Zach Thompson gets you set for the FedEx St. Jude Championship with his top fantasy golf pivot plays and targets for TPC Southwind.

For the first tournament of the FedExCup Playoffs, the PGA TOUR is in Memphis, Tennessee, for this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship. The 69-player field will participate in this no-cut event this week, with the top 50 in the FedExCup standings moving on to next week’s BMW Championship. With limited options, it’s important you do all you can to make your tournament lineup stand out, targeting players with low ownership. As you set your tournament lineups this week, check out my top three fantasy golf pivot plays for the week. This week, I’m looking at Ludvig Aberg ($9,500), Jake Knapp ($7,500) and Justin Rose ($6,900) as my top under-the-radar options who have the potential to exceed salary-based expectations.

Let’s be sure to define our terms before we jump into this week’s picks. A “fantasy golf pivot play” is a golfer with low ownership and high upside. Typically, they come with major risk factors compared to more popular options that are available around the same DFS salary. Even though these plays are NOT the safest options in their price range, they have enough potential upside to be worth the sweat since they come with lower ownership. 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 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 $800K Summer Sand Trap [$200K to 1st]

Ludvig Aberg, $9,500

The field is stuffed with stars, led by Scottie Scheffler ($13,000), with Russell Henley ($10,000), Justin Thomas ($10,200) and Matt Fitzpatrick ($9,700) all getting lots of attention due to their course history and recent run of success. Don’t sleep on Aberg, though, since he always brings a very high ceiling when his game is dialed in.

Aberg’s irons are exquisite when he’s at his best, and this course has rewarded strong approach play over everything else over the last several seasons. The 25-year-old Swede hasn’t won since February, but he still comes into this week in the top 15 in the FedExCup standings after stacking up eight top-25 finishes in 17 events. He got his win against a strong field at the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines, and he comes in with sneaky-solid recent form after posting top-25 finishes at the Memorial, the RBC Canadian Open, the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship in four of his last six tournaments.

Part of the reason he’s overlooked this week is that he has only played one event at TPC Southwind, finishing T-40 in his debut last year.

Over his last 24 rounds, Aberg ranks 12th in the field in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Approach. Those two metrics are both vital this week, and he brings a very high ceiling as a pivot play if he continues his strong shotmaking in Memphis.

Jake Knapp, $7,500

Knapp is a solid midrange pivot play who comes in a little off the radar, especially compared to Ben Griffin ($8,100), Chris Gotterup ($8,000) and Kurt Kitayama ($7,200). Knapp missed the cut at the Wyndham last week even though he looked much better in Round 2 (65) after a disastrous Round 1 (74).

Like Aberg, he’ll be making his second start at this venue after a disappointing debut last year, when he finished T-67. However, Knapp brings a much higher ceiling this time around since he was scorching hot before that Round 1 slip-up at Sedgefield.

Prior to last week, Knapp posted five straight top-30 finishes, highlighted by a T-4 at the Rocket Classic and a T-3 at the 3M Open, where he was in contention right to the finish. He struggled at the end of that round with an untimely water ball, and he seemed to carry a little of that into Round 1 last week.

Over his last 20 rounds, Knapp leads the entire field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and ranks third in Strokes Gained: Putting. He has struggled around the greens and can be streaky on approach, but he has a high enough ceiling that he still makes a lot of sense as a bounce-back GPP play this week.

Justin Rose, $6,900

Rose has put together a very solid 2025 and is tracking toward making the Ryder Cup team this fall. He’s not nearly as popular as Taylor Pendrith ($7,100), Nick Taylor ($6,900) or even Emiliano Grillo ($6,600), who are getting plenty of hype as solid value plays.

Even at 45 years old, Rose has shown that he has plenty left in the tank with four top-10 finishes this season. All of those finishes have been in tournaments with strong fields, starting with his T-3 at the AT&T Pebble Beach and T-8 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Signature Events. He lost in the playoff at The Masters and added a solo sixth-place finish in Scotland at the Genesis Scottish Open. At Royal Portrush, he finished T-16 at the Open Championship before taking a couple of weeks off.

He’ll be back at TPC Southwind this week, where he has three top-25 finishes in five appearances, including a T-22 last year. He opened with back-to-back rounds of -4 last year but struggled a little bit over the weekend. Since he starts the Playoffs in the top 30, he looks poised to make a deep run in the Playoffs and hopefully lock down his Ryder Cup spot. With so much motivation and good history, Rose is a great pivot value play this week.