This week, the PGA Tour is headed to Muirfield Village to play the only PGA tournament this season scheduled to take place in Ohio. You could remember this course from last year, when golfers played consecutive tournaments here in the early part of the pandemic. It was the first time two consecutive events were at the same courts since 1957. Or you could possibly remember the course from the coverage of the front nine getting ripped up while golfers in the event were still playing on the back half. We’ve never seen that before, but it is safe to say considerable changes were made to the Jack Nicklaus-designed course.
The new course still keeps the signature trait of the original design: every hole gets harder on later strokes and even the course itself gradually increases in difficulty as you progress through the round. The hardest three holes to play are each of the last. The course also punishes golfers with slick greens and severely overgrown rough. The weather for this weekend is expected to be wet, with rain expected on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. We will be closely monitoring these plays and targeting golfers with advantageous tee times. Otherwise, we expect moderate temperatures and no wind.
We will target metrics including strokes gained off the tee, strokes gained on approach, strokes gained around the green, ball striking, scrambling, par 3 efficiency and par 5 efficiency. In this post, we want to look at these metrics and highlight some of our favorite golfers in the competition:
Viktor Hovland ($9,900-DK; +1400 to win)
You’ll notice we are staying away from the $10k golfers this weekend. You’ll see why when you look at the bottom half of this week’s player pool. Instead, we will look to a few golfers in the $9k-range who stand out in our projections, like Hovland who finished third in one of the events here last year and ranks top 10 in almost every relevant metric.
Hideki Matsuyama ($9,400-DK; +2500 to win)
This year’s Masters winner, Matustuyama, also stands out in our models, ranking in the top 20 in most relevant metrics. He also has not missed a cut since his Masters win, which is the kind of safety you look for in cash lineups.
Corey Conners ($9,300-DK; +2500 to win)
Speaking of cash lineups, it is hard to find a more consistent golfer than Connors, who has been in our cash lineups for weeks. Connors is rarely a golfer we like to win outright, and we would not take that number here, but he excels at ball striking and also ranks among the top golfers in our relevant metrics.
Charley Hoffman ($8,300-DK; +4500 to win)
Hoffman enters the Memorial in excellent form. We wrote last week how he could be the hottest golfer in the field. Hoffman has now made ten consecutive cuts and fourteen of his last fifteen overall. Hoffman also has five consecutive top-25 finishes, including a top three finish last week.
Cameron Tringale ($7,600-DK; +8000 to win)
Tringale excels around the greens and at scrambling, two of our key metrics this week. He has also shown some solid form with four top-15 finishes in his last ten events.
Kevin Streelman ($7,300-DK; +5000 to win)
Streelman enters this weekend in excellent form and stands out in our metrics in driving accuracy. Streelman has also made his last seven cuts at Muirfield Village.
Kyle Stanley ($6,100-DK; +12500 to win)
Digging for value, there are not many great options down here in this smaller field of golfers, but Stanley stands out to us. He finished eight last week in the Charles Schwab Challenge.
*This preview does not represent our final picks for this event. For our full set of picks, check out our Game Picks section!
**Odds accurate at time of posting.