This week is the PGA TOUR’s annual trip to Bay Hill, so mix together your iced tea and lemonade and get ready for the Arnold Palmer Invitational! The API will be the fourth Signature Event on the PGA TOUR calendar which means a limited field and all the biggest names in the sport. With just 72 players in the field, getting some differentiation in your tournament lineups will be challenging, but it will also be the key to a high finish in this week’s GPPs. To help you get the best options at low ownership, check out my top-three pivot plays this week: Hideki Matsuyama ($9,300), Keegan Bradley ($8,400) and Max McGreevy ($6,100). Each of those players should have lower ownership but also the ability to outperform expectations at their price point.
To make sure we’re all targeting the same fairway, a “pivot play” is a golfer with lower ownership but similar upside to a popular option 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 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 $1M Sand Trap [$200K to 1st]
Hideki Matsuyama ($9,500)
Matsuyama started the season with a huge win in Hawaii, overwhelming the course to finish and totaling a -35 for the tournament. He’s been relatively quiet since that win, but the 33-year-old has great history on this course and is getting much less attention than the other expensive players like Scottie Scheffler ($12,000), Rory McIlroy ($10,800), Ludvig Abert ($9,900) and even Tony Finau ($9,200).
While he hasn’t been near the very top of leaderboards since the PGA TOUR returned from Hawaii, he posted a top-25 at the WM Phoenix Open and added a T13 at The Genesis Invitational in his most recent event.
Over his last 24 rounds, Matsuyama ranks third in the field in Total Strokes Gained and is also in the top 10 in both Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and Strokes Gained: Approach. At Bay Hill, Mastuyama has nine made cuts in 10 appearances. His best finish came in 2016 when he finished T6, but he has been good recently as well with three top-20 finishes in the last four years.
Keegan Bradley ($8,400)
Between $8,000 and $9,000 are some big names like Russell Henley ($8,800), Viktor Hovland ($8,300), Sungjae Im ($8,900) and Maverick McNealy ($8,700). However, one option not getting much attention in this price range is Keegan Bradley, who like Matsuyama flashed a high ceiling this year and has a great history on this track.
The 38-year-old has gotten lots of attention for his role as the Ryder Cup captain but is still playing some great golf of his own. He made the cut in all five of his PGA TOUR events this year with a trio of top-25 finishes. Bradley finished in the top-15 at The Sentry behind Matsuyama and added top-15 finishes at the Sony Open and the Farmers Insurance. He took the last two weeks off after The Genesis Invitational, where he finished T34.
He’ll be in a good spot to get back in on the action this week since the New England native has flourished in Florida. He has made the cut 12 of the 13 times he has played this tournament with a runner-up finish in 2013 and five finishes in the top 11. While his best finish was a while ago, he has also found success lately. He finished T10, T11 and T10 in three straight stops at Bay Hill before dropping to T36 last season.
Given the form he showed early this season and his knowledge of Bay Hill, Bradley is a very strong pivot play this week and brings boom or bust potential at low ownership.
Max McGreevy ($6,100)
With the salary structure and cut line set up as it is, this event lends itself to playing a bargain basement flier or two who allow you to stuff the top of your roster with multiple superstars. Some popular cheap plays this week look to be Joe Highsmith ($6,200), Isaiah Salinda ($6,400) and Cameron Davis ($6,400), but I like McGreevy as a red-hot flier to ride and see if he can make the weekend at Bay Hill.
McGreevy was a player I had starred as a potential breakout coming into the season, but he got off to a brutal start. One of the reasons I liked him was that he picked up a win last fall in Japan at the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament. He beat Matsuyama, Akshay Bhatia ($7,800) and the rest of the field by four strokes. That was after a strong T11 at the Black Desert Championship in the FedExCup Fall. McGreevy earned his full-time status on the PGA TOUR for this year by finishing No. 2 on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List in 2024 thanks to victories at the Memorial Health Championship and Magnit Championship.
Early in the year, McGreevy didn’t look like he would carry over that success to 2025. He missed the cut or withdrew from his first four PGA TOUR events and opened in Mexico two weeks ago with a 74 in the first round. Since then, McGreevy has turned things around in a big way. He went 65-68-66 the rest of the week and finished T25 in the Mexico Open. On a much tougher track last week at PGA National, he kept right on rolling, posting four rounds in the 60s to finish T4. He ranks 10th in the field in Total Strokes Gained over the last eight rounds and showed lots of balance across his bag last week.
McGreevy hasn’t played this event before, so there’s a lot of risk, but if you are looking to add an ultra-cheap play with plenty of momentum and hopefully enough steam to at least make it through the cut, McGreevy is my favorite bargain option this week.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $1M Sand Trap [$200K to 1st] (PGA TOUR)
