Large-Field GPP Breakdown: Biltmore Championship

How are we back so soon? While I love PGA DFS, it did feel good to get a break from the weekly grind for a couple of weeks while also having money not tied up for an excruciating four days over the weekend. That being said, holding money for four days and having the chance at winning sure beats uploading a bunch of money on Sunday with no chance of winning (NFL), so I am excited we are back. Fall-season golf has typically been a bit softer, as we saw Sam finally win a $200 SE at the end of last year after struggling throughout. I am hoping that I can follow the same blueprint in 2026, because it is a very close race between us three for the contributor contest. Anyway, because we’ve taken a bit of a break, let’s jump right into the Biltmore instead of wasting time.

Biltmore Championship – Preview

Now that we’ve made it to the fall season, non-Signature events are back, which should be music to everyone’s ears. The Biltmore will have 130+ players, including a cut on Friday, so it’s a pretty standard week for all of us. The Biltmore will be played at the Cliffs at Walnut Cove in Arden, North Carolina, this week. Given this event is new, we have not seen the PGA Tour stop at this course in the past, so the course-history bros are unfortunately in shambles. That said, based on McKinley’s Course Preview and Fits article, the Cliffs seems to be a fairly cookie-cutter Jack Nicklaus-designed course. McKinley stated this will be one of the shorter courses of the year (at about 6,900 yards adjusted for elevation), and there’s talk about the rough being grown out to produce difficult scoring. I wouldn’t be surprised if a bit of an “accuracy” narrative starts to rear its head as we approach lock.

In regard to DFS, DraftKings has given us a $50K-to-first lotto of ~9.5K people this week, meaning that we are dealing with a contest that is less than half the size of what we normally get in peak season. In terms of cumulative ownership, I will not be making any edits to my normal 60-80% range, and I do expect to fall within this range a decent amount given some of the chalk on the slate. As the contest gets smaller, combination work and also leverage plays get even more important when chasing the bink. I may be taking heavier stands on some of my lower-ownership plays this week and will be ultra-aggressive with roster construction, knowing that I will be competing with a considerably lower amount of raw entries if I happen to get a spike week from some of my leverage plays.

Generally, this week is setting up to be quite a normal week for roster construction. There’s enough talent at the top in Jackson Koivun, Jacob Bridgeman, and others where none of them are overpriced. This means the field will almost definitely lean into normal builds of 10/9/8/7/7/7 or something of the sort. I expect that to be the most common build this week, and I will be making adjustments to ensure I’m not getting too much of it. 

Expected Chalk, How to Play It

As with a lot of these events that lack talent, we end up seeing a few guys who take on really condensed ownership. Most of the time, it’s one or two of the top players who are playing the event as a warm-up or just wanting to get their one event in for the fall. This week is no exception. We’ll start with…

Jackson Koivun, DK Price: $10,500