Bryson, Koepka hug, ‘wanted to play together’

How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO. Each lineup consists of four starters and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three time per each of four Segments. The first fantasy golf game to utilize live ShotLink data, PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO allows you to see scores update live during competition. Aside from the experts below, Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field at this year’s BMW Championship in his edition of the Power Rankings. THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OUR EXPERTS? The PGA TOUR Experts league is once again open to the public. You can play our free fantasy game and see how you measure up against our experts below. Joining the league is simple. Just click here to sign up or log in. Once you create your team, click the “Leagues” tab and search for “PGA TOUR Experts.” After that? Pick your players and start talking smack. SEASON SEGMENT

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The stars are out this week in the World Golf Championships – Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas. The course is a par 71, measuring 7,108 yards and will be on TifEagle bermudagrass overseeded with Poa Trivialis. Like TPC Sawgrass a couple of weeks ago at THE PLAYERS Championship, Austin Country Club is a Pete Dye design. The tournament starts on Wednesday and ends with the final match on Sunday. Past winners since the tournament moved to Austin CC include Jason Day, Dustin Johnson ($10,000), Kevin Kisner ($7,600), Bubba Watson ($7,200) and defending champion Billy Horschel ($8,800). Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $750K Pitch + Putt [$200K to 1st] (Match Play) FORMAT The 64-player field are seeding via world ranking with the top 16 forming the A pool, the next 16 in the B pool, the next 16 as C pool and the last 16 as D pool. From there 16 groups are then randomly assigned with one A, B, C and D player in each. Each group of four players will play their group opponents over the first three days, Wednesday – Friday. The player with the highest point total (1 point for winning a match, 0.5 point for tying, 0 for a loss) after the group stage advances to the Round of 16, which will begin the straight elimination section. Saturday will be the Round of 16 and the quarterfinals. Sunday will hold the semifinals in the morning followed by the final and a third-place match in the afternoon. STRATEGY Another Pete Dye design presents another test of precision golf. Austin Country Club sports deep pot bunkers, undulations throughout fairways and greens, and resembles a links style layout. The course also has its lowlands and highlands, and players like Jordan Spieth ($8,900) have mentioned that the two nines play like two different courses. The front nine is tighter, playing inside a canyon, before the back nine opens up for the stunning views and water holes. All Pete Dye courses demand precision with the approach shot, but we could also be leaning towards Strokes Gained: Off the Tee more this week. Gamesmanship is a factor in match play. Triple bogeys don’t carry the same negative weight as they do in stroke play, but driving it past your opponent and playing your second shot based on what your opponent does is advantageous in this setting. The course doesn’t just suit the bombers, but when Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson win here, we should be taking notice. Again, those players need to survive the tight early holes, where Kevin Kisner has shone, before it opens up to their strengths. Austin CC can also play windy, which is why we’ve seen golfers like Johnson, Scottie Scheffler ($11,000) and Sergio Garcia ($8,300) play well here. Most daily fantasy lineups go ‘chalk’ every year, choosing the top-seeded golfers at this tournament. It’s easy to think the top golfers will advance with relative ease, but as we’ve seen in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this year and seasons past, the top seeds can lose early or fail to advance to the finals. Since 2017, the most top seeds to advance out of the group stage is five, and only one No.1 seed has won the event in Austin (Dustin Johnson, 2017). Also, only once has the final match been contested by two top-16 seeded players (No. 16 Louis Oosthuizen and No. 2 Jason Day). Match play is highly variant, so embrace the chaos this week; it should be fun. Tyrrell Hatton ($9,200) The good thing about Hatton is that he didn’t gain many strokes on the greens last week en route to his top 25. That shouldn’t be a net positive, but Hatton was gaining an unsustainable amount of strokes on the greens over his previous two tournaments before Valspar Championship and wasn’t gaining a ton via ball-striking. At the Valspar, Hatton gained the sixth-most strokes through approach and 1.64 off-the-tee, the improvement we (and he) were seeking. If we include only past winners in the field, since 1999 their average number of starts in this event before winning is 5.5, with Johnson having the most (eight) and Horschel having the least (four). This week will be Hatton’s fifth start here, and he’s coming in with form, finishing T21 at Valspar, 13th at THE PLAYERS Championship and runner-up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Group 13 could be a tough draw for Hatton, but Daniel Berger ($9,800) is 3-9 at this event over his previous six starts. Si Woo Kim ($7,100) is fantastic on Pete Dye courses but also struggles in match play, with a 3-7-3 record at Austin CC. Kevin Kisner ($7,600) While Spieth is a potential sleeper in Group 6, Kisner ultimately gets the nod. He’ll need to get past Justin Thomas ($10,700), but the 2019 winner of this event isn’t going to back down from any competition. Since 2016, Kisner’s record is 16-6-1 with a 67% winning percentage. Compile that with his record at this tournament since 1999 and Presidents Cups, Kisner has the highest win rate of any golfer in the field (70%). His recent top-5 finish at TPC Sawgrass, another Pete Dye course, proves Kisner should be on the shortlist of golfers to roster this week. Cameron Young ($7,000) There’s an excellent chance Young will go under rostered because he has to face Jon Rahm ($11,300) and Patrick Reed ($7,500), who everyone loves in this format. Rahm and Reed are not playing up to their expectations coming into this event, and Young could exceed everyone’s expectation of him, especially if he’s going to be hitting second the majority of the time with how well he hits it off the tee. A near win at The Genesis Invitational, followed by a top 20 at PGA National (Honda Classic) and top 15 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, should give us confidence this ‘young’ golfer has the resolve to beat some top brass in Texas. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $750K Pitch + Putt [$200K to 1st] (Match Play) Put your knowledge to the test. Sign up for DraftKings and experience the game inside the game. Place your golf bets at DraftKings Sportsbook or by downloading the DraftKings Sportsbook app. All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests. The contents contained in this article do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. 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ORLANDO, Fla. - Tyrrell Hatton has spent some interesting stages of his life in Orlando. In 2012, he was a green mini-tour pro visiting America from England, doing his best to scratch out a living on the Hooters Tour. He lived with three roommates and was bankrolled by members of his home club at Harleyford, Move forward eight years, and Hatton showed up to the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard last March hovering just outside the top 20 in the world, his stock rising. He had yet to win on the PGA TOUR. Hatton hung tough on a brutal weekend, made some hard-fought closing pars, and emerged as a champion. The trophy and winner's red cardigan (a fashionable Palmer staple) was given to Hatton on the 18th green in front of an amphitheater filled with thousands of fans. It would be the last tournament contested on the PGA TOUR - and one of the last sporting events staged anywhere - without COVID-19 restrictions. Five days later at THE PLAYERS Championship, the PGA TOUR would shut down for three months. This week's Arnold Palmer Invitational will be played in front of a limited gallery, estimated at 4,000-5,000 people a day. Hatton looks forward to any level of atmosphere that fans can provide after competing in near silence for months. "We've missed the fans," he said. "That's normally such a huge part of every tournament, the atmosphere that they create. The buzz on a Sunday afternoon is something we've all been used to. We love that. I just think having fans back again in any capacity is going to be a great thing for the TOUR." Winning at Bay Hill last March sparked a torrid run for Hatton. When he resumed play after a 15-week break, Hatton finished T3 and T4 in his first two starts (RBC Heritage and Rocket Mortgage Classic). Since June, he posted his fifth and sixth European Tour victories - the BMW PGA Championship last fall and Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in January - amid a handful of other top-10 worldwide finishes. With his financial windfall, Hatton purchased a residence at Lake Nona, about 20 minutes from Bay Hill. It's a long way from where he started, playing mini-tours in town. Somewhat quietly, Hatton will tee it up at Bay Hill as the sixth-ranked player in the world (he was fifth last week). Among Europeans, only Spain's Jon Rahm (second) is ranked higher, and Hatton is a lock to play in his second Ryder Cup in September. (European captain Padraig Harrington called Hatton "a Ryder Cup dream.") "For me, I look at it as kind of surreal," said Hatton, who hails from Marlow in County Buckinghamshire. "I don't sort of change anything with my routine, or think of myself any differently. I try to go to every single tournament and try my best when I get there, and if you are able to play good golf, the world rankings is a byproduct of that." At World No. 6, does he believe he will keep climbing? "It's really cool to be where I'm at in the World Rankings at the moment, and I'm hoping I can keep playing well," he said. "It would be nice to try to get higher. We'll see how we go." Hatton, who doesn't turn 30 until October, often gets left off the list of the game's top twentysomethings. He has many strengths in his game, and few weaknesses. For starters, few players hit it any straighter, and that helps Hatton create plenty of quality approaches (he ranked fourth in 2019-20 in Strokes Gained: Approach The Green) and birdie opportunities. He averaged 4.55 birdies a round last season, second best on TOUR. Hatton also ranked 10th in scoring (69.50) and finished seventh in the FedExCup standings despite making only 11 PGA TOUR starts (he finished top 10 in six of them). He is the complete package, with a swing honed by his father, Jeff Hatton, an instructor and clubfitter who build a makeshift golf studio in the garage at Tyrrell's grandmother's house in England. (Jeff Hatton is a busy man these days; golfers are asked to book lessons at least a week ahead.) When Tyrrell's swing feels a little off, which is rare these days, he sends off video to his father to have a look. They often return to discussing the very basics. Hatton will readily admit that nobody is tougher on Tyrrell Hatton than Tyrrell Hatton. Some of his post-shot antics in the fairways and histrionics after missed putts are the stuff of YouTube legend, on both sides of the pond. ("We all know what the sound is when the teapot is ready," NBC's Paul Azinger quipped as Hatton double-bogeyed a hole during last year's API.) David Feherty made the astute observation that Hatton is nice to everybody but himself. Hatton even participated in a European Tour video spoof titled "Angry Golfers," a group session led by fellow Englishman Tommy Fleetwood. The entertaining spot is funny and quite clever, and has received rave reviews. In it, a sheepish Hatton, newest group member, keeps his head bowed as he shamefully introduces himself thusly: "I'm Tyrrell, and I'm an angry golfer." A playful collection of players that includes Ian Poulter, Henrik Stenson, Matt Wallace and Eddie Pepperell responds in concert, "Hi, Tyrrell." "It was good fun filming," Hatton said. He laughed. "If there was an ‘outtakes' video released, I think that would be even better. It was great it went down so well, and got such a great reaction." The funny part is, as combustible and emotional as Hatton can be on the golf course, he is known as a low-key, very funny, sweet young man off it. Rest assured, all his peers know he is loaded with game. "He's always been a really good player, and I think he himself has held himself back," Poulter, Hatton's fellow Englishman, said at the Puerto Rico Open. "Like we've all said. I think he's now getting out of his own way, and he's playing great golf. He's got a good caddie on the bag - my old, old caddie, Mick (Donaghy) - who is a real good caddie. He is a strong personality, which someone like Tyrrell needs on the bag. "As we've seen, he's overly vocal, but a good guy - a great guy - off the golf course. Real easy-going, a super kid to hang around with. And his consistency has been impressive." A year ago, playing in demanding, firm conditions at Bay Hill - the final round scoring average was 76 - Hatton closed with seven pars to shoot 74 and prevail. He hit great approaches into 17 (whistling a 5-iron past a back flag) and 18 (7-iron safely over the Devil's Bathtub) to set up stress-free pars and his first TOUR victory. His 4-under 284 was the highest winning score in the 42-year history of the API. "For me to get my first PGA TOUR win at Bay Hill, it's such an iconic venue, and having Mr. Palmer's name attached is a huge honor," Hatton said. "What he did for golf is incredibly special, and his legacy lives on. As a player, it's definitely an event on the schedule that you always look forward to playing, and I definitely look forward to defending the trophy." For a self-admitted "Angry Golfer," these days, Hatton seems to be a pretty happy guy.

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