Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship

FedEx St. Jude Championship Fantasy Preview

An extraordinary implosion from Max Greyserman allowed Aaron Rai to steal in and claim his maiden PGA TOUR title at the Wyndham Championship on Sunday. Greyserman, who had played so well for much of the tournament, was also looking for his debut win in his rookie year, and calmly put together a front nine of -4 in his final round.

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But then it all took a turn for the Mad Max on the back nine, as an eagle was paired with a double-bogey and a catastrophic snowman eight on the 14th hole, where his trophy dreams were left in shatters.

Rai, slow and steady as ever, made birdie at the 72nd hole to confirm his win – and it was a victory for Sedgefield Country Club once more, too. For years this layout has rewarded the most accurate drivers around, and Rai – who ranks third for the season in the Driving Accuracy metric on TOUR – very much fit the bill.

Also taking a ‘W’ was the team on the ground at Sedgefield. Some five inches of rain fell on the course on Thursday in the wake of Storm Debby; how on earth they were able to get the layout into such shape that the event finished on time on Sunday – barring Matt Kuchar’s bizarre decision to return on Monday to finish his last hole – is testament to their hard work.

With a line drawn under the main part of the PGA TOUR season, attention now turns to the FedEx Cup shootout – the top 70 is now confirmed, and heading on to Memphis, Tennessee for the FedEx St. Jude Championship.

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Last Week’s Results

Winner winner!  It’s always nice picking a tourney winner right before the playoffs begin.  Now with smaller fields, we can get more dialed in to picking the best possible DFS roster that we can.   

Aaron Rai was a solid pick last week for many reasons and we saw it coming, saying:

“If you take his T75 at the British Open out of the equation, Aaron Rai’s recent form is exemplary.

Three top-10s in a row on the PGA TOUR, which were powered by tee-to-green solidity and much better form on the greens, reveal a player knocking on the door of his first win on American soil – which makes this $8,800 price point something of a head scratcher.

Rai bears all the hallmarks of the classic Sedgefield champion: accurate off the tee, quality through the bag on approach, and a reliable scrambler/chipper when needs must. But it’s his recent putting improvements that really catch the eye: if he putts like he did in June and into July, Rai is a genuine contender for silverware this week.”

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Let’s stay hot heading into Memphis…

FedEx St. Jude Championship Field

At the time of writing, all 70 of the qualifiers for the St. Jude had taken up their place in the field – including the current FedEx Cup top-five of Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, and Wyndham Clark.

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As you may know, the TOUR Championship’s starting leaderboard is governed by player performances leading into it, so the likes of Ludvig Aberg, Sahith Theegala, Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im, and Shane Lowry will be looking to turn their current top-10 position in the FedEx standings into a top-five status.

Defending champion Lucas Glover WON’T be in the field – he finished 77th in the FedEx Cup race, but Victor Perez, barely a week after missing out on a medal at his home Olympics, has snuck into the field as the bubble boy at number 70. The likes of Jordan Spieth and 3M Open champion Johnattan Vegas just about clung on to their top-70 status to book at least one more week in the race for the FedEx Cup.

This Week’s Course Preview

TPC Southwind is absolutely the perfect place to start the FedEx Cup playoffs: this is a venue that truly rewards the best ball-strikers in the business.

Designed by Ron Pritchard, this Memphis layout has been the home of the many different guises that the St. Jude has taken over the years due to sponsorship reasons, but its status as a premier course on the PGA TOUR rotation has remained intact throughout.

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Opened in 1988, TPC Southwind has been future-proofed against the distance gains of the modern pros, with narrow, doglegging fairways preventing bombs being hit off the tee indiscriminately – a length of 7,243 yards for its Par 70, with just two Par 5s, also creates an additional challenge.

This is a watery track too, with the drink in play on at least eleven holes, while the Bermuda greens are not only slick but on the small side too. For context, Lucas Glover won here 12 months ago with a GIR count of 64.4%, while only one of the top 12 players on the leaderboard averaged over 70%.

The winning score here is generally in the mid-teens under par, which places an almost equal emphasis on making birdies and keeping bogeys off your card. There aren’t many doozy holes, either: the 530-yard, Par 5 sixteenth is by far and away the easiest hole on the real estate, while the other Par 5 and the 395-yard, Par 4 fifteenth also offer some respite.

Only six holes averaged over par last year, however, with the hardest being the fifth: a mammoth 485-yard, Par 4 where plenty in the field will be left with a tough 200+ yard approach into a small, well-protected green.

Weather Forecast for Memphis, TN

MEMPHIS WEATHER

It looks, but don’t hate us if we’re wrong, to be a much more settled week in store than the players endured at the Wyndham Championship.

There are ‘isolated thunderstorms’ in the forecast for both Wednesday and Friday, but that’s a world away from the dusk-til-dawn rain we saw in Greensboro.

Otherwise, we expect TPC Southwind to play firm and fast. Thursday looks set to be exceptionally warm – temperatures of up to 96 degrees have been predicted, and while Friday and the weekend are expected to be a couple of degrees cooler, it’s still going to be a sweltering week in Memphis.

And to make matters even hotter, there’s minimal wind expected – a breeze of around 8-9mph looks consistent across the four days of action.

Last Year’s Results from the FedEx St. Jude Championship

Wily veteran Lucas Glover held off the challenge of former FedEx Cup winner Patrick Cantlay to prevail in the St. Jude 12 months ago. Glover, who has won the Wyndham Championship, took his hot hand to Tennessee, where he found himself one shot clear of Jordan Spieth and two ahead of the field at the halfway stage.

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He was still one clear heading into the final round, but a remarkable round of 64 from Cantlay (six birdies, no bogeys) turned around a five-shot deficit to Glover and set-up a playoff finish, with the pair locked at -15.  It would only take one extra hole to separate them though, with Cantlay making a mess of the replayed 18th to card a bogey; allowing Glover to win with par.

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for this Week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship

A field of 70 this week becomes 50 for the BMW Championship next, and then 30 at the TOUR Championship, so opportunities to play meaningful DFS over the next few weeks are limited. So, let’s fill our boots this week with these two contests.

• GOLF TOUR $1M Summer Sand Trap: The winner trousers a very handsome $200k from this contest, while there’s a stack of consolation prizes of $100 or more – the perfect way to boost your $25 entry.
• GOLF TOUR $300k Drive the Green: The flagship $5 contest is back, with the winner pocketing $50k for their troubles. There’s plenty of other ways to top up your account, too.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes

Three of the last five winners at TPC Southwind have been major champions (Glover, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka), while of the other two Will Zalatoris may yet one day win one if he can figure his game out, while Abraham Ancer was trending towards contending for big titles before his switch to LIV Golf all but ended those hopes.

The rollcall of runners-up also reads like a who’s who of major prowess and/or multiple-time PGA TOUR winners: Cantlay, Hideki Matsuyama, Phil Mickelson, Daniel Berger, Webb Simpson, and so on. It’s an eclectic band, but one that proves our hypothesis: you have to be good, very good, to win at TPC Southwind. And by good, we mean immaculate from tee-to-green. Although this layout has shown no favoritism for bombers or plotters off the tee, what’s not negotiable is quality on approach – in that classic 125-175 yard range in particular.

The greens at TPC Southwind are small, hard, and fast, which explains why the GIR count is typically low here even though the field is so strong – scrambling and chipping prowess is also very much required. Of course, we’ll need our picks to have a solid week putting on Bermuda, but that tends to be harder-to-predict than those flushers who continually bring their A-game from tee to green.

TPC Southwind is a classical course, so in terms of correlations look for those other layouts that fit that ‘heritage’ bill: Augusta National, TPC Sawgrass, Muirfield Village, Bay Hill, and PGA National are just some to get you started.

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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the FedEx St. Jude Championship   

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the FedEx St. Jude Championship  

Top Tier Pick # 1  

Collin Morikawa (Odds: 14/1, FPPG: 76.2, Salary: $10,000)

If you look at their most recent outings, both Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy have been losing strokes to the field putting. It may mean nothing, ultimately – they could rebound this week with a strong showing on the greens, or in Scheffler’s case simply win with negative putting numbers….as he did at the Olympic Games.

But Scheffler hasn’t recorded a top-10 at TPC Southwind in six trips, which makes us think – whisper it – that there’s a vacuum to be filled this week. Whether Collin Morikawa is the man to fill it remains to be seen, but he’s been playing exceptional golf for months now with a tee-to-green game that is as strong as just about anyone’s. He’s also gained strokes on the field putting in seven of his last nine outings, which is welcome ahead of a trip to a layout where Morikawa has finished 5-13 in his last two visits.

Key Stats:

• Scoring Average (adjusted) – 4th
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 8th
• Putts Per Round – 9th

Top Tier Pick #2

Patrick Cantlay (Odds: 25/1, FPPG: 75.0, Salary: $9,700)

Although he hasn’t had the best of years by his own standard, there’s signs that Patrick Cantlay is just finding his top gear ahead of the FedEx Cup – which he won, of course, back in 2021.

T3 at the U.S. Open was followed by T5 at the Travelers Championship, and even T25 at the British Open can be considered a positive given that Cantlay hasn’t always shown his best on the Links.

A noted putter on Bermuda greens, it’s Cantlay’s tee-to-green form that is most enticing – outstanding in his last three starts, and excellent on the whole since the spring, maybe this is Cantlay’s time to come in from the shadows and remind everyone of his winning pedigree.

Key Stats:

• Putts per Round – 15th
• Scrambling – 33rd
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 53rd

Mid-Tier Pick #1

Corey Conners (Odds: 35/1, FPPG: 76.0, Salary: $9,100)

Corey Conners cracked the code at TPC Southwind last year, finishing T6 after years of mediocre efforts here.

The Canadian returns to Memphis with his game in rude health. Since finishing solo sixth at his home Canadian Open, Conners has finished no lower than T27 in his subsequent six starts.

That includes three top-10s in the United States, Scotland, and France, which shows just how well his form is travelling. Returning to Bermuda greens – undoubtedly Conners’ best putting surface – he has every right to feel flush with confidence.

Key Stats:

• SG: Tee-to-Green – 7th
• Scoring Average (adjusted) – 11th
• Fairway Proximity – 28th

Mid-Tier Pick #2

Aaron Rai (Odds: 50/1, FPPG: 73.1, Salary: $8,200)

In this very slot 12 months ago, we drafted Lucas Glover – he would go on to win the St. Jude Championship a week after landing the Wyndham Championship. Whether lightning can strike twice remains to be seen, but it’s the improvement in Aaron Rai’s tee-to-green game – allied to his more reliable putting – that makes him a strong pick this week.

Assuming he has the motivation and hunger to kick on – and why wouldn’t he, with a TOUR Championship place on the line, Rai heads to Memphis full of confidence and playing well.

Right now, he’s doing so much right and so little wrong….his game is in better shape than many of the more illustrious names ahead of him in the FedEx Cup standings.

Key Stats:

• Scoring Average (adjusted) – 6th
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 7th
• Proximity to Hole – 31st

Low-Tier Pick

Sepp Straka (Odds: 70/1, FPPG: 58.3, Salary: $7,400)

Although his game is incredibly inconsistent, for 12 months or so Sepp Straka has transformed himself into one of those reliable fairway finders who is elite on approach – in much the same way as 2023 St Jude champion Lucas Glover.

The fact that the Austrian has also played well at Augusta, TPC Sawgrass, and PGA National, to name just three, confirms his love for classical tree-lined golf too. Straka will need to improve on the greens to contend this week, but the switch to Bermuda should serve him well – many of his best putting performances on the PGA TOUR have come on this surface.

Key Stats:

• Greens in Regulation – 45th
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 48th
• Scoring Average (adjusted) – 60th

Sleeper Pick for the FedEx St. Jude Championship

Eric Cole (Odds: 125/1, FPPG: 61.0, Salary: $6,700)

If Eric Cole was better at driving the golf ball, you suspect he would be a multiple-time winner on the PGA TOUR already.

As it is, that weakness is overcome with outstanding approach play, reliability around the greens, and a sure hand with the flatstick – in fact, if you look at the putting stats on the PGA TOUR over the past couple of months, Cole has been performing as well as anybody.

TPC Southwind hasn’t always been unfriendly to those that miss fairways, and with Cole starting to show the sort of form that won him Rookie of the Year honors last season – namely three top-10s in his last five starts, with the two anomalies coming on the UK Swing – he has to be followed in this week.

Key Stats:

• SG: Putting – 41st
• Approaches from 100+ yards – 54th
• Proximity to Hole – 70th

Alternative Sleeper Pick for the FedEx St. Jude Championship

Matthieu Pavon (Odds: 250/1, FPPG: 63.9, Salary: $6,700)

One of the PGA TOUR’s great curiosities of 2024 has to be the ascendance of Matthieu Pavon.

The Frenchman seems to enjoy having time off as much as he does playing golf – going periods of weeks without teeing it up at times this season. But when he does play, there can be little doubting Pavon’s emerging pedigree. A winner at the Farmers Insurance Open in January, he’s also finished solo fifth at the U.S. Open and T12 at The Masters.

Something about the big occasion seems to stir Pavon; hopefully the FedEx Cup playoffs can do similar this week.

Key Stats:

• SG: Approach – 39th
• Total Driving – 54th
• SG: Putting – 60th

This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup

Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only.  Be sure to mix-and-match to best fit individual contests.

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Fantasy Golf Predictions – This Season 

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