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BMW Championship 2021 DraftKings Picks

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Welcome to a new installment of DraftKings picks from staff writer and host of the Inside Golf Podcast, Andy Lack.

The PGA Tour travels to Owings Mills, Maryland, this week for the BMW Championship, the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. The top-70 players in the FedEx Cup standings will be in attendance this week at Caves Valley Golf Club, a course that has never hosted a PGA Tour event before.

Despite having zero data on Caves Valley to draw from, we can still gleam an understanding of the course through the hole by hole descriptions on the website and other PGA Tour courses designed by Tom Fazio. Caves Valley is a Par 72, measuring 7,542 yards.

I’ve alluded to the fact that the Baltimore area course is a Fazio design, and the famed modern designer has done design or re-design work on other PGA Tour courses such as Quail Hollow, Conway Farms, Congaree, Shadow Creek, and Kamusigaseki. With all players in the field seeing the course in competition for the first time, I will be leaning heavily on recent form and how players have performed on similar comp courses.

Last week, all five of my selections made it through to the weekend. Let’s keep the momentum going and dig into this week’s DraftKings slate!

$10,000 range

Brooks Koepka, $10,200 (Projected ownership: 4.82%)

For the second week in a row, I will be rostering Brooks Koepka in the $10,000 range. I have already discussed my love for Koepka in my betting column, so I promise not to belabor the point, but this ownership makes little sense to me. Yes, the four-time major champion shot back-to-back 74s over the weekend at Liberty National, but both of those rounds got off the rails extremely quickly and immediately removed him from contention. There’s an opportunity here for us to capitalize on recency bias and roster one of the best players in the world at sub-five percent ownership on a course that fits his game to a tee.

$9,000 range 

Viktor Hovland, $9,100 (Projected ownership: 11.62%)

Viktor Hovland was the last man out on my betting card, yet I will gladly roster him on DraftKings at an extremely fair price and reasonable ownership. There are a few things about Hovland this week that I really like. First of all, this course measures a robust 7,532 yards, and the two-time PGA Tour winner is number one in this field in weighted proximity from 175 yards plus.

Secondly, he enters the week with great ball-striking form, yet he is still flying slightly under the radar given his recent middle of the pack finishes, which were all due to a faulty short game and putter. Finally, Hovland played his college golf at Karsten Creek, another 7,400 yard plus, Bent-grass, Tom Fazio course, and he has performed admirably on other Fazio designs such as Quail Hollow, Shadow Creek, and Kasumigaseki.

$8,000 range

Sungjae Im, $8,000 (Projected ownership: 2.84%)

Similar to Koepka, let’s make it two weeks in a row for Sungjae Im. He was my favorite DraftKings play on the board last week, and I feel just as strongly about the former Honda Classic winner here as well. Im is coming off three starts in a row where he has gained over a stroke off the tee, and seven starts in a row where he has gained strokes on approach.

The ball-striking is definitively back for Im, and we are getting a massive ownership discount because the perception is that Caves Valley is not a “Sungjae Im course.” Calling Im a specialist who is only capable of competing on short, Bermuda courses in Florida is really selling him short. We are still talking about a player who finished runner-up at Augusta National, on Bent-grass, in his first appearance at the Masters. Im is really rounding into form right now, and I expect him to continue his momentum into East Lake.

$7,000 range

Shane Lowry, $7,900 (Projected ownership: 1.13%)

Once again, Shane Lowry is criminally under-owned. I played him last week at $7,500 and 7% ownership, and I will gladly roster him again at a slightly steeper price but even lower ownership. The former Open champion is coming off a week at the Northern Trust where he gained 7.2 strokes on approach, good for his best measured iron week of his career.

While I am not overlooking Lowry’s struggles off the tee, the fairways are so narrow at Caves Valley, that even the most accurate drivers will be missing them as well. In which case, I am getting one of the best iron players in the world from there on out.

$6,000 range 

Max Homa, $6,400 (Projected ownership: 11.62%)

In my opinion, Max Homa is the most mis-priced player on the entire slate. I cannot understand for the life of me, why a player who has already won this year, on a Fazio re-design nonetheless, is $1,200 cheaper than Harold Varner, and priced below the likes of Keith Mitchell and Emiliano Grillo. Homa is quite simply in a different tier from those aforementioned players, and once again, we can take advantage of recency bias and get a massive discount on a player that is quietly rounding into former.

The two-time PGA Tour winner gained 4.1 strokes ball-striking last week at the Northern Trust, which good for his best ball-striking week in over two months ago. The former winner at Quail Hollow now returns to another Tom Fazio course, where I expect him to continue to his string of success.

19th Hole

‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish

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An opening round of 77 left LPGA pro Jenny Shin with a mountain to climb at last week’s AIG Women’s Open.

However, fighting back with rounds of 69 and 67, Shin found herself six shots off the lead and just outside the top 10 heading into Sunday as she went in search of her first major victory.

Shin, who won the US Girls’ Junior at just 13, couldn’t back those rounds up on Sunday, though, and after playing her opening nine holes of the final round in level par, she then bogeyed three holes coming home to slip down the leaderboard and eventually finish T23.

Taking to X following the final round, Shin offered a frustrated and honest take on how she was feeling, posting: “Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish.”

Shin has made 11 cuts in 13 starts on the LPGA Tour this season, but has been plagued by frustrating Sunday finishes throughout the year. Shin ranks 102nd on tour this year out of 155 for Round 4 scoring in 2025.

Miyu Yamashita won the 2025 AIG Women’s Open with a composed final round of 70 to win her first major of her career by two strokes.

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How a late golf ball change helped Cameron Young win for first time on PGA Tour

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Cameron Young won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his first victory on the PGA Tour.

Young dominated all weekend at TPC Sedgefield, running away from the pack to win by six strokes and put himself in contention for a Ryder Cup pick in September.

Ahead of the event, the 28-year-old switched to a Pro V1x prototype golf ball for the first time, following recent testing sessions with the Titleist Golf Ball R&D team.

Interestingly, Young played a practice round accompanied by Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s Director of Tour Research & Validation, at TPC Schedule early last week with both his usual Pro V1 Left Dot ball and the new Pro V1x prototype.

Per Titleist, by the second hole Young was exclusively hitting shots with the Pro V1x prototype.

“We weren’t sure if he was going to test it this week, but as he was warming up, he asked to hit a couple on the range,” Pitts said. “He was then curious to see some shots out on the course.  Performance-wise, he was hitting tight draws everywhere. His misses were staying more in play. He hit some, what he would call ‘11 o’clock shots,’ where again he’s taking a little something off it. He had great control there.”

According to Titleist, the main validation came on Tuesday on the seventh hole of his practice round. The par 3 that played between 184 and 225 yards during the tournament called for a 5-iron from Young, or so he thought. Believing there was “no way” he could get a 6-iron to the flag with his Left Dot, Young struck a 5-iron with the Pro V1x prototype and was stunned to see the ball land right by the hole.

“He then hits this 6-iron [with the Pro V1x prototype] absolutely dead at the flag, and it lands right next to the pin, ending up just past it,” Pitts said. “And his response was, ‘remarkable.’ He couldn’t believe that he got that club there.”

Following nine holes on Tuesday and a further nine on Wednesday, Young asked the Titleist team to put the ProV1x balls in his locker. The rest, as they say, is history.

Check out Young’s winning WITB here.

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Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’

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Rickie Fowler fired an opening round of one-under par on Thursday at the Wyndham Championship, as the Californian looks to make a FedEx Cup playoff push.

Fowler is currently 61st in the standings, so will need a strong couple of weeks to extend his season until the BMW Championship, where only the top 50 in the standings will tee it up.

Heading into the final stretch of the season, Fowler has made an equipment switch of note, changing into new iron shafts, as well as making a switch to his driver shaft.

The 36-year-old revealed this week that he has switched from his usual KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons, a change he first put into play at last month’s Travelers Championship.

Speaking on the change to reporters this week, Fowler made note that the graphite shafts offer “something that’s a little easier on the body.”

“I mean, went to the week of Travelers, so been in for, I guess that’s a little over a month now. Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed to get very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”

Fowler has also made a driver shaft change, switching out his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX for a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft in his Cobra DS-Adapt X, which he first implemented a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.

However, according to Fowler himself, the testing and potential changes are not done yet.

“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time. Yeah, I feel like we’re always trying to search, one, to get better but are there ways to make things easier, whether that’s physically, mentally, whatever it may be. So yeah, I thought they were good enough to obviously put into play and looking forward to doing some more testing.”

Fowler gets his second round at TPC Sedgefield underway at 7.23 a.m ET on Friday.

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