Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, & Predictions – The Memorial Tournament Presented by Nationwide

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for The Memorial Tournament Presented by Nationwide

The Memorial Tournament 2017 Fantasy Preview

With the likes of Jon Rahm and defending champion Jordan Spieth in hot pursuit, you could have forgiven Kevin Kisner for folding at the Dean & Deluca Invitational last time out.

The overnight leader was on the hunt for only his second PGA TOUR title, and as we have seen so many times over the years that in itself can build pressure that is hard to keep at bay.

But Kisner showed excellent poise to fire a final round of 66 and clinch the trophy by one stroke over Rahm, Spieth, and local boy Sean O’Hair.

 
It was a big moment for the 33-year-old, who has finished second a whopping six times in his career. That sort of record must weigh on your mind in the heat of the battle, but Kisner kept any nerves at bay to hold strong and take down the title.

This week the Tour heads to Dublin….nope, not on an sojourn to the Emerald Isle but to Dublin, Ohio, which is the birthplace of Jack Nicklaus. He designed this week’s host course, Muirfield Village, the ongoing venue for the Memorial Tournament.

William McGirt ended a long wait for a first PGA TOUR title here 12 months ago; will another maiden strike, or will one of the more decorated pros lift the trophy?

Last Week’s Fantasy Results from the Dean & Deluca Invitational

Our shining star last week came from the Tuesday Sleeper Report as the 100/1 ($7,500) Sean O’Hair turned out to be a solid pick with his T2 finish. O’Hair was in contention most of the week and dialed it up on the final day which earned him 94 fantasy points for the fantasy owners that picked him.

 
Unfortunately for the main picks, our top pick Sergio, although he had a decent week, just couldn’t get anything going over the weekend and fell short of the popular pick of Spieth with a T12 finish and 64.5 fantasy points.

We also ran with Danny Lee as our Low-Tier Pick and he ended up T6 with 85 fantasy points against a super low price tag of $6,900.

With a few missed cuts, it looks like our best winning combo was Sergio-Lee-O’Hair, but even that wasn’t enough to win the big ticket.

The Memorial Tournament 2017 Field

The great and good of the golf world will do battle for the top prize this week, with two of last week’s main protagonists, Spieth and Rahm, joined by the likes of Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, and Jason Day.

There’s plenty of talent on the ‘next rung’ too, with Justin Rose, Adam Scott, Justin Thomas, and Rickie Fowler all hoping to add more silverware to their already stuffed trophy cabinets.

 
McGirt will defend, and he will be joined by fellow former Memorial winners Matt Kuchar, David Lingmerth, and KJ Choi.

This Week’s Course Preview

For the third week running, the emphasis will be on accuracy over power as the players take on Jack Nicklaus’ pride and joy, the Muirfield Village Golf Club.

Water is in play on eleven holes, and penal rough and deep bunkers add to the challenge. It is a tameable test, as McGirt’s winning mark of -15 testifies, but it is a test nonetheless.

At 7,392 yards for its Par 72 we might call Muirfield an inclusive track, in that anybody can win here. The rollcall of former winners includes Kuchar, Lingmerth, and Steve Stricker; none of whom is the longest off the tee.

 
The greens are smaller than average and feature Bentgrass greens, and as we will note later in this preview putting was an area in which he really excelled.

Nicklaus is forever tweaking the course, and his latest renovations for 2017 include a new tee box on the eighteenth – extending the Par 4 to 484 yards. The 16th and 17th will now be guarded by a pond located front and left of the green and a new set of fairway bunkers respectively.

Weather Forecast for Dublin, Ohio

It could well be the case that the Memorial Tournament this year will be a game of two halves, that’s if the early weather forecast is to believed.

Heavy thunderstorms are predicted on Wednesday, and so while Thursday is set fair the course will be nice and soft. Accurate iron play will be essential early on in proceedings.

On Friday and Saturday the rain comes again in stormy fashion, with high temperatures, humidity and stiff breezes of up to 15 mph.

Unfortunately, the spectre of a 54-hole tournament is real, but as we know early weather forecasts can be spectacularly wrong!

Last Year’s Results from The Memorial Tournament Presented by Nationwide

A playoff always ensures a nervy conclusion to any event, and particularly so when you can hardly describe the players involved as prolific winners.

William McGirt and Jon Curran must have been beset by nerves as they embarked on their extra holes after tying at the top of the leaderboard with -15. Both had remained calm under pressure with ten players within two strokes of the lead heading into Sunday, but most – notably Matt Kuchar and Gary Woodland – faded with the spotlight on.

Both played the first extra hole at par before Curran bogeyed the second. McGirt missed his green in regulation but chipped it to six foot to knock in his par putt and clinch the first title of his career.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb_6w8BoBC4[/embedyt]

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for The Memorial Tournament this Week

DraftKings may have added their new weekend product, but the good news is that they haven’t lost any focus on their main offering.

They’ve come up with the goods once again with a diverse slate for the Memorial, and here’s just a couple of contests to enjoy.

• PGA $450k Up and Down: This was offered last week at the D&D but this time around the bounty is $50k richer! The winner’s share is a hefty $50k as well.
• PGA $200k Mulligan: The best budget option this week is this 20 entry max contest, which pays a minimum of $1000 for a top ten finish for just a $4 entry fee.

Also be sure to check in with FanDuel’s offering of DFS contests this week.  After a brief haitus for last week’s Dean & Deluca FanDuel is back in action with a new format.  The new structure is similar to DraftKings in that you can select one roster for all four rounds (no longer broken up into rounds 1&2 and 3&4) with a $60,000 tournament salary cap.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes for The Memorial Tournament

It’s not the most exciting of statements, but McGirt’s title winning run was based on doing everything quite well and minimizing his mistakes.

The stroke gained stats confirm that. He earned +1.812 strokes on the field from tee-to-green – a relatively low figure – and +1.163 on approach. The rest were all under 1.00!

McGirt ranked just 50th for Driving Distance and T39 for Driving Accuracy, which tells its own tale, and so really we’re looking at players who can convert in the second half of holes. That means Greens in Regulation (McGirt ranked T17 for GIR) and Scrambling (McGirt = 6th), and so this has to be the focus with these smaller-than-average greens. Those are of Bentgrass design too.

Remarkably, the last three winners of the Memorial Tournament were all picking up the first trophy of their PGA TOUR careers, while six of the last twelve champions here were ‘foreign’: Ernie Els (2004), Carl Pettersson (2006), KJ Choi (2007), Justin Rose (2010), Hideki Matsuyama (2014), and David Lingmerth (2015).

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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win The Memorial Tournament

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win The Memorial Tournament

Please Note: Due to the limited events played in 2017, some players have not yet accrued enough stats to qualify for an accurate GPFP.

Top Tier Pick: 

Jordan Spieth (Odds: 12/1, FPPG: 81.3, GPFP: 87.75 Salary: $11,000)

It’s just a hunch, but there was a sense at Colonial that Spieth was nearing his best form.

He ranked first for Putting Average – always a decent indicator of how well he is playing, and his four rounds 70-68-68-65 show a genuine upturn in progress.

Spieth finished T57 here 12 months ago but that came in the wake of his Masters meltdown and subsequent triumph at Byron Nelson. In 2014 he was T3 here, and that’s presumably a more accurate indication of his liking for this track.

The 23-year-old’s tee-to-green game has been excellent this season, and with his putting coming back to the boil it’s a heady recipe for success.

Key Stats:

• SG: Approach-the-Green – 2nd
• SG: Total – 6th
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 12th

Mid-Tier Pick #1:

Matt Kuchar (Odds: 30/1, FPPG: 66.0, GPFP: 52.80 Salary: $9,400)

He’ll be a popular pick this week, but it’s hard to look past ‘Mr Muirfield’ himself, Matt Kuchar.

In an incredible run, Kooch’s worst performance at Muirfield in nine attempts is T26, with six top-10s in that time including victory back in 2014.

He’s playing some great golf right now too, dating back to his T4 at The Masters. Since then he’s racked a trio of top-20s in five starts, including T9 at Byron Nelson and T12 at the Dean & Deluca Invitational.

Key Stats:

• Scoring Average – 26th
• SG: Around-the-Green – 32nd
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 32nd

Mid-Tier Pick #2:

Stewart Cink (Odds: 140/1, FPPG: 60.9, GPFP: 72.45 Salary: $7,000)

Stewart Cink’s brand of no-risks golf is hardly the sexiest round, but it does mean good results tend to follow on tracks where fine margins count.

T10 at Colonial last time out is testament to that, and looking back at his record here DFS gamers should be getting excited about this perennially good value pick.

Cink has played Muirfield Village 12 time and never missed a cut; there has been five top-25s to celebrate in that time.

Key Stats:

• SG: Approach-the-Green – 12th
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 27th
• Bogey Avoidance – 29th

Mid-Tier Pick #3:

Charl Schwartzel (Odds: 70/1, FPPG: 58.3, GPFP: 46.62 Salary: $6,800)

Muirfield Village was the site of the 2013 Presidents Cup, where the US triumphed by three points over the International team.

One of the players who stood out on the International team was Charl Schwartzel, who won his singles rubber against Keegan Bradley and teamed up with Louis Oosthuizen to see off Bradley and Phil Mickelson in the fourballs.

His record at the Memorial is impressive – 11-MC-8-8-19 – and so we can see that Muirfield is a course that suits.

The South African had to withdraw from the Byron Nelson after being struck by his playing partner’s ball in the Pro-Am, but he has since confirmed his health is good ahead of this trip.

Key Stats:

• SG: Putting – 34th
• SG: Approach-the-Green – 58th
• Scrambling – 69th

Low-Tier Pick:

Brendan Steele (Odds: 70/1, FPPG: 74.9, GPFP: 92.07 Salary: $6,700)

The Safeway Open winner ticks many boxes this week, not least his outstanding scrambling game.

That enables him to recover tricky situations – no wonder he ranks second on tour for Bogey Avoidance, and enables him to play well at tougher tracks: T6 at THE PLAYERS Championship last time out testament to that.

Steele should go under the radar this week given his indifferent record at Muirfield Village – 20-63-MC-MC-62-51 – but lest we forget he is playing some of the best golf of his career right now.

Key Stats:

• Bogey Avoidance – 2nd
• SG: Tee-to-Green – 13th
• SG: Approach-the-Green – 18th

Sleeper Pick for The Memorial Tournament

Kevin Streelman (Odds: 160/1, FPPG: 47.5, GPFP: 38.08 Salary: $7,700)

A player with a number of converging trends heading into the Memorial is Kevin Streelman.

The Illinois man has endured an inconsistent campaign to date but delivered a handy T18 at Colonial last week, ranking inside the top 20 for Putting Average on the Bentgrass there, and with three top-20s at Muirfield Village in his last six trips there’s enough evidence to suggest Streelman is a solid bet this week.

He’s a two-time PGA TOUR winner as well, which often comes in handy should he get into contention on Sunday.

Key Stats:

• SG: Tee-to-Green: 63rd
• SG: Approach-the-Green: 72nd
• Greens in Regulation: 75th

Alternative Sleeper Pick for The Memorial Tournament

David Hearn (Odds: 180/1, FPPG: 45.5, GPFP: 36.40 Salary: $6,200)

The Canadian has gone four-for-five at Memorial and six-for-eight in his last few starts, and while he is cashing too highly at the moment he is still a consistent sort who warrants consideration.

Hearn finished a lowly T70 at Colonial last time out but in that performance was some excellent putting (T10 for Putting Average), and as a decent scrambler he will be able to make some gains on the field on approach.

As mentioned, the Memorial has a habit of delivering first-time winners, and while there are a few contenders ahead of Hearn on that front in a month of surprises on the PGA TOUR he is certainly worth a second look.

Key Stats:

• Driving Accuracy – 36th
• Scrambling – 55th
• SG: Around-the-Green – 81st

This Week’s Sample DraftKings Lineups

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

Sample Lineup I

Sample Lineup II

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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2016-2017)

[skill_bar heading=”Total Top 3s” percent=”7.69%” bar_text=”14 out of 182 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 10s” percent=”20.33%” bar_text=”37 out of 182 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 25s” percent=”38.46%” bar_text=”70 out of 182 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Winners Picked” percent=”19.23%” bar_text=”5 out of 26 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Runners-Up Picked” percent=”7.69%” bar_text=”2 out of 26 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)” percent=”74.72″ bar_text=”136 out of 182 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″]

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Cover Photo via Instagram