The Memorial Tournament

The Memorial Tournament

For the second week running we were seemingly heading for a blank week but somewhat got out of jail on Sunday. Last week Harris English’s final round heroics at the PGA turned the week in to a profitable one as he bagged us a full place return at 150/1 while this week Harry Hall produced a solid Sunday at Colonial to take a share of sixth place and limit the damage.

There is no doubt it is fantastic to be in the mix all week and bag the winner but these weeks where you bag some returns when you are never really in the hunt count hugely to the P&L come the end of the season.

The tournament itself was won by Ben Griffin who showed once again that strong recent form coming in to Colonial is key.

While the likes of Tommy Fleetwood & Bud Cauley threatened to get in the mix on Sunday ultimately the final day was a duel between Griffin and Matti Schmidt. In the end while both players looked decidedly wobbly on the back nine it was Griffin’s greater experience in the mix that saw him through.

So onwards we go and it’s time for the annual trip to ‘Jack’s place’ Muirfield Village, for the for the Memorial Tournament.

The Memorial event was founded in 1976 by Jack Nicklaus and is played on the Nicklaus designed course at the Muirfield Village Golf Club.

As I am sure we all know by now the event is one of those on tour to have Signature Event status. The field of 72 players will be made up of the eligible top 50 from last year, the ‘next ten’, the swing five’ and a handful of sponsors exemptions.

As is pretty much always the case for the Signature events we have stellar line up in play. There is one notable exception to this though as Rory McIlroy has chosen to skip the event, preferring instead to complete his US Open build up in Canada next week.

Scottie Scheffler of course takes favouritism, with the world number one followed in the market by Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay.

COURSE

Muirfield Village is a Par 72 measuring at just over 7450 yards.

The greens are Bent Grass.

Muirfield Village is seen as a classical test. Approach play is key as it is imperative to find the correct part of the undulating greens, which can, as long as the weather cooperates, run up to 13 on the stimpmeter.

With a bit more room off the tee compared to some courses, Muirfield Village is basically a second shot and in course.

Although plenty of birdies are available particularly on the par 5s there is also a lot of danger lurking with water in play on more than half of the holes, and historically thick rough around the greens.

The closing stretch of the course 16 through 18 is the toughest.

The Par 5s is where you make your score at Muirfield Village with all four Par 5s playing under Par year in year out.

I would therefore see Par 5 scoring as a key stat to look at.

Away from the four par fives and the most exciting hole on the course is arguably the par 4 14^th, which is driveable most days.

After the 2020 edition the course underwent significant renovation with the aim according to Jack Nicklaus to make the course “better, not necessarily harder”.

Most holes had the greens completely recontoured with bunker modifications and the only holes where the greens now resemble the old greens are 12, 13, 14 & 17.

Based on these changes there was a fair amount of speculation as to whether past course form would count for as much however with Rahm and Cantlay dominating Again in 2021 it appeared to be very much ‘business as usual’.

Away from Muirfield Village I would also suggest that form on other Nicklaus courses is worth taking in to consideration and one fact that stands out is that in addition to 2021 champion Jon Rahm, 2017 winner Jason Dufner is a past winner at the CareerBuilder which uses a Nicklaus course. Similarly David Lingmerth who won here in 2015 has also come close at the CareerBuilder [when losing to Dufner in a playoff].

Meanwhile 2022 champion Billy Horschel was runner up at the Nicklaus designed Concession Club, which hosted a one off Tour event in 2021,

Other Nicklaus courses to consider are PGA National home of the Honda Classic, Glen Abbey the former home of the Canadian Open and Valhalla used just recently for the PGA Championship.

HISTORY

So lets take a look at the winners since 2012;

2024 – Scottie Scheffler

2023 – Viktor Hovland

2022 – Billy Horschel

2021 – Patrick Cantlay

2020 – Jon Rahm

2019 – Patrick Cantlay

2018 – Bryson Dechambeau

2017 Jason Dufner

2016 William McGirt

2015 David Lingmerth

2014 Hideki Matsuyama

2013 Matt Kuchar

2012 Tiger Woods

As we can see from this list it’s been a fairly mixed bag of winners here over the years and we have seen three players Matsuyama, Lingmerth and McGirt gain there first PGA Tour wins here, with McGirt and Lingmerth’s successes in particular coming from left field.

Over recent years however the event has very much been the domain of the big names with Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm posting three wins between them over the past six years, while in 2023, the player of the year Viktor Hovland triumphed here. Meanwhile last year of course Scottie Scheffler bagged the title here as one of his nine over the course of the year.

Let’s not also forget of course that the balance between Rahm and Cantlay almost certainly would have been two to one in Rahm’s favour had he not been forced to withdraw from the event on Saturday evening in 2021 after a positive Covid test when he held a six shot lead through 54 holes.

Whilst past course form is never a minus it does not appear to be a requisite here. In fact six of the ten winners since 2014, Rahm, Dechambeau, Dufner, McGirt, Lingmerth and Matsuyama had a best place finish of 19^th between them in eleven previous starts. [Hideki was making his course debut.] So don’t be put off if the man you have a hunch for has not done much here before.

Current form coming in is a bit more interesting and I have provided a table below to show this;

2024 – Scottie Scheffler 2 8 1 1 2

2023 – Viktor Hovland 16 2 43 59 7

2022 – Billy Horschel MC 68 21 43 9

2021 – Patrick Cantlay 23 MC MC 18 MC

2020 – Jon Rahm 27 33 37 MC 3*

2019 – Patrick Cantlay 3 3 9 24 MC

2018 – Bryson Dechambeau   42 37 4 3 38

2017 Jason Dufner   MC 13 60 5 11

2016 William McGirt   47 43 17 37 9

2015 David Lingmerth   MC 33 MC MC MC

2014 Hideki Matsuyama  10 23 38 MC MC

2013 Matt Kuchar   2 33 48 35 8

2012 Tiger Woods  40 MC 40 1 WD

*Denotes finish pre ‘lockdown’ 2020.

As we can see from this all but two of the last 13 winners, Lingmerth and Cantlay in 2021, had posted a top ten finish in their previous five starts on tour [although Rahm’s top 10 did come prior to the Tour’s break for covid 19]. Let’s also not forget that Rahm was in fine form in 2021 before his WD, having finished eighth at the PGA in his previous start, so It would seem therefore that current form is a better way in here than course form.

One other angle I feel merits consideration is par 5 scoring and it’s correlation to similar style tracks like Bay Hill where taking advantage of the par 5s is key. Longer term readers may remember that this was a large part of the case I built for Bryson in 2018 when putting him up as he had finished second at Bay Hill [also fourth at Quail Hollow, which rewards par 5 performance], and he lead the tour coming in to the week in 2018 in par 5 scoring.

Furthermore anyone who had followed the Bay Hill connection in 2022 may well have plumped for the winner Billy Horschel as he had been runner up at the API earlier in the year, while 2023 winner here Hovland had finished 10^th at Bay Hill in March, a result, which would have been much better as well bar a poor final day.

Finally as always the winning score is influenced by the elements with the lowest winning total in the last ten years coming from Patrick Cantlay in 2019 who posted -19, however in 2020 Rahm triumphed with a -9 total, while Hovland in 2023 won with a 7- under total and Scheffler posted 8- under last year..

2021 saw Cantlay triumph in a play off with a -13 total although we mustn’t forget he Rahm was six clear prior to having to WD while last year Horschel posted a four shot win again with a –13 number.

For five years prior to Cantlay’s win though we saw three winning scores of -15 and two of -13 [-15 was the score required to make the play off in 2018., while Cantlay triumphed again with -13 in 2020.

It is also worth noting that one winner in the past ten years, Cantlay in 2019, has managed to post all four rounds in the 60s on route to victory

WEATHER FORECAST

After some potential disruption early in the week touch wood at the time of writing we look set for four uninterrupted dry days for the event. As we know though from experience storms can often pop up here at this time of year so this is certainly not cast in stone.

Temperatures look set to sit around the mid-70s for the week.

Wind, which can be a factor here looks like it could be an issue this week for the players  with gusts of 20mph+ showing in the forecast across all four days, particularly on the opening two days where we could see 25 to 30mph gusts.

As I always say though this could all change!

PICKS

I have gone with four players this week as follows;

PATRICK CANTLAY – 20/1 – 2.5pts E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 6

I will start this week with Patrick Cantlay.

Cantlay’s record at Muirfield Village needs no real introduction. A two time winner here, all be it somewhat fortuitously the second time around in 2021 when Rahm had to withdraw after the third round due to a positive Covid test, when holding a six shot lead, Patrick also has three further top tens here to his name including a third and fourth place.

As has been well documented it is well over two years since Cantlay last posted a victory on tour going back to the 2022 BMW Championship. While Cantlay has continued to play solidly during his winless period last year his approach play deteriorated hugely with a season end ranking of a lowly 106^th. This year though Patrick has improved dramatically on this front, currently ranking tenth in approach. This certainly bodes well for this week on a course very much known as being a ‘second shot and in’ test. The club however that has held him back from returning to the winners enclosure so far this year is the putter, for which he currently ranks 83^rd, the hope would be though this week on greens we know he putts well, that he will see an uptick on the dance floor.

Patrick performed strongly at the Truist recently when returning to the North East when bagging fourth place, however he then went on to miss the cut at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. I am not going to get too hung up on that though as Quail Hollow is a venue he has never performed well at. I will though take the positive that he arrives here fresh after a week off following that missed cut whereas some players come here following a two or even three week stint including a Major Championship and I suspect maybe beginning to feel fatigued.

I’ll take Cantlay then to finally return to the winners circle at a venue we know he performs strongly at and loves.

COREY CONNERS – 30/1 – 2pts E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 6

Next up I will risk Corey Conners.

I have to be honest Conners is not a player I turn to all that often as while his level of consistency cant be denied he more often than not flatters to deceive at the business end of tournaments.

This week though I do feel he has an awful lot going for him and I just have a hunch he could finally step up at the next level.

Firstly if we look at Corey’s form this season and since he posted a third place at Bay Hill in March, a result, which gives a great pointer for this week it should be noted, he has produced an excellent run of consistency, posting six top 20s in seven subsequent starts including three further top tens. It should also be noted that one of these top tens, an eighth, came at Augusta, another track, which links really well here.

A look at Corey’s stats this season meanwhile show that his trademark iron play is performing solidly while his normal nemesis, the putter is holding up well enough sitting in the positive column for strokes gained.

The Canadian it must be said does not have a particularly strong record here at Muirfield Village, however as noted earlier past form here has not necessarily been a key pointer to finding the winner here over the years. Instead then I will focus on Corey’s really consistent level this year and his great correlating form and side with him this week.

HIDEKI MATSUYAMA – 35/1 – 1.5pts pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 6

Next cab off the rank for me this week is Hideki Matsuyama.

Since scorching the field in the season opening Sentry event Hideki has struggled and he has failed to post a top 10 in his 12 subsequent starts.

As a result of this though the Japanese star’s odds have drifted out to a very attractive price and I can’t help but feel that he is not as far away at the moment as results might suggest.

The main issue of late is that while Hideki is producing some strong form in patches he is struggling for consistency and throwing in too many errors or bad days. This can be seen from his week at the Masters where he threw in a Saturday 79 and followed that with a Sunday 66 on his way to 21^st place, meanwhile in his next outing at the Truist he posted rounds of 65 72 63 73.

Following that Hideki missed the cut at the PGA before finishing 36^th at Colonial last week, again though he was looking good for a top ten finish in Fort Worth after producing some really eye catching stuff on Sunday before dropping four shots over his final four holes.

Ultimately though Matsuyama is one of those elite players who has shown over the years that he can turn it on and produce his best on any given week. Last year for example he produced his superb performance at Riviera on the back of no prior top tens that year, while lets not forget his Masters triumph in 2021 came on the back of nothing better than 15^th prior to that in the year.

A former champion at Muirfield Village we know Hideki can deliver here so I am happy to overlook some of the recent inconsistencies and take a chance at the odds that he can put it all together once more this week.

SI WOO KIM – 40 /1 – 1.5pts E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 6

Finally this week I shall wrap things up by including Si Woo Kim.

I will admit that I do have some concerns that Si Woo may be beginning to feel some fatigue as he tees it up for his seventh week on the spin, however he has an awful lot going for him otherwise this week so I will take my chances.

Firstly if we look at Si Woo’s form of late and since the disappointment of missing out on a spot at the Masters he has posted four top 20s in his five subsequent solo starts including an eighth at the recent PGA and eighth at the RBC Heritage.

While Si Woo is known to struggle on the greens he continues to impress with his touch around them, currently ranking 12^th in that department on the PGA Tour and this is something, which has stood him in good stead over the years at ‘Jack’s place’ where short game is key, with six straight top 20 finishes here including a best of fourth in 2023.

A look at Si Woo’s other stats this year show us that he sits 14^th on tour from tee to green so his long game is in good shape, while also key for this week he currently sits on top of the par 5 scoring averages.

Si Woo has the bit between his teeth at the moment and with the momentum he currently has I can’t ignore him on a track that he clearly relishes teeing it up on.