After most of the big names took the week off last week, the stars of the PGA TOUR return to action for this week’s Signature Event at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It’s a great week to mix your lemonade and iced tea as you enjoy watching your perfectly blended roster carry you to a win in fantasy golf contests. If you’re planning to tee it up for any of this week’s GPP contests on DraftKings, check out these top three fantasy golf picks for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This week, I’m backing Robert MacIntyre ($9,000), Sepp Straka ($7,400) and Sahith Theegala ($6,800) as my three top GPP plays, who I think come in with lower ownership but have a strong chance to step up and exceed salary-based expectations as strong pivot plays.
Let’s be sure to define what we’re searching for in this post to be sure we’re all aiming at the same flagstick. A fantasy golf pivot play is a golfer with low expected ownership in tournament formats but high upside. Typically, these selections come with more risk compared to popular options with similar salaries. To differentiate your lineup for tournament play, it’s worth considering these plays even though they are NOT the safest options. These are “grip it and rip it,” boom-or-bust style options that could go off or could flame out. Getting players at low ownership is critical for success in GPP tournament-style events with many entries, so making yours stand out is critical. Be sure to check out my companion post to this one that highlights my picks for cash lineups if you’re looking for safer options that raise the overall 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 $1M Sand Trap [$200K to 1st].
Robert MacIntyre ($9,000)
Bobby Mac is a little cheaper and a little less popular than the other stars in the field. His salary of $9,000 can work in combination with the other big names, or he can anchor a balanced build. He’s getting much less attention than Scottie Scheffler ($14,100) and Rory McIlroy ($11,600) at the very top of the salary structure and even Matt Fitzpatrick ($9,800), Si Woo Kim ($9,200) and Harris English ($8,900). MacIntyre is a solid pivot play, though, especially since he has a good track record at Bay Hill Club & Lodge and can contend in elite fields in difficult conditions.
MacIntyre’s history at Bay Hill is solid. He finished T36 in 2021 in his debut and returned last year to finish at T11 just outside the top 10. The 29-year-old lefty from Scotland broke through on the PGA TOUR with a pair of victories in 2024 at the RBC Canadian Open and the Genesis Scottish Open. Last year, he finished runner-up at the U.S. Open and the BMW Championship (in the FedExCup Playoffs) and also won last fall on the DP World Tour at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. He closed out the year with two more top-10 finishes in strong fields at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and the DP World Tour Championship.
He has carried over that form into the early part of 2026 as well with a T4 in Hawaii and a T20 at The Genesis Invitational two weeks ago. MacIntyre is off to a solid start to the year but hasn’t contended enough to be too over-owned for his return to Bay Hill this week.
MacIntyre typically plays well in tough conditions like expected this week.
Sepp Straka ($7,400)
Straka is another affordable European option who is coming in a little under the radar. He looks likely to be much less popular this week than Pierceson Coody ($7,600), Jason Day ($7,700), Alex Noren ($7,300), Ryan Gerard ($7,200) and Nicolai Hojgaard ($7,200). Straka is another boom-or-bust player who has proven he can play well in difficult conditions and strong fields like this week’s.
He won a Signature Event last season at the Truist Championship as one of his six top-10 finishes and 13 top-25 finishes in 22 events. He started this year slowly with a missed cut in La Quinta, where he was the defending champ. Straka found much better form with a T18 at the WM Phoenix Open and a T2 at Pebble Beach in his next two starts, though. Two weeks ago, he had a decent week overall but had a shaky Round 3 that resulted in a T50 at The Genesis Invitational.
If he can avoid a big number this week, he could be right in the mix. He has made the cut in each of his last two trips to Bay Hill, including a strong T5 last year. He started that tournament with a shaky 77 but then played extremely well with a 66-69-69 to surge up the leaderboard.
If he can build on that strong finish at Bay Hill last year and carry over his form from Pebble Beach, Straka has the kind of excellent tee-to-green game that typically leads to success at this track.
Sahith Theegala ($6,800)
If you’re really looking to swing for the fences, Theegala is one option that brings a high ceiling and will likely have low ownership. Theegala looked like a rising star on the PGA TOUR a few years ago, but he had a down year in 2025.
He broke through for his first PGA TOUR win in 2023 at the Fortinet Championship and finished third in the FedExCup standings in 2024. In 2025, though, he finished only No. 147 in the FedExCup standings, making the cut in 17 of 23 events but only posting two top-25 finishes and no top-10 finishes.
He looks ready to bounce back in 2026, though, and he has already posted four top-25 finishes, including two top-10 finishes at The American Express and the Farmers Insurance Open. He had a disappointing showing at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am but bounced back with a T22 at The Genesis Invitational two weeks ago in the last Signature Event.
In his appearances at Bay Hill, Theegala has been boom-or-bust. He had a pair of impressive top-15 finishes in 2023 and 2024 but missed the cut in 2022 and 2025. His best showing was a T6 in 2024.
His driver has still been a little shaky, which could be a problem with so much trouble in play off the tee. However, his approach game and short game have been sharp. In The Genesis, Theegala ranked 26th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, 21st in Strokes Gained: Approach, and 19th in Strokes Gained: Putting.
While it may be too early to say Theegala is “back,” he clearly is trending in the right direction, and getting him back in your GPP lineups early could pay off this week with a great leverage play at a low ownership.
