![[US, Mexico & Canada customers only] Sep 27, 2025; Bethpage, New York, USA; Team USA's Xander Schauffele lines up his putt on the 9th hole during the four-balls on the second day of competition for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.](https://statico.profootballnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/27080113/farmers-insurance-open-dfs-strategy-01-27-26-1920x2561.jpg "Here's Why Xander Schauffele, Sam Stevens Are Farmers Insurance Open DFS Musts")
Scottie Scheffler won last week in a birdie fest … nothing at the Farmers Insurance Open will be similar, which means clearing the slate and starting from scratch.
The reflex for DFS players is to embrace a stars-and-scrubs build when World No. 1 is priced at the top of the board and structure a balanced lineup when the outlier that is Scheffler isn’t in the mix.
I’ll pivot.
Farmers Insurance Open DFS Roster Construction
I made the case for Hideki Matsuyama in the 2026 Farmers Insurance One-and-Done piece (it releases every Tuesday morning!), so he’s naturally in my lineup. But he’s not my only exposure to the expensive options.
Last week, we knew that the flat stick was going to be critical based on how the course was put together. We knew that everyone was going to be landing in the same spots on the green (unless you’re Scheffler and you stick it inside of 3 feet with regularity), so we gravitated toward those best positioned to pay off those looks.
This week, that’s not the case. A hot putter certainly won’t hurt, but it’s not worth chasing. We’ve got skinny fairways and small greens on tap at the Farmers, a set-up that is going to benefit those who are accurate with their approaches.
How do you increase accuracy? Take those shots from a shorter distance. Golf is complicated, but that much is simple.
Last 36 Rounds, Leaders in Driving Distance
- Michael Brennan
- Jesper Svensson
- Chris Gotterup
- Pierceson Coody
- Garrick Higgo
- Xander Schauffele
- Keith Mitchell
- Taylor Pendrith
- Gordon Sargent
- Isaiah Salinda
- Ludvig Aberg
- Nicolai Hojgaard
- Cam Young
- Jake Knapp
- Johnny Keefer
There is no shortage of interesting names on that list. If you wanted to build a handful of lineups, I’d have exposure to the majority of the names mentioned above, but I’m a single bullet DFS player, and that means trying to whittle things down a bit.
Farmers Insurance Open DFS Lineup
With Matsuyama penciled in, I’ve been set on making him my most expensive golfer since pricing was released.
DraftKings Lineup
- Xander Schauffele
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Sam Stevens
- Garrick Higgo
- Michael Thorbjornsen
- Vince Whaley
At the end of the day, I went Schauffele over Aberg and Young. I’m not sure you can truly go wrong with any of those three, but Schauffele’s excellence with the long irons and his proven high placing equity (45.5% of his starts in a healthy 2024) gave him the slight edge.
Per my power rankings, this lineup allows us to have access to three of the top four golfers teeing it up this week, and any time the pricing allows for that to be the case, I’m not passing.
Sam Stevens is red hot, gaining 1.44 strokes of ball striking per round over his past 16. If we were making a perfect track for him, I’d pencil in more scoring opportunities, but these Poa greens figure to fit his comfort zone, and we have seen him thrive on these longer courses.
Shot 2: In the water 💦 Shot 4: Off the flag! ⛳️
Sam Stevens escapes the 18th with a par and is in the clubhouse one back of the lead @FarmersInsOpen.
📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/Nv6jMJuz7O— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 25, 2025
Michael Thorbjornsen and Vince Whaley are the pieces that make this lineup work, neither of which was an uncomfortable click for me. Thorbjornsen missed the cut last week, but that was due to one poor stretch (42 on the front nine on Saturday) after two days of strong play. He was slow out of the gates last season too, but he showed the type of ceiling play that we need.
He’s a plus-approach player in every yardage bucket from 150 yards and longer, a skill set that fits this course like a glove. By the end of last season, Thorbjornsen was a major asset off the tee, another skill set fit, and he did end last season with 60s on the scorecard in eight of his last nine weekend rounds.
As the green comes into focus, Whaley’s ability to distance himself from the field stands out. The putter is solid, but I’m more buying into his strong history of around-the-green play, something that we figure to see plenty of this week.
Whaley hasn’t looked good just yet, but he has had two events to brush off the rust. We saw last season that he can find form in a hurry (three top-15s in four events following four straight missed cuts), and with bogey avoidance a major arrow in his quiver (third best in this field), the made cut equity is high, and I like his chances to cash a top-20 paycheck more than most.
