
Draftkings American Express First Round Picks 1/16/25
Draftkings picks and predictions for the first round of the 2025 American Express.
2025 American Express
January 16, 2025 11:30 am EDT
This Thursday, Draftkings golf fans will be presented with the first round of the 2025 American Express. Let’s take a look at the first round of this event from a DFS perspective.
Before I discuss my Draftkings player selections for this week’s PGA Tour event let’s review where the first round of the 2025 American Express will be played.
This week’s 2025 American Express is a pro-am tournament that will take place on three different golf courses over the course of a four-day period. The golf courses the field will play this week are La Quinta Country Club, PGA West Tournament Course, and the PGA West TPC Stadium Course.
The entire field will play all three courses over the course of the first three days of competition. The final round will occur on the PGA West TPC Stadium Course.
I wanted to emphasize that the purpose of this article is not to provide an exact DFS lineup.
Having stated that, this article will provide multiple player options in an effort to assist the reader in generating a unique lineup that will hopefully have the potential to win a DraftKings GPP (guaranteed prize pool) contest!
For those readers that are not aware, the rules and scoring for DraftKings single round showdown contests are vastly different than the traditional classic contests offered by the platform.
If you need to review the specific rules for the single round showdown contests feel free to check out the DraftKings website.
Here are my DraftKings player selections for the first round of the 2025 American Express.
2025 American Express Draftkings First Round Showdown Picks
Sungjae Im $10,400
Sungjae Im arrives at this week’s 2025 American Express on the heels of five consecutive top 13 finishes on the PGA Tour, including a ninth-place result at 2024 Hero World Challenge last month.
Im certainly checks the box for me when it comes to previous event/course history. Let me be more specific. Since 2019, Sungjae Im has played the American Express six times. In those six tournaments just noted, Im compiled five top 25 finishes, including a tenth-place finish at the 2020 American Express.
J.J. Spaun $8,300
Since the beginning of August, J.J. Spaun has played ten events on the PGA Tour. In those ten tournaments just mentioned, Spaun amassed seven top 30 finishes, including a third-place result at last week’s 2025 Sony Open.
Due to J.J. Spaun’s impressive result at the 2025 Sony Open I decided to take a hard look at the relevant player statistics for the event to see how Spaun fared relative to the field.
Upon the completion of four rounds of competitive play at the 2025 Sony Open, in relation to the field, J.J. Spaun ranked first in GIR (greens in regulation-84.7%), 19th in putting average (1.721), 11th in total birdies made (19) and second in bogey avoidance (4).
In summary, I fully expect J.J. Spaun to continue his outstanding play in Thursday’s first round of the 2025 American Express.
Will Zalatoris $8,400
Will Zalatoris has accumulated four top 26 finishes in his last five events played (PGA and DP World Tours combined), including a 13th place result at the 2024 BMW Championship in August. Zalatoris finished sixth at the 2022 American Express.
Jhonattan Vegas $7,600
The talented Venezuelan has tallied two top 11 finishes in his last four events played on the PGA Tour, including a fourth-place result at the 2025 Sentry two weeks ago.
Additional golfers I like to perform well in the first round (Draftkings price noted): Justin Thomas $10,200: Sam Burns $10,000: Cameron Young $9,300: Adam Hadwin $7,800: Tom Hoge $8,000: Nick Dunlap $8,600: Brian Harman $8,200.