I’m coming off hitting back to back winners after Aaron Rai’s win at the Wyndham last week. This week the PGA heads to TPC Southwind in Memphis for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first event of the FedEx Cup playoffs with a small 70 player field. Let’s make it three outrights in a row!
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, seven 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 nine is very difficult with 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%), 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 five easiest putting greens on Tour, third highest one putt percentage on tour, fourth lowest three putt percentage on tour, fast (12 on stimpmeter), firm and undulating greens
Tournament Notes
- First of the 3 events of the FedEx Cup Playoffs
- No cut event
- This event used to be the Top 125 players in the FedEx Cup playoffs qualifying. Last year that changed to the Top 70
- The Top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings after this week will advance to the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club in Denver 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 12 years (Ancer in 2021 was fourth. Glover last year was fourth and Cantlay, who lost in a playoff, was first.)
- The opening event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs has been won by a player in the T25 OWGR 14/18 times
- 5 of the last 9 winners of the opening playoff event had a victory already in the calendar year that they won (Zalatoris in 2022 didn’t have a win but had three 2nd place finishes. Glover last year won back to back after winning the Wyndham the prior week.)
- 5 of the last 9 winners of the opening playoff event entered the week in the T10 of the FedEx Cup standings (Zalatoris in 2022 was 12th going into the playoffs)
- 9 of the last 13 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 (25.7%)
Field
Top 70 golfers in the FedEx Cup standings
Last Year Champion: Lucas Glover (-15 in a playoff)
Runner Up Last Year: Patrick Cantlay (-15)
One and Done: Keegan Bradley
One and Done Considerations: Take the best elite player that you have left. I used them all already so I’m just rolling with the best available. I’m already so out of the money that it doesn’t matter.
Players
Scottie Scheffler: 12400: +350 – By far the best golfer in the world and he’s absolutely crushed no cut events this season with elite fields, coming off his gold medal win at the Olympics with 1,7,1,41,1,2,8,1,1,2,1,1,10,3,6,17,5 finishes this season, 31,MC,14,15 finishes here, 1st in Approach, 1st in SG: OTT, 9th in Fairways Gained, 3rd in Good Drives Gained, 1st in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 1st in Proximity 150-175 yards, 1st in GIRs Gained, 11th in SG: ARG, 30th in Putting, 1st in Opportunities Gained, 1st in Birdie+ Gained, 2nd in Bogie Avoidance
Ludvig Aberg: 10200: +2200 – I was between him and Morikawa for my second pick this week and the prices made this an easy decision on Aberg, first time playing this event, coming off a T18 at the Olympics with 18,MC,4,27,12,5,MC,10,2,14,8,25,19,2,9 finishes in his last 15 events, 10th in Approach, 5th in SG: OTT, 13th in Fairways Gained, 9th in Good Drives Gained, 3rd in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 6th in Proximity 150-175 yards, 3rd in GIRs Gained, 43rd in SG: ARG, 29th in Putting, 5th in Opportunities Gained, 10th in Birdie+ Gained, 5th in Bogie Avoidance
Corey Conners: 9100: +3500 – He’s been elite ballstriking this season, 6,28,36,30,27 finishes here, coming off a T9 at the Olympics he comes into this week with 9,25,10,27,9,20,6,26,13,44,38,25,13,18 finishes in his last 14 events, 4th in Approach, 33rd in SG: OTT, 12th in Fairways Gained, 16th in Good Drives Gained, 40th in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 9th in Proximity 150-175 yards, 7th in GIRs Gained, 32nd in SG: ARG, 46th in Putting, 7th in Opportunities Gained, 5th in Birdie+ Gained, 34th in Bogie Avoidance
Aaron Rai: 8200: +5000 – I picked up the win on him last week at the Wyndham after riding him for a few weeks with a bunch of close calls popping on leaderboards and I’m betting him again this week, let’s see if he could go back to back like Glover did last year, 1,75,4,7,2,19,14,32,39,4,MC,58,7,MC,35,23,19 finishes in his last 17 events, 49,51,26,12 finishes here, 9th in Approach, 21st in SG: OTT, 3rd in Fairways Gained, 4th in Good Drives Gained, 6th in Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, 40th in Proximity 150-175 yards, 4th in GIRs Gained, 15th in SG: ARG, 18th in Putting, 38th in Opportunities Gained, 38th in Birdie+ Gained, 6th 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
Bets
Outrights
2u Scottie Scheffler (+350)
.5u Ludvig Aberg (+2200)
.3u Corey Conners (+3500)
.2u Aaron Rai (+5000)
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