Greetings, gang! We’ve arrived at the midseason break of PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf.

The Zurich Classic of New Orleans does not contribute to our game. So, don’t panic if you’re wondering why the Fantasy Insider doesn’t rest. Digest this as an opportunity to exhale and reset for the remainder of the season. Planning never isn’t a good idea.

Fourteen tournaments are in the books, while another 18 are straight ahead, so let’s call this window halftime-adjacent. That there’s more season to come than what’s behind us allows all gamers to assess where they are without getting too up or down about position. Just don’t get too comfy because we’ll be diving back into the deep end on Monday.

Three Signature Events and the PGA Championship are all lined up across the last six stops of Segment 2. Only next week’s Cadillac Championship and the PGA Championship two weeks after will be contested on relatively unfamiliar sites in Trump National Doral’s Blue Monster Course and Aronimink Golf Club, respectively. Compared to the other stops, those truly will be neutral playing fields that will require an offensive strategy in fantasy, so leverage your remaining starts for the studs on courses where they’ve teed it up previously, and perhaps with some success. Course fit in general takes priority, but tracks like Quail Hollow Club for the Truist Championship and Muirfield Village Golf Club for the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday present significant value because your opposition will be allowing course history to impact those decisions. These are where you’ll play more defense.

There’s also the important layer that neither the Cadillac nor the Truist will have a cut, so you’re benefited if, say, you wanted to back-end your remaining starts for Scottie Scheffler for the PGA Championship and the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday.

Speaking of which, I highly advise that you take this week to record all starts made in Segment 2 by your closest competition. To do so, select a tournament, use the search tool and then the “Compare” function. Once the pop-up appears, navigate through every round for the accounting.

If you’re the front-runner, stretch out to a margin of 400 points over your chasers so that there are no surprises as you go. If you’re back in the pack, construct your chart consisting of starts made by every team above you. While the leader might seem out of reach, with beefed-up FedExCup bonus points promised, you might strike sooner and stronger than you expect. Be prepared with a comprehensive log.

All of this facilitates a successful fantasy experience. It’s what the work looks like. And we’ll do it all over again in Segment 3.

Careful

For almost every tournament, a usually impressive subset of the field warrants avoiding for your considerations, and it might be represented in my Power Rankings which is not written in the context of any fantasy or betting format. In this section, I single out who demands pause and why.

• Taylor Pendrith and Mackenzie Hughes ... Both Canadians have been curiously quiet all season, something that probably generates a level of concern for International Presidents Cup captain Geoff Ogilvy – who is partnered with his fellow Aussie, Cam Davis, this week – especially since both are recent veterans of the biennial competition. At a respective 16th and 26th in the standings, Pendrith and Hughes need to get it into gear with only four months remaining to qualify automatically. Pendrith finished inside the top 15 in both of his previous trips to TPC Louisiana (both with different fellow Canucks), while Hughes hasn’t appeared since 2019.

• Austin Eckroat and Davis Thompson ... Both of these PGA TOUR winners splashed with pedigrees that lifted expectations for early breakthroughs, but neither has elevated in a way that suggests that they’ve adhered to their trajectories. Now, both arrive well outside the top-70 bubble of the FedExCup. They have experience and some success at TPC Louisiana, but neither pegged it here a year ago. Thompson was 2026 defending champion Andrew Novak’s previous partner when the duo placed T23 in 2024.

• Tony Finau and Max Greyserman ... This is Finau’s first visit in five years, while Greyserman is in his third straight after finishing T4 and T28 with Nico Echavarria in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Both arrive shy of the kind of form that lifted them into our consciousness over time, particularly as it concerns their tee-to-green games.

Returning to competition

• Keita Nakajima ... Called it quits before his second round of the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches due to a sore back and hasn’t teed it up in earnest since. That was eight weeks ago. He’s making his debut at TPC Louisiana alongside a buddy of his, fellow 25-year-old Kensei Hirata, who, like Nakajima, also is a PGA TOUR rookie from Japan and former world’s top-ranked amateur. In one context, their potential in the long term is unmatched, but they’ll be doing well to make the cut this week.

Playtime

As a “reward” for reading this deep into the page of a fantasy column with no fantasy action on the website this week, here are five concepts of teams consisting of golfers of yesteryear and today that never have joined forces in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. They are listed in no particular order. In advance of your groans and eye-rolling – all of which are warranted – remember that this annual tournament, while official, is a fun departure from the norm. If you’re inclined to share one of your own, hit me up on X.

• Ben (Curtis) and Jerry (Kelly) ... The Big Freezy. Walkup song: “Turkey in the Straw.”
• Wayne (Levi) and Garth (Mulroy) ... We are not worthy! Walkup song: “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
• (Ben) Martin and (Tom) Lewis ... The Range Rat Pack. Walkup song: “That’s Amore.”
• (Dicky) Pride and (K.J.) Choi ... The twinkles in everyone’s eyes. Walkup song: A Stevie Ray Vaughan hit comes to mind.
• Taylor (Montgomery) and Travis (Perkins) ... From the Eras Tour to the PGA TOUR. Walkup song: “You Belong with Me.”

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