Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – the Memorial Tournament 2015

The Sleeper Report: Fantasy Golf Sleepers, Long Shots, and Undervalued Picks for the Memorial Tournament 2015 from Muirfield Village

Event Preview

The PGA TOUR members continue to recover from a wet weekend at the Byron Nelson as they now set their sights on the Memorial Tournament in Jack Nicklaus’ hometown this weekend.  The field will head to Muirfield Golf Club for the event which was first established by “The Golden Bear” in 1976 with large hopes of bringing professional golf at a high level to his beloved town.  Needless to say, Jack was quite successful in his mission as the venue has hosted such prominent events as the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup in the past and typically has one of the strongest non-major fields of the year.

The field this week will be just as strong as usual with six of the top-10 players and another nine from the top-25 of the Official World Golf Rankings making an appearance.  They are lead by phenom 21-year-old and world No. 2 Jordan Spieth with last year’s winner, No. 14 Hideki Matsuyama, looking to become the seventh player in the tourneys history to win multiple times.

Leading the group of multiple-time winners at “Jack’s Place” is unsurprisingly Tiger Woods who has taken home the trophy here five times in the past with the most recent coming in 2012.

Matsuyama was exceptional last year with his score of 13-under-par and was able to narrowly fend off Kevin Na’s Sunday 64 with a playoff victory on the first extra hole.  He had some stiff competition that week as the next three players on the leaderboard were Bubba Watson, Chris Kirk and Adam Scott—all current top-17 golfers according to the OWGR.  It was just the second time in the past seven installments of this event that a foreign-born player had won as Woods, Stricker, Kuchar, and Kenny Perry were responsible for taking the other five tournament wins.

Despite the rough weather heading into last week’s Byron Nelson Championship, many players were able to put up some big numbers and underdog Stephen Bowditch (250/1) dominated the field with a score of 18-under-par, holding off his next closest competitors, Jimmy Walker, Charley Hoffman and Scott Pinckney, by four strokes.  Pinckney (200/1) and Jon Curran (200/1) along with Bowditch are reminders of how well underdogs can perform on a week-to-week basis as they were all in the top-10 come Sunday afternoon.

So let’s look at the field 120-man field at the Memorial and see if we can find some of those “sleeper” players that will outperform their odds this week.

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The 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.

• Pat Perez – 80/1: Perez continues to impress this season and is currently on a tear with a top-26 finish in each of his last six outings as he comes off of a fifth-place at the Crowne Plaza Invitational behind four straight rounds of 69 or better—finishing with a six-under 64 on Sunday.  He’s made 14-of-17 cuts on the year and can thank plenty of that on his 66.9% driving accuracy (33rd on tour) while also ranking in the top-50 in strokes gained putting (.328, 44th on tour) and birdie average (4.03, 19th on tour).  Perez is closing in on $17 million in career earnings and has made the cut here in each of the last five years with four of them being in the top-30 (includes an eighth place finish in 2013).  Perez has just one win in his 356 career events, but has made a living at making it to the weekend and should be able to compete come Sunday this week.
• Tony Finau – 80/1: Finau has been one of the better rookies on tour this year as he currently ranks 55th in the FedExCup Standings and despite making just 13-of-20 cuts, has been in the top-25 and impressive nine times.  He’s been amongs the top-20 at each of his last three outings and has shot under par in 11 of the 12 rounds played over that time.  He crushed the ball for an average of 304.7 yards per during his tie for 10th at the Byron Nelson Classic last week and putt the ball an average of 1.376 strokes better than the field.  Overall, the 6’4”, 25-year-old golfer ranks second on tour in distance off the tee (307.3 yards per) as he boasts the fastest club head speed (124.04 MPH) amongs his peers.  Finau has been able to creep up leaderboards lately and has a breakout performance coming soon.
• Charles Howell III – 125/1: Howell III has not been having the best season, but the two-time PGA TOUR winner has been in the top-35 of the FedExCup Standings in each of the previous two years and has still been solid this season with 15 cuts made in 20 events.  The former Oklahoma State University standout has sprinkled in three top-10s in 2015 and has made the cut at the Memorial in each of his last three attempts—ranking in the top-25 twice.  His stats this year show a player that could have a huge performance on any given week as he ranks 26th in driving distance (296.9 yards per), 19th in GIR (69.4%), and 28th in strokes gained from tee-to-green (0.699).  Howell should regain some of his past success here and come out with a solid showing in Ohio.
• Scott Brown – 125/1: Brown has shown flashes of being a great PGA TOUR player this year, and while his two top-10s were in tournaments that had weak fields, he has been able to get to the weekend at each of the last eight tournaments played.  His best showing during that stretch was a 13th at the Wells Fargo Championship and he’s seen his FedExCup ranking improve in each of the last eight weeks.  He will look to improve on an impressive performance last year at this event when he tied for 13th with a score of seven-under-par after hitting 71.4% of fairways and 63.9% of GIR.  Brown knows how to close out a tournament—which he did with a win at the 2013 Puerto Rico Open—and while being a long shot, he should be able to do better than his odds when all is said and done.
• Scott Stallings – 175/1: Stallings has had no issues navigating this course in the past as he’s made the cut in each of the last four years with three top-25 finishes; including a tie for fourth in 2013 when his 67 on Sunday helped him jump up the leaderboard.  Despite never finishing within the top-50 of the FedExCup Standings in his previous four full seasons, Stallings has earned a win in three of those four years and nearly had another one earlier in 2015 when he placed second at the Farmer’s Insurance Open.  The 30-year-old has performed well here over the past few seasons and is poised to do so once again.

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

Cover photo by @golfavenue on Instagram