PGA Picks: WGC-FedEx St. Jude’s Invitational Odds and Expert Betting Predictions
The next two weeks will be the best of a limited season on the PGA Tour, as we start this week with the St. Jude’s Invitational in Memphis. This is a World Golf Championship event that has drawn 45 of the Top 50 players, making this a loaded field. With a purse of $10,500,000, that will attract a lot of attention. Also, this is further preparation for the first major of the year, the PGA Championship, next week.
This no-cut invitational is being held at TPC Southwind this week, which will play over 7,200 yards with a par of 70 that features Bermuda greens. By modern standards, this is not an overly long course, still, this is more of a real test of golf.
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This course has enough water that the players could bring fishing poles and several longer par 4’s with doglegs, which places more of a premium on driving accuracy. Here is a fun fact: for any PGA course that has been in the rotation since 2003, TPC Southwind has seen 30 percent more golf splash than the next closest, which is Sawgrass.
With a half dozen of the par 4’s over 450 yards, the tee shot has to be in the right place out of the tee box and approach shots have to hit greens. Failure to do one or both will keep any player off the leaderboard.
This venue places a premium on shot-making, and the four winners are Brooks Koepka, Daniel Berger (twice) and Dustin Johnson, all of whom fit that description.
Stacked Field Makes for Harder Choices
With some much talent in the field, the golf odds are packed like grandstands at the Phoenix Open. Here is the Top 12 along with ties.
Jon Rahm +1000 - Rory McIlroy +1100 - Bryson DeChambeau +1200 - Justin Thomas +1200
Patrick Cantlay +1600 - Webb Simpson +2000 - Xander Schauffele +2000 - Collin Morikawa +2500
Viktor Hovland +2500 - Brooks Koepka +2800 - Daniel Berger +2800 - Dustin Johnson +2800
Hideki Matsuyama +2800 - Tyrrell Hatton +2800
That is a who’s who in golf at the present time, sans Tiger Woods.
Rahm makes his debut as the No. 1 player in the world after a domineering win at The Memorial two weeks ago. This sets the stage for him to continue to play well now that he’s got his driver distance squared away, and nobody would be shocked if Rahm went back to back. The Spaniard finished T7th here in 2019 and will have to deal with McIlroy, who was 4th in Memphis a year ago. McIlroy is first in scoring average this year, but since the break he’s finished T32nd or worse in three of his last four starts.
Thomas, Cantlay, Simpson and Schauffele have all been in good recent form, and there is no reason to think that cannot continue this week.
Koepka and Johnson are real question marks with injuries, and nothing at the moment leads one to believe they will be at their best for four days.
Golf Picks: Who to Look for in Memphis
In looking at a winner of golf picks, with a little Memphis barbeque sauce on the side, Rahm, Thomas and Simpson all are very capable ball-strikers, and when playing well they often avoid much trouble.
If Schauffele (+200) can turn it up a notch on the weekend, he could end a stretch of three straight Top 20’s and make a move as a better value into the Top 10. Ranking 8th in scoring and 3rd in greens in regulation places Xander into position to step forward.
If a mid-price wager is of interest, Matthew Wolff for Top 10 and Top 20 is worthy of consideration at +550 and $240, respectively. Wolff is off a T12 in Minnesota, T22 at The Memorial and second at Rocket Mortgage. Plus, Tony Finua might not be able to win, but he's a great Top 20 choice (+125) or head to head candidate the first three days.
It makes sense to run and hide from Bubba Watson, Sunjae Im and Rickie Fowler, all were being more highly thought of just a few weeks ago.
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Doug Upstone of Doc’s Sports has 21 documented No. 1 titles and finished in the Top Ten 80+ other times in a distinguished career. Doug as a professional handicapper/writer has written for various well-known sports betting websites and several of the football newsletters you have read before.
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