Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – The Memorial Tournament 2016

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the Memorial Tournament Presented by Nationwide

The Memorial Tournament 2016 Fantasy Sleeper Preview

The big names will be out in force this week as the players return once again to support Jack Nicklaus at his tournament in Dublin, Ohio.  The Memorial Tournament was first set up back in 1976 by the Hall of Famer, and has been a mainstay on the PGA TOUR ever since.  Muirfield Village Golf Club features 7,366 yards of par-72 golf which were designed by the founder of the event and has been host to many different tournaments since first being built in the mid-1970s.

The field of 120 this week will feature a near major-like list of golfers as each of the top five players in the world (Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson, and Rickie Fowler) along with No. 8 Dustin Johnson will be in attendance from the top-10 of the Official World Golf Rankings.

Each of the top-three players from the OWGR are playing at a torrid pace right now with Day being the only golfer to own three trophies this season, Spieth getting the monkey off his back with a victory in Fort Worth last week, and McIlroy attempting to build off of a win at the Irish Open just a few weeks ago.  Another eight players (Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama, Matt Kuchar, Phil Mickelson, J. B. Holmes, Charl Schwartzel, Kevin Kisner, and Russell Knox) will be joining the field from the top-25 while looking to unseat last year’s victor; David Lingmerth.

The Swedish-born Lingmerth was able to grab his first career PGA TOUR victory on the heels of a 15-under score which put him in a playoff with Justin Rose last year.  After a hard fought extra three holes, Lingmerth prevailed and became the sixth international player in the past 12 years to take home the hardware at Jack’s place.  His score was the lowest since 2011 and his playoff came as no surprise with the winner here having a margin of victory of two strokes or fewer in all but one installment since 2004.

One name that will not be seen on the entrants list is Tiger Woods who holds the record here with five career victories (1999, 2000, 2001, 2009, and 2012) as he continues to rehab from his recent injuries.  Woods leads a list of five golfers who have won here multiples times, but is the only one to do so in back-to-back attempts.

Unlike many of the early season events, this week will provide a difficult task for the golfers with higher odds as they face an incredible group of players at the top of the golf food chain.  Still, you should expect a handful of sleepers to make their way towards the top of the leaderboard just as Kyle Reifers, Martin Piller, Chad Campbell, and Bryce Molder did last week with top-10 finishes.  Below are a few men who we believe could do just that this week in Ohio.

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The Memorial Tournament Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The Memorial Tournament Fantasy Sleeper Report

Mix and match these players with your usual rosters (or play them separately) to get the most out of your picks this week.

Russell Knox – Vegas Odds 66/1: Knox has continued to play some great golf since moving into the top-25 of the OWGR this season and will be looking for his second career PGA TOUR victory after getting his first at the WGC-HSBC Champions last November.  The 30-year-old from Scotland is coming off of a missed cut at the flagship European TOUR event last week, the BMW PGA Championship, but had rattled off three consecutive top-20s previous to that; including runner-ups at the Irish Open and the RBC Heritage.  He had another runner-up at the OHL Classic earlier in the year and overall is ranked fifth in the FedExCup standings.  Knox has been the most accurate player on TOUR this season, ranking first in GIR (72%) and currently sits at eighth in driving accuracy (69.93%).  With the ability to get on greens quick, Knox has already made nearly three million in earnings this year and will look to continue that trend this week.

Chris Kirk – Vegas Odds 75/1: Kirk has finished in the top-50 of the FedExCup standings in each of the past five seasons, including coming in as the overall runner-up in 2014, but currently sits at 60th for the 2016 campaign.  His efforts have still been solid; making 12-of-16 cuts (75%), but he has yet to have a breakout week with his best finish being a tie for fifth at both the WGC Match Play Championship and the Zurich Classic.  Other than a withdrawal at the PLAYERS Championship, Kirk has been in the top-23 at his last four tournaments played and looks poised to have that needed breakout here.  He tallied a fourth here back in 2014 to go along with two other made cuts in the past four seasons and should have no issues keeping his score in check thanks to being one of the best players around the greens.  To this point in 2016, Kirk ranks 11th in sand save percentage (59.18%) and 19th in scrambling (64.06%) and should get more solid results over this week in Ohio.

Jim Furyk – Vegas Odds 100/1: Furyk is going to continue to have high odds until he can prove he is back to full health with a solid stretch of golf.  Jumping on the boat early with these huge odds could prove a smart choice though, as the 17-time PGA TOUR winner remains one of the more talented players on the course each week.  Friday at the DEAN & DELUCA Invitational was promising as he shot his first sub-70 round since returning at the beginning of May.  Although he didn’t make the cut, he did hit 75% of GIR and 78.57% of fairways and just needs his putter to come around.  Muirfield Village will be the perfect venue for the veteran to turn things up a notch as he has made it to the weekend in five of the past six years while doing no worse than 21st.  His game may never again be at the level it once was, but he is going to get better and with these odds you can’t go wrong.

Tony Finau – Vegas Odds 100/1: Finau seems like one of those players who will win multiple events in his career thanks to a monster drive (311.4 yards per, best on TOUR) which led to his first PGA win earlier this season at the Puerto Rico Open.  He has another four top-25s on the year and is coming back to the Memorial Tournament where he carded a score of 11-under last year; good enough to earn him a tie for eighth place.  His solid outing came thanks to nailing 72.22% of GIR and 69.64% of fairways as he scored nine shots under par on the par fives.  He’s continued to do well on the long holes this year, ranking 17th on par-five scoring average (4.57) while getting a birdie or better 52.04% of the time (10th on TOUR).  Once Finau can start building off of his long driver better, he will be a force to be reckoned with, and this week should prove a good one for the 26-year-old.

Thorbjorn Olesen – Vegas Odds 150/1: Olesen is a 26-year-old from Denmark who has been able to move up to 67th in the OWGR thanks to three career European TOUR victories.  While he does not have a ton of experience on the PGA TOUR, making a mere three starts between 2015 and 2016, he has had some impressive performances on the big stage with top-10s at both the Open Championship (2012) and The Masters (2013).  He’s had some great showings overseas this year, and before his 82nd last week, he had four straight outings in the top-20 while ranking 288th in the Race to Dubai.  Getting on the green in regulation is a specialty of his as he currently ranks eighth in the category on the European TOUR while getting a chance for birdie or better 72.4% of the time.  Olesen may not have much of track record in the U.S., but he seems much better than his odds would suggest this week against the tough field at the Memorial.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions?  Check out our full fantasy preview for The Memorial Tournament here.

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