The PGA TOUR’s 2026 season gets its first big event of the year this week with the PLAYERS Championship. With the PLAYERS Championship, 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 the Jacksonville area for the American Express, where players will compete at TPC Sawgrass, a treacherous Pete Dye design with numerous water hazards that creates huge drama down the stretch. With wind potentially a big factor this year, conditions are looking prime for tougher scoring in 2026. Winning scores for this event fluctuate, but expect the winner to be in the low teens or worse this year.
I reviewed additional statistics and course dynamics in the PGA Cheat Sheet for THE PLAYERS Championship and included some notes on the course below for Pick6 research.
“The course itself is set up as a traditional par 72 (four par 5s and four par 3s), but each hole presents a unique challenge to players. While the 17th island green can be tricky on Sunday, it’s the 18th hole that plays as one of the hardest on the course every year and requires a pinpoint drive over water to a narrow fairway on a semi-dogleg setup. The rest of the course is made up of risk-reward par 5s and a couple of treacherous, if less well-known, par 3s. As for the par 4s, five of them come in at 450 yards or more and tend to stress longer approaches, while only three will play at under 400 for the week.
The fairways at Sawgrass are generally easier to hit than at an average PGA TOUR stop, but placement on certain sides is still key. Four of the last five winners of THE PLAYERS (Scheffler, Thomas, and McIlroy) gained multiple strokes off the tee, but it’s worth noting that 2022 winner Cameron Smith lost over 5.0 strokes off the tee. In 2024, Scottie Scheffler defended his PLAYERS title from 2023 by gaining 6.4 strokes off the tee and another 6.4 strokes on approach. McIlroy gained over 2.0 strokes OTT at Sawgrass as well. Being accurate (and long) off the tee can keep you out of a lot of trouble and allow you to go pin hunting on these smaller greens.
Smith’s splits from 2022 are extreme and not likely to be repeated anytime soon, but it still emphasizes the point that if a player is hitting his irons well AND scrambling/putting well at Sawgrass, he has a chance (even if his off-the-tee game is sub-par). GIR%’s at Sawgrass, historically, are well below the PGA average (3-6%), and scrambling is also tougher than normal at Sawgrass (5% below the TOUR average). On that note, one thing the last six winners now all have in common is that they gained OVER 6.0 strokes on approach for the week — and finished top six for the week in the strokes gained approach stat (in 2025, Rory McIlroy gained over 7.0 strokes on approach, and was fifth best in this stat for the week). Average Proximity, SG: APP and GIR% are all key indicators for 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. The players out first are expected to have slightly better conditions with winds picking up throughout the day. If you’re targeting stroke totals or birdie-or-better totals, keep that in mind.
With that in mind, I’ve focused on a few of my favorite plays for Round 1 below.
Top DraftKings Pick6 Plays for THE PLAYERS Championship
Viktor Hovland Less Than 70.5 Strokes
Hovland heads out on Thursday with a solid early tee time. The American hasn’t achieved much yet this year, but his game seems ready for a big week. He ranks in the top 30 in strokes gained approach stats for the season and finished in the top 20 last week on another tough Florida course at Bay Hill, where he ended T13 and gained 2.5 strokes with his irons.
Hovland has been somewhat inconsistent with other parts of his game, but his irons have stayed steady, and his putter improved last week at Bay Hill. Generally, the greens in Florida tend to play quite similarly, and Hovland has had success at Sawgrass before, posting a T9 in 2022 and a T3 in 2023.
Overall, I’m optimistic about Hovland this week, and with him starting in an advantageous tee time, I see no reason not to expect him to outperform in Round 1.
Rico Hoey More Than 71.5 Strokes
Hoey had a great ball-striking stretch that went back to a couple of summers of ago, where his iron play brought him within a stroke of getting a PGA win. However, his last few tournaments have seen him regress hard. He posted a T67 at Pebble Beach and then missed the cut at both Riviera and PGA National two weeks ago, his first Florida start of the season.
I’d like Hoey on a ball-strikers course normally, but he’s not the sort of player who can sustain good play without his irons firing. As one of the worst putters on the PGA, I don’t love any Round 1 total that requires him to shoot under par. You could look to fade him in other ways this week, such as missing the cut, but for Pick6, taking the more than on his stroke total makes sense given where his total is at.
Andrew Novak More Than 3.5 Birdies or Better
Novak has been a little up and down to start the year, posting a T7 early on at the Farmers. He has been making cuts, but he’s been unable to crack the top 20 since. The good news is that while Novak does struggle with a big mistake here and there, he has been making birdies and comes into the week ranked in the top 50 in Birdie or Better %.
Form-wise, Novak’s irons are still giving him plenty of birdie chances every week, and with Sawgrass being an accuracy-driven course similar to Hilton Head, where he lost in a playoff last season, He should be able to excel here if his irons keep performing. From a total perspective, this is a small bar for him on a course with four par 5s, especially as his payout levels are higher than several other names at this total. I like adding him to get us four or more BoB as a play for Round 1.
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