The PGA TOUR’s 2026 season is in full swing, with its second event starting this weekend. With the American Express this week, DraftKings users can play in DraftKings PGA Pick6 contests for all four rounds. If you’re new, Pick6 is a single-user daily fantasy game where you select players to go over or under the totals.
This week, the PGA heads to Palm Springs for the American Express, where players will compete in a pro-am-style event across three courses. Each player will have one round on three main courses: TPC Stadium (the home course, played twice), La Quinta Country Club, and Nicklaus Tournament. The venues are all Par 72s under 7,200 yards, making them relatively easy for the players, especially if the weather cooperates and the wind stays down. Winning scores for this event regularly exceed 25-under, and last year’s winner, Sepp Straka, won the event by two at -25.
I reviewed additional statistics and course dynamics in the American Express PGA Cheat Sheet and included some notes on the course below for Pick6 research.
“Both La Quinta and the Nicklaus Tournament venue play as very short par 72s and pop up as some of the easiest to score on every season. The rough at both courses is non-penal, and there’s little in the way of dangerous hazards … All of these courses offer chances for your player to go low; however, the TPC Stadium has gotten easier from an average scoring perspective over the past few seasons.
The Stadium course can stretch to 7,300 yards, although generally, it will set up at around 7,000-7,150 yards for the week. Players can still be aggressive as the rough is kept low, but the sight lines and setup on this Dye design mean there will be lots of places where the play off the tee will be less than driver. The most popular range on approach tends to be from 150-175 yards, which again speaks to the fact that laying back off the tee will be necessary on at least some of the par 4s.
The course also shares a lot of similarities with its more famous sister venue — TPC Sawgrass down in Florida. Water comes into play on seven holes, and the 17th is a near replica of the famous par-3 island green 17th at Sawgrass. There’s a ton of sand here, too, with over 90 bunkers. Despite smaller greens and lots of bunkers, scrambling rates at TPC Stadium are higher than the PGA TOUR average, and around-the-green play (while always important) hasn’t been a huge factor for most of the past winners.
One final note on putting: the easier setup generally means players will be closer to the hole here on approach than at tougher courses. There’s often a spike in birdie opportunities from 20 feet and in (compared to other PGA TOUR venues), so looking at players with solid make rates from that distance is something else to consider this week.”
As of now, we have Round 1 totals up on the Pick6 site for play, so that’s where we’ll be focusing this week. It’s important to know what course your player is playing in Round 1, as La Quinta tends to play the easiest (followed by Nicklaus Tournament and then Stadium). The weather looks fine for Round 1, so expect lower scoring again this season.
With that in mind, I’ve focused on a few of my favorite plays for Round 1 below.
Top DraftKings Pick6 Plays for the 2026 American Express
Bud Cauley More Than 5.5 Birdies or Better
I like Cauley this week for a couple of reasons. He’s got a solid track record at this week’s venue, having finished in the top five here in 2018, and he’s also played well at TPC Sawgrass, another Pete Dye-designed venue. He comes in off a solid start at the Sony Open as well, where he finished T30 and gained strokes across most major categories.
Cauley’s generally one of the most precise short-iron players on the PGA, and with easier-to-hit fairways and less penal rough, he should be able to attack flags here again. He starts on the easiest course (La Quinta), so I’m fine playing him to net us 6+ birdies or better in the Round, given that there are four par 5s in play and he’s just shown us some solid recent form.
Matthew Fitzpatrick More Than 67.5 Strokes
Fitzpatrick is coming in off a monster finish to last season, but this week will mark his first start on the PGA this season. He’s a former US Open winner who typically relies on his short game on tougher courses, but can be inconsistent in these smaller events, especially on courses he’s not familiar with.
I’m bullish on Fitzpatrick overall this season, but I do see this as a potentially good spot to fade him, at least in Round 1. He’ll also be starting at the Nicklaus Tournament venue, which has played just as tough as Stadium at points in the past, adding to the narrative that it may be good to fade him at the start this week. Even if he shoots -5 in Round 1, we’d still hit the under on this total, and with that high a bar, fading seems like the right play here.
Andrew Novak Less Than 68.5 Strokes
Novak comes in as the world’s 32nd-rated player in the OWGR and off a strong fall session, after he finished T7 at the RSM Classic. Like Cauley, he also has a great record at Dye-designed venues, having lost in a playoff last season at Hilton Head to Justin Thomas. He also grabbed a win with partner Ben Griffin at the Dye-designed TPC Louisiana and is generally a very solid iron player who is great at navigating courses with smaller greens.
While he didn’t play last week, this bigger total looks more than worth attacking, especially since he’s starting his event on the easiest course, La Quinta.
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Pick6 is a peer-to-peer fantasy variant where you build a lineup (your “Pick Set”) of 2+ players and select whether you believe each will outperform their listed stat projection. Enter your Pick Set in Pick6 contests to compete against other users. Get enough picks correct and win a share of cash prizes.
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Create a Pick Set by choosing 2+ players from the same sport and Pick Group (a set of picks available from a group of set competitions). For each player, simply select if you think they’ll have more or less than their listed stat projection. In each Pick Set, you can not pick the same player twice and you must pick players from at least two different teams.
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