The PGA TOUR continues the FedExCup Playoffs this week, as the venue shifts from Memphis to St. Louis. After taking on TPC Southwind to reduce the field from 70 to the top 50, this week, the pros will take on Bellerive Country Club as the remaining players shrink from 50 to 30 before next week’s TOUR Championship. DraftKings is ready for another big playoff week with some strong GPP contests available in the DFS fantsay golf lobby. As you build your rosters for this week, check out my top three fantasy golf picks to use as pivot plays for tournament play this week. These three players will likely have lower ownership but still bring high upside. My favorite GPP picks for this week are Sam Burns ($10,400), Gary Woodland ($6,600) and Nico Echavarria ($6,100).
Let’s define what we’re searching for in this post, to be sure we’re all aiming for the same target. A fantasy golf pivot play is a golfer with low expected ownership in tournament formats but high upside. These picks go against the grain and typically come with more risk compared to popular options with similar salaries. In large-field tournaments, it’s important to differentiate your lineup with low-ownership plays like these, 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 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 floor.
Let’s break down why I like each of my top three pivot plays this week!
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA $750K Sand Trap [$200K to 1st]
Top Pivot Picks for the 2026 BMW Championship
Sam Burns ($10,400)
In such an elite event, the top of the salary structure is stuffed with elite options. With Scottie Scheffler ($14,400) coming off a win and getting plenty of attention, along with Ludvig Aberg ($9,700) and Xander Schauffele ($9,900) getting plenty of hype near the top of the board, there are some opportunities to pivot to other elite in-form players who are likely to have lower ownerships but still bring high ceilings.
One key player I love in that spot for the second straight week is Sam Burns, who came through with a T3 last week as my top one of my top pivot plays. It was his second straight third-place finish after a solo third-place finish at The Open Championship in mid-July. He comes to Bellerive after four straight top-12 finishes, and overall, he has racked up six top-10 finishes in his 18 PGA TOUR events this season.
He starts the week ranked sixth in the FedExCup Standings and is ready to move on to East Lake, trying to claim his first FedExCup Championship. Over the last three months, Burns leads the entire field in Strokes Gained: Approach and ranks second in Total Strokes Gained and Strokes Gained: Putting.
Despite all that success, he still hasn’t claimed a win since the 2023 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. He’ll look to end that drought this week as he plays this week’s venue for the first time in competition. Most of the younger players haven’t teed is up here before, though, since 2018’s PGA Championship was the last time the PGA TOUR stopped at this course.
Gary Woodland ($6,600)
The names at the top of the salary structure are so familiar that most fantasy managers will have no problem picking their top options. Getting the right bargain plays will be especially key this week, so I’m going to highlight a pair of players under $7,000 that bring good upside and aren’t getting much hype. Both have good potential to out-produce their low salary and aren’t getting a lot of attention.
Woodland did play the course back in 2018 and finished T6. He has always relied heavily on strong play off-the-tee throughout his career, and that template has worked at this course in the past PGA TOUR stops. Woodland has gone through a lot of ups and downs 2018, and his triumphant story of overcoming adversity came to a climax this season at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, where he claimed one of the most memorable non-major wins of the season just because of his incredible story.
That win isn’t all he’s been able to accomplish this season, though; he has added five more top-20 finishes in his 12 events since then. At the end of July, Woodland posted a T10 at the 3M Open, and then he took a few weeks off before returning to action with a T42 last week in Memphis.
He starts the week at No. 31 in the FedExCup Standings with a good chance to push to the TOUR Championship if he can have a solid week at Bellerive. Woodland’s incredible comeback season deserves to be written all the way to the final tournament of the FedExCup Playoffs, and he should be able to get there with a solid showing this week.
Nico Echavarria ($6,100)
Even cheaper, Echavarria is barely over the minimum salary this week. The 32-year-old Colombian comes in with momentum, though, coming off back-to-back T12 finishes at the Wyndham Championship and the FedEx St. Jude Championship in the last two weeks.
On the season, those two top-15 finishes give him a handful of top-25 finishes this season, highlighted by his win at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches in March, when Shane Lowry fell apart down the stretch.
Echavarria begins the week at No. 42 in the FedExCup Standings and will need a big push to jump into the top 30 and make it to next week. He has been just outside the top 50 in each of the last two seasons, so this already signifies a good step forward for Echavarria.
He is such an affordable play that he doesn’t have to do a ton to be a good GPP option. Even just a finish in the middle of the pack at Bellerive would help Echavarria to be a key contributor to GPP builds. His salary isn’t the cheapest in the field with two players at $6,000, but his momentum and the fact that he’s not getting much attention make him a nice contrarian way to get value this week.