically stays out of the water and sets himself up for plenty of birdie chances.
This season, Henley has made the cut in all four of his appearances with a top 10 finish at the Sony Open and a top five finish at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Over the last three years, Henley has been a much better putter on Bermuda than other playing surfaces, so coming back to Florida should set him up for a successful series of events leading up to The Masters.
He definitely has the potential to win this week if he’s on, but he also brings a very high floor, which is why he’s perfect for cash lineups.
Alex Smalley ($7,900)
Getting Smalley under $8,000 is a great deal this week, and he brings a good floor given his strong play so far in 2025.
Smalley has four top 25 finishes in his first five events of the season. In his only “bad” week, he missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open, but he came right back with a T21 in Phoenix and a T10 in Mexico last week. One course with good correlation to this one is Waialea in Hawaii, where Smalley finished T16 earlier this season.
Smalley ranks second in the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green over the last 20 rounds, and he should get a boost by moving to Bermuda greens where he has done better in Strokes Gained: Putting throughout his career.
Last year at this venue, Smalley missed the cut, but he finished T55 in 2023 in his tournament debut. Since his metrics are strong and his current form has been excellent, I’m willing to to overlook his shaky course history this week and use him in my cash lineups.
Lucas Glover ($7,800)
Glover has course history solidly in his corner for this week’s event, and the 45-year-old veteran has already posted a few strong showings in 2025.
He missed the cut in Phoenix but finished T21 at the Sony Open on a similar track and posted an excellent T3 at the AT&T Pebble Beach in the Signature Event. In his most recent start, he made the cut and finished T31 at The Genesis Invitational where he closed with an impressive 67 in the Final Round. At that event, he paced the field in FIR% across all four days and finished sixth in scrambling. His putter has stood out as the best part of his game and he has gained strokes on the green in four of five starts to begin the 2025 season.
Throughout his career at PGA National, Glover has 10 made cuts in 15 appearances. He made the cut in six of his last seven appearances, including each of the last three while finishing in the top 35 every time. His best showings were top five finishes in 2013 and 2019.
Glover has seen this course in just about every condition and his recent success makes him a strong bet to make the weekend. He’s also flashed the potential for a high finish if he can carry over his success from Pebble Beach a few weeks ago.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR SINGLE ENTRY $25 Double Up (PGA TOUR)
