Remember when I advised using the recent week off to notate all starts by your closest competition in Segment 2 of PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf? Did you do your homework?

If you were the student among those back in the day who asked aloud, “But when am I ever going to use algebra in life?”, and have wondered about the same as it concerns tracking starts in Segment 2, then what you’re about to read will make as much sense as arriving at the epiphany as an independent adult of how valuable algebra became.

The overarching narrative of every segment is roster management. It has to be. Never mind course fit, course history, recent form, weather impact and whatever other, uh, variable – not sorry, had to – concerning golfers committed to a PGA TOUR event, because all of that is outside our control, but roster management is ours.

Since the beginning of 2025, the captain has injected a significant function into our, uh, calculus – OK, sorry about that. But even as we make decisions influenced by roster management and whose points we want doubled in a tournament, we can never take our eyes off the opposition.

As a sports fan but non-golfer, I have to admit that I never understand why any golfer wouldn’t want to look at a leaderboard during competition. To me, not wanting to know the score at any time reveals some level of mental weakness. Defend it all you want but even just the choice to embrace what matters can translate into that one percent of an edge for which so many professional athletes aspire to achieve.

Meanwhile, I know that you are monitoring your league’s points and ranks religiously in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, or at least mine relative to yours as your target ahead of the Truist Championship. Good. Keep it up. But your job isn’t complete without including starts made by your opposition and the influence on your roster management over time.

Mapping starts across the remainder of Segment 2 is another method of control that you possess, but it’s not a process utilized by every gamer. With the Masters and two Signature Events having tapped into your cache of notables for whom you know you’ll burn all three starts, no doubt you’re feeling some fatigue. So is your opposition. Leverage it over the last six tournaments. Add this invaluable – I’m going to say it again – variable of tracking the starts of your opposition to your strategy if you haven’t already. The control that it yields will empower your decisions and elevate your confidence to continue to compete at the level you want and expect.

If you like the concept, keep an eye on my X page. this week because I’ll share my charts for both Paul Hodowanic and Chris Breece. They are my nearest competition in PGA TOUR Experts.

Captain

Rory McIlroy … No matter how obvious it seems to plug him in when Scottie Scheffler is idle, you still need to do right by your process and review the possibilities objectively. However, every version of that process at Quail Hollow Club will take you right back to the No. 1 in my Power Rankings.

When you realize that he’s populating three-quarters of the rosters saved – as he should, if not more – accept that the push is a net win. If you’re chasing and if this were the TOUR Championship, then you’d have to deviate, but the Truist Championship is the last stop of what is only the first half of the fantasy season. So, settle on the four-time winner at Quail Hollow for this role and rely on your other charges to do work. After all, there’s no cut, so we’re all going to put numbers on the board all week, anyway.

Other considerations

Cameron Young ... No. 2 in the Power Rankings. I don’t get the sense that he tires, and I’m guessing that you don’t, either. Normally, no matter how well a guy performs in his last start and how much time has elapsed since, he’s not going to be a candidate for this role, but the red-hot recent winner at Doral belongs on the short list with McIlroy.

Matt Fitzpatrick ... In full disclosure, I’m fresh out of starts for the Brit, so he’s unavailable to me until Segment 3. However, he’s right up there with McIlroy and Young as the hottest on the planet right now. But still, only McIlroy presents any confidence when it comes to course history, and he’s unmatched.

Rounding out the roster

After McIlroy, my choices are rooted in traditional roster management and how I set up against my opposition with two Signature Events and the PGA Championship still to be contested. To be certain, there isn’t a perfect combination, only a best effort. And even if there was a perfect combination that fulfills my objective, the actual golf would ruin at least a part of it. It’s why I’ve forever espoused remaining fluid!

My starters

• Ludvig Åberg
• Si Woo Kim
• Rory McIlroy (C)
• Xander Schauffele

My bench

• Tommy Fleetwood (1)
• Cameron Young (2)

Careful

For almost every tournament, an unusually impressive subset of the field warrants avoiding, and it might be represented in my Power Rankings, which is not written in the context of any fantasy golf format. In this section, I single out who demand a pause and why.

Max Homa ... Like Rory McIlroy (2010), Rickie Fowler (2012) and others, Homa broke through for his first PGA TOUR victory at Quail Hollow in 2019. He’s added a pair of top 10s on the course since. However, his struggles have continued in earnest for two years now, so despite his success on this track, it’s not the kind of setup on which anyone expects to find his game.

Sungjae Im ... While not a former winner of this tournament, he profiles similarly to Homa as one with a strong course history, with top 10s in his last two appearances. And while Im teased us with a T4 at the Valspar Championship in March – in what was just his third start since returning after recovering from an injured right wrist – he’s just 4-for-5 and without a top-35 finish since.

Patrick Cantlay ... He was an early withdrawal from last week’s Cadillac Championship but it was due to an illness, so his swing should be fine. The reason he lands here is that his best finish in five appearances at Quail Hollow is but a T21 in 2023. For a guy for whom the coefficient attached to his course history is higher than average, even at 100-percent health, he shouldn’t be as high as 11.3 percent among rosters saved at last check.

Jordan Spieth ... Get ready for extensive coverage of his latest chance to complete the career Grand Slam next week. In fact, just sit back and wait for it as you abstain at Quail Hollow where he’s failed to record a top 25 in five tries, including twice in the PGA Championship. His cachet always will generate faith and he arrived having cashed in nine straight starts, five of which going for a top 20, but he’s still high at 7.7 percent among rosters saved until he proves that he can score across four rounds in Charlotte.

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