I came so close to hitting a winner last, with the second place finish from Henley but this week the PGA moves on the TPC Southwind in Memphis for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first event of the FedEx Cup playoffs with a small 70 player field.
Course Breakdown
Par 70, 7239 yards, plays significantly longer with the way that the course is set up, one of the top 15 hardest courses on tour every year, 7 of the Par 4s are over 450 yards, both Par 5s are reachable, most balls in the water (in play on ten holes) of any course on tour by a substantial amount (almost 1400 more than the next which is TPC Sawgrass), back 9 is very difficult, holes 17 and 18 here see over 200 bogies or worse through the week, driving accuracy is way lower than tour average (56% vs. 62%), lower GIR % than tour average (59% vs. 66%), driving distance here is 3 yards longer on average than tour average (286 vs. 282 yards), narrow and very difficult to hit Zoysia grass fairways, trees, bunkers and water in play if you miss the fairway, Bermuda rough which is hard to judge distance out of but it isn’t too thick or tall, both GIR and proximity sharply decline from the rough, smaller than average Bermuda greens surrounded by bunkers and water, top 5 easiest putting greens on Tour, third highest one putt percentage on tour, fourth lowest 3 putt percentage on tour, fast (12 on stimpmeter), firm and undulating greens, hot and humid weather here could play a factor
Tournament Notes
- First of the 3 events of the FedEx Cup Playoffs
- This event used to be the Top 125 players in the FedEx Cup playoffs qualifying. This year that changed to the Top 70 with no cut
- The Top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings after this week will advance to the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields next week
- This course and event used to be a WGC no cut event from 2019-2021 with the best players in the world and prior to that was the St. Jude Classic, a much weaker field event during the regular season
- Prior when this course hosted this event as a WGC, a lot of the top end players historically didn’t play this course much so course history may not be as helpful as in other events due to the difference in field strength and format throughout the years
- SG: Approach is historically 2.5x times more important than SG: OTT here
- The player that ended the week 1st in SG: T2G here won the event 8 of the last 11 years (Ancer in 2021 was fourth)
- The opening event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs has been won by a player in the T25 OWGR 14/17 times
- 4 of the last 8 winners of the opening playoff event had a victory already in the calendar year that they won (Zalatoris last year didn’t have a win but had three 2nd place finishes)
- 5 of the last 8 winners of the opening playoff event entered the week in the T10 of the FedEx Cup standings (Zalatoris last year was 12th going into the playoffs)
- 8 of the last 12 winners of the opening playoff event finished T22 in their previous start before winning and were in good form coming into this tournament
Key Stats
Approach, Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, GIR Gained
Main proximity distance range on approach: 150-175 yards (25.8%)
Field
Top 70 golfers in the FedEx Cup standings
Last Year Champion: Will Zalatoris (-15 in a playoff) – not defending since he’s been out all season with injury
Runner Up Last Year: Sepp Straka (-15)
One and Done: Matt Fitzpatrick
One and Done Considerations: Take the best elite player that you have left, I pretty much used them all already so I’m just rolling with the best available (and I’m already in the money, so I just need to stay put in the standings)
Players
Xander Schauffele: 10000: +1800 – Plays well in no cut events and has been having a lot of great finishes this season without winning, 57,46,6,27,68,52 finishes here, 17,42,19,10,24,18,2,4,10,19,39,33,19,13,3 finishes this season, 9th in Approach, 37th in SG: OTT, 34th in Fairways Gained, 11th in Good Drives Gained, 4th in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 4th in Proximity 150-175 yards, 4th in GIRs Gained, 43rd in SG: ARG, 6th in Putting, 16th in Opportunities Gained, 4th in Birdie+ Gained, 11th in Bogie Avoidance
Tyrrell Hatton: 9700: +2200 – Has been the best player statistically on Tour this season who hasn’t gotten a win with seven T6 finishes and only four finishes outside T20 in 15 PGA Tour events this year, 20,6,27,3,12,15,5,3,19,34,MC,2,4,40,6 finishes in his last 15 events, 31,17,69,43,28 finishes here, 24th in Approach, 9th in SG: OTT, 41st in Fairways Gained, 27th in Good Drives Gained, 2nd in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 32nd in Proximity 150-175 yards, 15th in GIRs Gained, 22nd in SG: ARG, 2nd in Putting, 32nd in Opportunities Gained, 3rd in Birdie+ Gained, 4th in Bogie Avoidance
Rickie Fowler: 9500: +3000 – Playing his best golf in years, has been very good this season including having gotten his win to end his drought, 64,15,17,MC,13 finishes here, 23,42,1,13,5,9,6,MC,14,15,10,13,31,20,10,11 finishes in his last 16 events, 10th in Approach, 30th in SG: OTT, 31st in Fairways Gained, 25th in Good Drives Gained, 29th in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 24th in Proximity 150-175 yards, 17th in GIRs Gained, 2nd in SG: ARG, 21st in Putting, 18th in Opportunities Gained, 9th in Birdie+ Gained, 14th in Bogie Avoidance
Hideki Matsuyama: 8400: +5000 – Finished 2nd here in 2021 with 2,20,43,39 finishes here, MC,30,13,MC,13,32,16,29,23,16,15,5 finishes in his last twelve events, 7th in Approach, 26th in SG: OTT, 18th in Fairways Gained, 9th in Good Drives Gained, 24th in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 29th in Proximity 150-175 yards, 10th in GIRs Gained, 25th in SG: ARG, 65th in Putting, 1st in Opportunities Gained, 51st in Birdie+ Gained, 3rd in Bogie Avoidance
Justin Rose: 7200: +7500 – Despite coming in with three straight missed cuts (two in majors) he really pops in my model this week and has a win already this season at Pebble, MC,54,11 finishes here, MC,MC,MC,8,12,9,25,16,36,6,MC,MC,1,18,26 finishes this season, 11th in Approach, 55th in SG: OTT, 23rd in Fairways Gained, 35th in Good Drives Gained, 10th in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 15th in Proximity 150-175 yards, 24th in GIRs Gained, 7th in SG: ARG, 32nd in Putting, 11th in Opportunities Gained, 28th in Birdie+ Gained, 24th in Bogie Avoidance
Model
Approach (20%)
SG: OTT (5%)
Fairways Gained (5%)
Good Drives Gained (5%)
Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards (15%)
Proximity 150-175 yards (10%)
GIRs Gained (5%)
SG: ARG (5%)
Putting (5%)
Opportunities Gained (10%)
Birdie+ Gained (5%)
Bogie Avoidance (10%)
Stats based on past 36 rounds
DraftKings/Betting Notes
- With this being the first no-cut stroke play event of the year, you can go with more of an aggressive approach when building dfs lineups since every player will get the full four rounds of scoring and finishing position will have more of an impact
Bets
Outrights
.6u Xander Schauffele (+1800)
.5u Tyrrell Hatton (+2200)
.4u Rickie Fowler (+3000)
.2u Hideki Matsuyama (+5000)
.2u Justin Rose (+7500)
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