US Open DFS Picks 2026: DraftKings Golf Lineups

Major weeks are the ones we circle, and the 2026 US Open at Shinnecock Hills is the meanest test on the calendar: a long par 70, greens that punish anything loose, and a forecast that has crews watching for wind gusts north of anything that should be playable. On the latest Stokastic PGA show, Ben Rasa worked the entire DraftKings 🎁 board top to bottom, sorting the golfers worth your salary from the ones the field is overpaying for. These are our US Open DFS picks for DraftKings, grouped by tier, plus the Stokastic Sims workflow that turns the targets into a lineup.

In Summary

• The course, not the trophy, drives the build. Shinnecock rewards a clean tee-to-green week and a sharp short game; you do not need to bomb it, you need to avoid the nasty stuff and scramble.
• Elite tier is a tight call. Ben's order at the top is Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, then Scottie Scheffler, with Bryson DeChambeau the contrarian low-owned dart.
• The mid-range is where the slate lives. Tommy Fleetwood, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton, Patrick Cantlay, and Justin Thomas headline a deep $7K-$9K band stacked with US Open pedigree.
• Value is plentiful because the board thins fast. Maverick McNealy, Sahith Theegala, and Harry Hall give you cheap ways to pay up at the top.
• Build it in the Sims, then scope it. Simulated ROI, chance-to-win, and ownership leverage are tournament reads; cash games want the higher-floor roster instead.

US Open DFS picks: the board at a glance

Here are the names from the show with the DraftKings salaries Ben called out, sorted by tier. Salaries reflect the major-week pricing on DraftKings, where dynamic pricing eases the restrictions at the very top and leaves $5K value plays available to help fund Scheffler. Where the cell shows "n/a," Ben discussed the golfer without reading an exact salary on the show.

Use that as the shortlist, then read the tier notes below before you lock anything.

The Shinnecock read: a brutal, windy par 70

Shinnecock has not hosted in quite some time, so most of the field is at a different stage than the last time it was played here. What does not change is the difficulty. It is long, it tests everything around the green, and the rough is the kind of European-looking fescue that turns a missed fairway into a 70-yard wedge for birdie instead of a look at the pin.

The interesting wrinkle is off the tee. Plenty of people will tell you driving is irrelevant at a course this penal. Ben pushes back on that. You can get away with not bombing it, as long as you are not spraying it into the long grass, but you still need to be able to drive it to stay in the hole. That nuance matters for your build: a player who is great around the green can survive a so-so driving week here, while a pure bomber who sprays it gets eaten alive. And with gusts in the forecast strong enough to put a Thursday weather delay in play, the AM/PM wave split is worth a glance: Ben gives a slight edge to the PM wave for now, while admitting it is closer to deep-overthinking territory than a hard rule.

Elite tier: pay up carefully

The top of the board is a tight pack, and the margins between these golfers are small. Ben's preference order is McIlroy, Rahm, Schauffele, then Scheffler, with DeChambeau as the contrarian.

Rory McIlroy ($12,200) sits $2,700 below Scheffler, the gap we have all gotten used to. He struck it beautifully and drove it well at the Memorial and simply did not putt; flip the putter and he is the most dangerous man in the field, and he already owns a Masters this year.

Scottie Scheffler ($14,900) is the most expensive golfer on the board, and dynamic pricing is the only reason he is playable: it softens the restrictions enough that the $5K value plays can fund him. He has not won in a while relative to how good he has been, but he is seemingly top five every week and was 12th at the Memorial and third at the Byron Nelson. Paying $14,900 is steep; it is also Scheffler.

Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele round out the names we trust most up top. Schauffele owns one of the most consistent US Open resumes you will find, with a tie for ninth at Augusta and a seventh at the PGA this year, and he is excellent in these conditions even when the putter is cold. Rahm has the experience and the game for a US Open; he just has to get off to a better start after a runner-up at the PGA. Bryson DeChambeau is the leverage play of the group. He has done little in the majors lately and was cut in both this year, so he will be the lowest-owned of the studs, which is exactly why a small share is interesting in large fields.

A healthy amount of all of these guys across your pool goes a long way. None of them is a bad play; the edge is in how you weight them against ownership.

Mid-range targets: the heart of the slate

This is where the board gets deep, and it is where most of your lineups will be decided. The common thread among the names Ben likes here is US Open pedigree plus a short game that travels to a hard course.

Tommy Fleetwood is a balanced build at a friendly mid-tier number with a strong US Open resume, and he is one of the show's preferred value targets. The DFS case is the one that matters: you do not need him to win, you need him to make the cut and post four solid rounds, and that is his profile.

Matt Fitzpatrick is a past US Open champion who has won multiple times this year and was just runner-up in Canada, a mid-tier name the show expects to draw heavy ownership. He checks nearly every box, which is exactly why he will be popular. Tyrrell Hatton ($8,700) is a major-week specialist for Ben: top five at last year's US Open at Oakmont, where the winning score was one under, and third at this year's Masters. He did not have it at the PGA, but those results say he can contend on a brutal course, and he is coming off a LIV win.

A reliable scrambler whose around-the-green game travels, Justin Thomas ($8,300) carries real value as a player who can grind out an even-par round and stay in it rather than needing to fire 65. At $7,900, Patrick Reed is a fair price for someone who simply knows what he is doing on a hard course. The bargain of the range is Patrick Cantlay ($7,300), pushed down by a deep major field despite five of his last six finishes inside the top 20 with the irons carrying him.

Two more to weigh against each other: J.J. Spaun ($7,500), the defending champion, is striping his irons but cannot buy a putt, and he will not draw the ownership you would expect for a title holder. Hideki Matsuyama is the pivot if you think the wind marginalizes driving, because his weak link right now is off the tee while his around-the-green game is world class. Si Woo Kim ($7,200) is simply underpriced and will be one of the chalkiest plays on the slate, which makes Jordan Spieth ($7,100) a useful lower-owned tournament pivot off him. As always, pivot for a reason, not just to be different.

New to Stokastic Sims? The Stokastic PGA Sims turn this board into builds: project each golfer, see ownership and leverage, then simulate full rosters across thousands of US Open outcomes so you can see each roster's projected cut odds and ceiling before you lock. Get in for the major with code PERFECT10 for 10% off any Stokastic PGA DFS package, weekly or monthly.

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Value plays: pay down without punting

The page thins out fast, so the value tier is more about funding the top than finding hidden winners. Maverick McNealy ($6,800) is Ben's clear preference in this range, and he would rather have McNealy than the chalkier Min Woo Lee, who keeps pushing toward 20% ownership at a number Ben will not pay. Sahith Theegala ($6,400) and Harry Hall ($6,200) are talented darts; Hall in particular is worth a look if he can limit the damage off the tee, because the rest of his game holds up.

One boom-or-bust name to know is Alex Noren, a player Ben backs often who was non-competitive last week after gaining strokes on approach in six straight events. It is one of two things: either something is wrong and he posts a number you cannot recover from, or it was two bad rounds and you get him at a steep ownership discount. Ben leans toward the latter and a small share, but you have to be aware of the downside.

Below this band the field is full of US Open qualifiers, weird names, and sub-1% plays. You do not need to mine down there. There is enough quality in the $6K and $7K range that you can build strong, differentiated lineups without reaching.

Build it in the Sims (a worked example)

Here is how we turn the board into rosters, the same way the show does. Inside the Single Lineup Simulator, lock the golfers you trust, hit Complete, and the tool finds the optimal plays for the open spots, squeezing the most projected production out of your leftover salary. Then you run the simulation to grade the whole roster across thousands of tournament outcomes.

On the show, a core of Schauffele, Fleetwood, Cantlay, and McNealy completed into a roster that graded out around 47% in the sim: a strong, balanced large-field build. A second lineup built around Scheffler and Si Woo Kim came back positive but lower, the math reflecting the giant gap between paying $14,900 up top and stacking value behind it. A third, more aggressive Rory-and-Rahm double-stud build graded negative, a signal it was likely too top-heavy for the salary even in a tournament. That is the value of the workflow: you are not guessing which structure is sharper, you build one, build an alternate, and let the simulated grade tell you which to trust. From there the tool will spin one, three, five, or 20 lineups on the same logic, and you export them straight to DraftKings.

For the deeper version of this process, our PGA DFS strategy guide walks the Sims columns end to end, the sibling US Open perfect-lineup build shows the lock-and-complete flow on a single roster, and the free DFS Sims let you try the build on this week's board before subscribing.

GPP vs. cash: scope the read

One scoping note, because golf DFS is where it gets missed most. The simulated ROI, the chance-to-win figure, and the leverage in a low-owned DeChambeau or Spieth are all tournament reads. If you are firing large-field GPPs, that is the lens you want, and getting under the field on a lower-owned golfer is where the edge lives, which is the logic behind our ownership and leverage breakdown.

Cash games flip it. There you are trying to beat about half the field, so you want the higher-floor roster: the proven, reliable plays over the low-owned darts you would chase in a tournament. It is the same board read the opposite way. For the full split, see our GPP vs. cash breakdown, and size every entry to your bankroll, because even a great pre-lock lineup can finish near the bottom on a single high-variance major weekend.

Prefer to tail a proven card instead of building your own? The value-first habit above still applies; you just outsource the legwork. DFSnDonuts Picks on Tails is a DFS-native expert (#8 on the MLB Hot Streak leaderboard as of July 16) whose plays come with the receipt every Tails expert carries: a full graded track record you can check before you tail. Start with the free expert picks feed, where free picks post every day.

Build your US Open lineup before lock

The show makes the workflow obvious: sort the board into tiers, decide which golfers you actually believe in, then let the Single Lineup Simulator complete and grade the rest so you are building on simulated outcomes instead of one projected score. New to the tools? Code PERFECT10 takes 10% off any Stokastic PGA DFS package, weekly or monthly, so you can lock in just for the major if that is all you want.

grab the PGA tools and start building You can also try the build flow free in the DFS Sims and the PGA DataHub.

Want the full board breakdown? Watch US Open 2026 PGA DFS Picks & Strategy on DraftKings on the Stokastic DFS channel. DFS is high-variance; play within your means, 21+ where legal.

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