After a few months off for the holidays and a cancellation of last week’s The Sentry, the PGA TOUR is ready to step to the tee box and get the 2026 season underway. As has become the tradition, Waialae Country Club will provide plenty of Aloha vibes to golf fans as it hosts the Sony Open in Hawaii to get the season underway. Rumors are flying that the PGA TOUR schedule could change soon, but for this year, the Sony Open is still the first event of the New Year. If you’re fired up to start 2026 by building your DFS fantasy golf bankroll, one option to consider is playing cash games or double-up contests on DraftKings. If that’s the format you’re looking to attack this week, my top fantasy golf cash game picks for the Sony Hawaii Open are Hideki Matsuyama ($9,700), Rico Hoey ($8,100) and Mac Meissner ($7,500).
Make sure to also check out my top-three pivot plays for tournament lineups at the Sony Open in Hawaii in a companion piece to this post. Pivot plays for tournament lineups are usually more aggressive, while fantasy golf cash game picks are safer with higher floors and lower risk. The picks in this post generally have higher ownership than my pivot plays, but they are good selections for contests where the uniqueness of your lineup is less important. Think of cash game picks as laying back and playing a par 5 as it was designed, taking three shots before reaching the green in search of a solid birdie. Tournament picks are like going driver off the deck to try to reach the green in two — more reward if it works, but much more risk as well.
These fantasy golf cash game picks are best used in “cash games,” which are contests 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.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR Single Entry $25 Double Up!
Hideki Matsuyama ($9,700)
Just behind top options Ben Griffin ($10,100) and Russell Henley ($10,300), Matsuyama is set up as a great way to start your balanced lineups with a play under $10K. Building around Matsuyama helps avoid having to dive deep into the salary structure for bargain punt plays to fill your roster.
Matsuyama has a great history in Hawaii, where he finished T16 last year after his season-opening win at The Sentry in Maui. That finish was his ninth straight made cut at Waialae Country Club, including a win in 2022 and four top-20 finishes in the last six years. He’s been a “horse for the course,” but he’s also been so consistent across the board that he can be a cash game staple almost any week he tees it up.
Hideki made the cut in 20 of his 23 events last season, with all three missed cuts in the spring. He finished with 12 top-25 finishes in those 20 events and advanced to the playoff finale at the TOUR Championship.
He finished T20 in the FedExCup Fall event in Japan and then won the Hero World Challenge in December, which is an unofficial PGA TOUR event but does include some of the biggest names in the sport. Before that year-ending victory, he had a pair of top-10s in events in South Korea and Japan, so he comes in with some nice form to a course where he has a very high comfort level.
Rico Hoey ($8,100)
Like Hideki, Hoey is one of the PGA TOUR’s premier shot makers. Hoey hasn’t had nearly the success though since he has been held back by his very streaky putting over the last few years. He made a big change last fall by moving to the broomstick putter, and so far, the results have been very encouraging. His shot making is strong enough to always give him a high floor, and if he can start knocking in putts, he’ll also have a very high ceiling.
Last season, Hoey finished on a strong run, making the cut in 10 of his last 11 PGA TOUR events. He had five top-10 finishes during that run including at the Baycurrent Classic, Bank of Utah Championship, and The RSM Classic. Hoey leads the entire field in Strokes Gained: Approach over his last 36 rounds and ranks second in Total Strokes Gained.
Overall last year, the 30-year-old posted a dozen top-25 finishes and six top-10 finishes to end up at No. 54 in the FedExCup Fall standings.
This will be Hoey’s fourth career appearance at the Sony Open, and last year was the first time he made the cut. If his approach game stays sharp, though, his new putter could help him definitely push past the rest of the players in the $8,000s and emerge as one of the best mid-priced plays of the week.
Mac Meissner ($7,500)
For cash lineups, I tend to rely on shot-makers since they are much more consistent. Especially in an event like this with so little recent form data, it’s easy to rely on these consistent players and hope one catches fire with their putter. Meissner is another player who fits that mold and should be able to set himself up for a big week in Hawaii, where he finished T21 in his debut last season.
That result was the first of his five top-25 finishes last season, which were enough to help him finish at No. 85 in the FedExCup Fall standings to retain his full-time PGA TOUR card.
His best finish last year was a runner-up finish at the Wyndham Championship, where he was a distant second behind Cameron Young’s breakthrough victory. The 26-year-old Meissner built on that result throughout the fall, though, finishing in the top 30 at each of his last four events, including a T14 at the Sanderson Farms Championship and a T18 at The RSM Classic.
Meissner ranks sixth in the field in Total Strokes Gained in the last 30 rounds, seventh in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and eighth in Strokes Gained: Approach. Throughout his career, he has had success on similar layouts to Waialae, and with his strong profile, he should be a great option in your fantasy golf cash game picks since he has both a high floor and a high ceiling at only $7,500.
