The Cheat Sheet provides DraftKings fantasy golf players with course info, player history, and the most noteworthy trends of the week to help them with their roster selections.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $800K Summer Sand Trap [$200K to 1st]
The Field
This week, the field has been pared down again, as only the top-50 players in the FedEx Cup Playoffs have advanced. Notable players who WILL NOT play this week include Jordan Spieth, Wyndham Clark and Min Woo Lee. After the BMW Championship is complete, the top-30 players in the FedEx Cup standings will be allowed to tee it up one more time in two weeks at East Lake for a chance at some serious cash. As of now, the top five in the FedEx Cup standings are Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, J.J. Spaun, Justin Rose and Sepp Straka.
The seeding going into the last leg of the playoffs isn’t as important as it used to be, given that the handicap system is no longer in place for the final leg in 2025. However, players are still chasing big money and several need to solidify their standings in the top 30 for next week, so there is plenty on the line.
With the shorter field, this week’s event is also a four-round, no-cut affair, an important note for DFS and betting.
The Course
Caves Valley Golf Club— Owings Mills, Maryland
Par 72, 7,631 yards – Greens: Bentgrass
After visiting Castle Pines last year in Colorado, the BMW Championship will return to Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland, which also hosted the 2021 version of this event.
Caves Valley is a Tom Fazio-designed venue and will play as a longer Par 72 at just over 7,500 yards. Fazio has designed numerous other golf courses on the PGA rota, including Congaree (Palmetto Championship), Quail Hollow (redesign-Wells Fargo) and Firestone CC (home of the now-defunct Bridgestone WGC event).
The course is relatively new (created in 1991), but they have heightened the rough, added a couple of new bunkers, and added tee boxes to increase the length of the course for this week’s event. Like many of Fazio’s other designs, though, this venue looks like a more sprawling course where good drivers of the ball can grab an advantage. Length may not be the only factor in play here, as the rough will likely play up, making fairways more optimal than normal here. Still, driving the ball should be easy for most of the players, and big drivers will have an advantage if they are finding fairways at a high rate.
The back nine of the venue (will play as the front nine this week) rolls through more heavily tree’d areas and contains a couple of slight doglegs, while the front nine (will play as the back this week) features water on five holes but has a more open parkland setting, which should encourage driver usage and more aggressive play. Like many of his other setups, Fazio’s Caves Valley looks like a “driver-friendly” venue, so players who can dominate off the tee with accuracy and length here definitely should get a bump up for fantasy purposes. Six of the par 4’s here play over 450 yards in length as well, so driving efficiency and efficiency on par 4’s between 450-500 yards are a couple of stats to view here.
The greens are pure Bentgrass, and many of the complexes look like they’ll play fast and offer up a decent defense as long as we don’t get a ton of wet weather (again). However, the venue did play a little soft back in 2021, and Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau were able to go extremely low, with both men getting to 27-under par. Cantlay gained 14.6 strokes putting for the week during the week of his win, which gives you an idea of what is possible on these pure bentgrass greens if they stay slower. I expect elite putters will have a shot at doing well again this season, but they will have to be at least competent tee to green to stay up with the big rippers like McIlroy and Aberg.
2025 weather outlook: The early weather this week does have thunderstorms in the forecast for the first two days, which will likely soften up the course again. Highs will generally be in the 90°F range, so the venue could dry out by the weekend. Gusts don’t look overly difficult either, although Thursday afternoon could see a little heavier winds as thunderstorms are expected to roll in late. As of now, with a 50-man field, there isn’t a whole lot of strategy involved for wave stacking in DFS, although early starters on Thursday are who I would be targeting if you need a tiebreaker for one-day lineups or first-round leader bets.
Last Five Winners
2024–Keegan Bradley (-12 over 3 players -11)
2023–Viktor Hovland (-17 over Scottie Scheffler -15)
2022—Patrick Cantlay (-15 over Scott Stallings)
2021—Patrick Cantlay -27 (over Bryson DeChambeau playoff)*
2020—Jon Rahm -4 (over Dustin Johnson playoff)
*Played at Caves Valley
Winning Trends
- Twelve of the past 13 winners of the BMW Championship have all had at least one top-12 finish in their last four starts on the PGA TOUR.
- Of the last 10 winners, only three finished worse than T-12 in the FedEx St. Jude Championship (the first FedEx Cup playoff event) the week prior (2024 Keegan Bradley T59; Keegan Bradley T49 in 2018; Patrick Cantlay T57 in 2022).
Winners Stats and Course Overview
2021 Winner (played at Caves Valley): Patrick Cantlay 27-under-par
Lead-in form (T11-T23-MC-T13-T15)
SG: OTT— +1.1
SG: APP— +1.2
SG: TTG— +1.2
SG: ATG— -1.1
SG: PUTT— +14.6
- Obviously, there isn’t much course history to go off this week as the BMW takes place on a changing rotation of courses
- Cantlay was very putter-based when he won here in 2021, and he was very average around the greens. In general, hitting greens and fairways was easy for most of the field, so advantages were gained through putting or outright length off the tee for the most part.
- In general, 2021 saw several big hitters have success with Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Sam Burns and Jon Rahm all joining Cantlay and Bryson in the top 10 that season.
Finding Values (DraftKings Sportsbook)
Odds to win are one factor to think about when picking players (but not the only thing, so be careful putting too much weight on them). This section is going to detail a few of the players who have the best fantasy value comparative to their DraftKings Sportsbook odds of winning this week.
Justin Rose +4000 and $8,600
Comparables:
- Hideki Matsuyama +5000 and $8,800
- Sepp Straka +4000 and $9,000
Kurt Kitayama +5500 and $7,600
Comparables:
- Rickie Fowler +5500 and $7,900
- Shane Lowry +5500 and $7,700
Recent Form
- Cameron Young ($9,800; T5-win): Young had a nice follow-up week to his runaway win at the Wyndham. He gained over 6.5 strokes OTT at TPC Southwind and another 3.2 strokes on approach. This week sets up well for bombers, so Young could easily be in contention once again.
- J.J. Spaun ($9,400; P2-T23): Spaun endured a tough playoff loss last week. He shot a final round 65 and gained over 6.9 strokes on approach, so there is a lot to gain from the start. The course may not favor him as much as last week, but he’s undoubtedly found his form again after winning the US Open in June.
- Scottie Scheffler ($13,400; T3-win): Scheffler was just a touch off last week, but he still managed to put in a great showing and finish T-3. He won on the Fazio redesigned Quail Hollow in May, so there is no reason to think he’ll be at a disadvantage this week, even if the venue sets up well for other big drivers as well.
- Justin Rose ($8,600; win-T16): Rose had a tremendous finish last week in Memphis, making birdie on four holes in a row to get in the playoff, where he then birdied 18 twice to get the win. A small dip wouldn’t be shocking this week, but expect him to be someone who contends at East Lake in two weeks.
- Russell Henley ($9,700; T17-T10): Henley couldn’t get it going last week in Memphis, but he did play well and gained strokes everywhere but on the greens. Overall, he’s managed five straight top 20s and looks like someone to watch as we head into East Lake.
DraftKings DFS Strategy
Cash Games: Go Balanced with Rory
I don’t usually advocate not using Scheffler, but with a smaller field and a course that was very one-dimensional the last time we saw it, it does feel like a spot where players just below Scheffler may be able to offer slightly better value. McIlroy ($11,400) has always excelled on Fazio courses (wins at Quail and Congaree) and he was top eight at this venue in 2021. Additionally, players like Cantlay ($10,100) and Aberg ($10,200 – see below) set up well and are coming off great weeks in Memphis. Doubling up on a couple of these cheaper names feels like a solid strategy this week. Further down, bombers like Kurt Kitayama ($7,600 – see below) and Taylor Pendrith ($7,200) should be able to excel and offer nice upside over this four-round no-cut event. Pendrith wasn’t great in Memphis but was top 10 at the Fazio redesigned Quail Hollow back in May.
Tournaments: Finally, Fleetwood?
From a strategy perspective, I could see Fleetwood ($10,400), who is now very expensive, being quite low-owned this week in larger field GPPs for DFS. While you can’t love his inability to close on Sundays, his form is percolating right now. He gained over 5.0 strokes with the putter last week and did finish T-4 at the Fazio-designed Congaree back in 2022. Below him, I also like the chances for a Harris English ($8,300) bounce back, who also had some success on Congaree back in 2021 at the Palmetto and was second at Quail Hollow this year in May. He didn’t have a great first leg of the playoffs, but finished T-2 at the Open two weeks ago and certainly has excelled at longer golf courses. Below him, I also like this week’s venue for Ryan Gerard ($6,300), who had a tough week with the driver at Southwind, but should bounce back in that area at the more expansive Caves Valley.
MY PICK: Ludvig Aberg ($10,200)
This should be a great spot for Aberg to excel. He comes in off a solid week at the St. Jude, where he avoided the big number, but was essentially hamstrung by the tighter setup, which called for more precision shots and scrambling off tight lies. This week will be different. Aberg will be able to pull driver on every hole and maximize his strength off the tee and higher ball flight, where he gained an impressive 3.0 strokes on the field last week.
As for the rest of his game, he’s been gaining on approach nearly every week since June, and while his short game has lacked precision at times this season, he should take solace from the fact that the winner here in 2021 lost strokes around the greens. The change to bentgrass greens may also be a huge positive. The last time he gained over 3.5 strokes with the putter was at the Masters, which also featured larger bentgrass greens.
All-in-all, I view this as a very positive venue shift for the Swede, and with him coming off a solid opener where he avoided the big number for the most part, there isn’t much reason not to be bullish on him in this spot. He makes plenty of sense in GPPs as a Scheffler pivot (or as part of an extreme stars and scrubs build with Scheffler) and for betting, his +2500 outright number looks very attractive given the shorter field.
MY SLEEPER: Kurt Kitayama ($7,600)
As mentioned above in the trends, winners of this event tend to bring a lot of momentum with them into this week. Kitayama not only won last month in Minnesota (his second win on the PGA) but he’s also coming off a T-9 at TPC Southwind, where he gained over 1.5 strokes off the tee for the fifth event in a row, AND gained strokes putting for the third event in a row.
Kitayama’s also a complete animal off the tee and ranks top 10 in distance and SG: OTT, so he should feel comfortable on this week’s Fazio design, which offers players like him numerous chances to rip the driver. While he didn’t play here in 2021, Kitayama did finish second to Rory McIlroy on Congaree, another Fazio-designed venue, at the CJ Cup in 2022.
This venue should suit him just fine, and with how well he’s played of late, and how much momentum tends to play in determining success in the FedEx Cup, I view him as a solid value at $7,600 this week for DFS to build around. He’s also a viable target in the betting markets, where he’s +280 for a top 10 with ties and +5000 to win it all on the DraftKings Sportsbook.
