MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT FINAL THOUGHTS
This week’s PGA Tour heads to Jack’s place Muirfield village in Dublin Ohio for the Memorial tournament. The Memorial Tournament is one of the most iconic events on the PGA Tour schedule and is Jack Nicklaus’s own take on Augusta National.
Throw out what you saw last week. This golf course is about to test the best golfers in the world. The course has major Augusta National vibes to it, with elevated, sloping greens, deep bunkers, and short grass everywhere.
This course will offer a true test for the 120-man field that features the best golfers in the world. The top 65 and ties will get the opportunity to play the weekend, with the winner being greeted by the golden bear on the 18th green on Sunday.
More information can be found on our Memorial Tournament preview by CLICKING HERE
FanTeam Memorial contests start 2nd June at 12.00 pm BST.
This week’s Main Event contest features two buy-ins, €2 and €20. The difference in the contests is of course the prize pool at stake. In the low entry, the prize pool sits at €1,200. A massive €4,000 is up for grabs in the high entry, with €600 awarded to first place!
Satellite contests will run side by side with the Memorial Main Event contest and users can win up to 30 seats in the U.S. Open monster contest. Buy-in is set at €3 per entry for the satellite contest.
Standard FanTeam golf fantasy scoring applies.
The great thing about FanTeam as a platform is I can play daily fantasy contests, player matchups and make my sportsbook bets all in the same place.
WEATHER
The players this week are about to see wind and extremely hot temperatures. At present, there is a clear AM/PM split on Thursday and Friday so it might be worth factoring into lineup construction. As always with the weather, it’s not guaranteed and is always worth monitoring.
Thursday: One thing that is now unlikely for the first round is rain. The first groups are out at 7.00 am and it looks like they will have the best of the conditions, with cool temperatures and little wind.
For those going out in the afternoon, things could get tricky. From 14.00 pm, there are expected wind gusts up to 20mph and it will be significantly hot.
Friday: Come Friday the tee times will switch, and it looks as if those that went out early on Thursday will once again have the better of the conditions.
The early starters Friday will be dealing with wind gusts up to 30mph, which will make for very difficult scoring conditions. By 14.00 pm those gusts will calm down to around 15mph, so still breezy but much easier than the morning wave.
Saturday: It will not get easier for those that make the cut on Saturday as those wind gusts remain up to 25mph. There is a slight chance for thunderstorms also which will obviously stop play should they arrive.
Sunday: Sunday will offer the perfect scoring day for the golfers who will look to make a run at the championship. There is a small gentle breeze expected but significantly less than what we will see in the first few days. Temperatures are also expected to be much cooler.
Obviously, things can change hour to hour with the weather so I would look again before lock tomorrow but at present the weather favors the AM/PM split for Thursday and Friday.
STATS I’M LOOKING AT
All stats in my model are based on the last 50 rounds.
- Strokes gained off the tee (Good Drive Percentage) – The rough here is a real problem, and while these fairways are not incredibly difficult to hit, the penalty for missing them is dire. This will be a big week for Good Drive Percentage and with all of last year’s top 10 gaining in this percentage, it’s well worth weighting into models.
- Strokes gained on approach – Approach will once again be the main feature of my model this week. Last year, this golf course featured the sixth most difficult greens to hit on the PGA Tour. They are small and there is no room for error. So once again strokes gained on approach is the key stat we need to be looking at this week.
- Strokes gained around the green –I was extremely heavy on short game at the Masters, and I will be here again this week. If anything, a good short game will be even more important here than it was at the Masters because these greens are smaller than Augusta.
- Strokes gained putting – As usual I will be weighting the ever-important putting between the 0-10ft range within my model again this week.
- Par 5 Scoring – Par five scoring is the big one here. 23 out of the Top-25 players on last year’s leaderboard gained relative to the field in par five scoring.
TOP 25 PLAYERS IN MY MODEL
Shane Lowry, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Sungjae IM, Cameron Smith, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Hideki Matsuyama, Will Zalatoris, Matt Fitzpatrick, Mito Pereira, Viktor Hovland, Tom Hoge, Adam Hadwin, Max Homa, Aaron Wise, Gary Woodland, Joaquin Niemann, Corey Conners, Daniel Berger, Chris Kirk, Luke List, HarrisEnglish, Alexander Noren and Adam Scott.
TEAM REVEAL
Although I will be entering multi entries, this is one of my lineups for the Memorial contest on FanTeam.
As you can see my selections are based on players within my player pool this week.
Matthew Fitzpatrick – Consistency, consistency, consistency! Matt Fitzpatrick has played 9 PGA Tour events this year and has finished inside the top 20 in 7 of them. Muirfield will be right up Fitzpatrick’s ally too as it demands good drives and good approach play. Fitzpatrick has hit 66% of fairways over the last 12 months and he ranks inside the top 20 for strokes gained off the tee, around the green, and putting within this field over the last 24 rounds. Some will argue that his style comes with limited upside, but he is the perfect golfer for me this week on this golf course.
Shane Lowry –.Lowry has been playing excellent golf in 2022 having played 6 events on the PGA Tour and making all 6 cuts he is as safe as they come. He posted another top 25 performance last time out at the PGA Championship which was his first outside the top 13 all year amazingly. Lowry is green across the board in my model this week and is actually number One in it, he also has a really good recent course history here having come tied 6th last year so I will be overweight on Lowry across my lineups this week.
Max Homa – Another golfer in fine form and arguably one of the hottest players on the PGA Tour currently. Homa has made 8 straight cuts including 6 top 20 finishes in that time. Homa fits the mold for Muirfield being long and accurate off the tee, good on approach (top 15 in this field), and top 10 in the field in hitting greens in regulation over the last 3 months. Homa has also gained strokes putting in 5 out of his last 6 events so he is easy to include in my lineup this week.
I will be building a large chunk of my teams this week around the 3 core plays above with a variety of others based within my player pool. As you can see above this is a very balanced build so I will be spreading the captaincy across my 3 core plays.
FanTeam Memorial Tournament Contests can be found by CLICKING HERE
FANTEAM SPORTSBOOK BET
Rory McIlroy First Round Leader 21/1- Rory ranks number 2 in my model this week and he comes into this tournament in excellent form. In truth, he should have won the PGA Championship having dominated the course after 1 round. Muirfield has always been kind to Rory and I’d look for that to continue again this week.
A £10 bet would return £220 should it land.
Patrick Reed Top 10 9/2 – Reed has not had the best of years but with a tied 7th last time out and repeated cuts made his stock is on the rise. The improved form couldn’t have come at a better time either as Reed returns to one of his favorite courses. He is perfect around this golf course having made 6/6 cuts and has 3 top 10 finishes in that time.
A £20 bet would return £110 should it land.
The Sportsbook lobby can be found by CLICKING HERE.
I hope this article has given you plenty of food for thought – especially for those of you that know very little about Golf but are playing in the Memorial contests.
Please feel free to message me on Twitter @JackHumphreyKM if you have any questions – all support queries should go to @FanTeamOfficial.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
If you’re new to FanTeam, you’ll need to create a new account here – alternatively, head on create a new account here – alternatively, head on over to fanteam.com and click the green ‘Register’ button in the top right corner.
Existing users can click the graphic below for direct access to the game lobby.
Best of luck to everyone entering – I look forward to seeing your usernames on the Leaderboard.
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