US Open Golf 2022: Daily Fantasy Picks, Strategy and Tips
The best golfers in the world have been front and center on the leaderboards of the first two men's golf majors of 2022.
Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas came away with victories, at the Masters and PGA Championship, respectively, while Rory McIlroy bagged a pair of top-10 finishes.
Cameron Smith, Will Zalatoris and Collin Morikawa were also in contention at points of the two majors.
That trend may continue into the 2022 U.S. Open, which is why one or two of the highest-salaried golfers must be used in DraftKings daily fantasy contests.
McIlroy, Scheffler and Thomas should be three of the most rostered players for the weekend event at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts.
To avoid the same lineups as most people, you need to mix in some lower-salaried options for balance.
The right DFS value option can be hard to find, but there are some players with decent major results and high spots on the FedEx Cup standings who are worth rostering.
Find Good Mix of High-Salary Golfers
The four golfers with the highest salaries for DraftKings' main U.S. Open contest could all headline lineups.
Scottie Scheffler ($11,300 salary), Justin Thomas ($10,900), Jon Rahm ($10,800) and Rory McIlroy ($10,500) could all be in the mix to win on Sunday afternoon.
Scheffler won the Masters and is in the best season-long form of any golfer in the world. Thomas captured the PGA Championship with a fantastic final round and went head-to-head with McIlroy at the RBC Canadian Open last week.
The Northern Irishman comes into Massachusetts off a win in Canada that further fueled the hype around him ending his major tournament drought this weekend.
Rahm is the only member of the quartet not to have a top-10 major finish this season, but he is the defending champion and could excel on a U.S. Open-style course.
The best way to approach DFS contests is to mix and match two of the four at the top end of your lineup.
Missed cuts have been a rarity for all four golfers this season, and they should be alive still over the weekend.
As McIlroy taught us again at the Masters, do not let a slow start get you down. A strong final round, as he had at Augusta National, could make a huge difference in the standings.
You could run with just one of the top four players and keep some salary for the other roster spots, but it is hard to ignore the form of those golfers.
Show Caution with Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson
Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson fit into the second tier of potential U.S. Open winners.
At their best, they can outplay anyone in the field, but their major tournament results have been scattered over the last two years.
Spieth missed the cut at the Masters and played to a tie for 34th at the PGA Championship. Johnson did not make the weekend at Southern Hills and landed in a tie for 12th at Augusta.
Johnson has more missed cuts than top-10 finishes at majors in the last two years, while Spieth has finished outside the top 15 in four of his last six major starts.
To put it bluntly, approach both players with caution when filling out your DFS lineups and do not pair them together.
The major form of the two golfers is too risky to fall back on given how well others in the same salary range have performed recently.
Will Zalatoris is a cheaper option than Spieth and Johnson, and he has a pair of top-10 major finishes this season. Xander Schauffele owns three straight top-10 finishes at the U.S. Open.
Zalatoris and Schauffele are just two of the golfers worth trusting more over four days than Spieth and Johnson, who have more to prove than other top players.
Find Value in Low Salary, In-Form Golfers
A drop down the DraftKings salary chart could prove to be a profitable venture.
A handful of golfers listed between $7,000 and $7,500 in salary could provide robust results alongside the stars of your lineup.
Harris English, who sits at $7,400, finished third behind Rahm and Louis Oosthuizen at the 2021 U.S. Open.
Tom Hoge and Davis Riley, who both have $7,300 salaries, are in the top 25 of the FedEx Cup standings. Hoge earned his first top-10 major finish at the PGA Championship.
Russell Henley was tied for the 54-hole lead with Mackenzie Hughes last season and he has the third-best first-round scoring average on the PGA Tour. He carries a $7,200 salary.
Any combination of those players listed between $7,000 and $7,500 could be paired with the top-tier selections for a potential winning lineup.
If you use four players in that price range, you can add in one of the top four and a player like Zalatoris to form a strong six-man lineup.
There are many other lineup combinations available with the lower-salaried players, but some of them should be used in some capacity to maximize your lineup potential.
Eligibility restrictions apply. See Draftkings.com for details.