Hello, friends. It’s time for a tradition like no other as the PGA TOUR heads to Augusta National Golf Club for the 2025 Masters, which is the first major championship of the year and one of the best weeks of golf all year long. DraftKings is all over the action in multiple ways this week and has three DFS golf contests with top prizes of $1 million. The three massive tournaments are all GPP tournaments, so you’ll want to do all you can to differentiate your lineups. In this weekly post, we focus on some picks that go against the grain of public perception and stand out as pivot plays. My top three fantasy golf pivot plays this week are Joaquin Niemann ($9,300), Min Woo Lee ($8,500) and Justin Rose ($7,200). Each of those players should have lower ownership but also the ability to outperform expectations at his price point.
To make sure everyone is clear on the kind of picks highlighted in this post, let’s define our terms. A “fantasy golf pivot play” is a golfer with lower ownership but a similar upside to more popular options available near the same DFS salary. Sometimes, the golfer with lower ownership brings extra risk factors, but to make your lineup stand out in tournament formats, it’s worth the extra risk for the lower ownership and higher ceiling. Players with lower ownership increase the chance of your entry finishing higher on the leaderboard. These pivot plays tend to be “boom-or-bust,” bringing high risk and high reward. Even though they’re NOT the safest plays in the price range, they have enough potential upside to be worth the risk. Be sure to check out my picks for cash lineups if you’re looking for safer options that raise the floor of your lineup.
Let’s break down why I like each of my top three pivot plays this week.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $4M Fantasy Golf Millionaire [$1M to 1st]
Joaquin Niemann ($9,300)
As a group, LIV Golf players typically tend to be good pivot options since they are a little more unknown and off the radar. Niemann is priced low enough that he’s a good option to combine with whatever star you decide to build your lineup around or serve as an option in an entry that stuffs in multiple mid-range plays. He looks to be coming in with significantly lower ownership than the most expensive options and even lower than Shane Lowry ($8,800), Viktor Hovland ($9,200), Tommy Fleetwood ($9,100) and Justin Thomas ($9,600), who are around his price point.
The risk with Niemann is straightforward–he hasn’t ever posted a top 10 in a major championship. The 26-year-old from Chile was just starting to emerge as one of golf’s rising stars when he moved to LIV Golf. He won claimed two PGA TOUR titles before the move, including a big win at the Genesis Invitational in 2022.
Since moving to LIV, he has continued to ascend and has already won four times. He won the raucous LIV Golf Adelaide by three strokes in mid-February, and then he followed that up with a win at LIV Golf Singapore by five strokes in mid-March.
While he continues to post strong results, he has yet to really deliver at a major. In his 22 career major appearances, he has yet to finish in the top 10. He has had some success at Augusta, though, with four top-35 finishes in his five appearances. He finished T16 and T22.
He’s high-risk since he hasn’t been a regular on major championship leaderboards, but that seems to be the next step in his rise to the top, and it could happen this week, making him a strong pivot option.
Min Woo Lee ($8,500)
Another international 26-year-old on the rise, Lee is also going a little over-looked this week in the mid $8,000s. Around his price point, Russell Henley ($8,400), Patrick Cantlay ($8,700) and Corey Conners ($7,900) are more proven options and getting much more attention. Lee has shown enough upside, though, to be one of the best fantasy golf pivot plays in the midrange.
The last time we saw Min Woo, he broke through for his first PGA TOUR win at the Texas Children’s Houston Open. The course for that event, Municipal Park Golf Club, is designed to mimic and emulate Augusta National in many ways to help players prepare for the Masters. If Lee can continue his form from that win, he could be right back in the mix this week.
His win definitely didn’t come out of nowhere. He now has five top-20 finishes in his seven events on the PGA TOUR in 2025. Over his last 30 rounds, he ranks 13th in the field in Total Strokes Gained and third in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green.
That strong short game should play well at Augusta, and he already has two top-25 finishes in his three career appearances at Augusta. He comes in on a heater, so climb on board and hope he keeps it rolling this week
Justin Rose ($7,200)
Rose made his first appearance at Augusta National in 2003, when the other two picks in this post turned five years old. The grizzled veteran is still one of the best fantasy golf pivot plays of the week, though, since he has so much boom-or-bust upside.
Rose has made the cut in 16 of his 19 career appearances at Augusta with 14 top-25 finsihes, six top-10 finishes, and a pair of near misses that landed him runner-up. He lost in a playoff to Sergio Garcia ($7,100) in 2017 and finished four shots behind Jordan Spieth ($9,000) in 2015 to tie for second with Rory McIlroy ($11,100). Rose missed the cut at this event in two of the last three years, but he has also posted top-25 finishes in three of the last five years.
The 11-time PGA TOUR winner has also had that kind of boom-or-bust pattern in recent majors, finishing in the top 20 four times but missing the cut twice. He finished runner-up at The Open Championship last year and T6 at the PGA Championship.
This season has been more of the same for Rose. He has top-10 finishes in Signature Events at the Arnold Palmer Invitationals and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but he missed the cut in three of his four other appearances.
While he’s definitely a bust risk, his ceiling is high enough that he’s a great option to consider for tournament lineups, especially since there are so many safer and splashier options in the low $7,000s.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $4M Fantasy Golf Millionaire [$1M to 1st].
