The Memorial Tournament preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: The Memorial Tournament

2pts e.w. Tommy Fleetwood at 30/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5pts e.w. Max Homa at 45/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)

1.5pts e.w. Sam Burns at 50/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)

1pt e.w. Rickie Fowler at 125/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)

1pt e.w. Austin Eckroat at 150/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

The Memorial Tournament is the seventh of what I believe to be eight Signature Events in the latest iteration of the PGA Tour. I say that because Wikipedia classifies The PLAYERS Championship as a ‘flagship event’ and presumably, despite the absence of capital letters, that’s an important distinction. We are exactly three-quarters of the way to getting the signatures signed.

Of course, there are some more important signatures decidedly lacking as the PGA Tour’s various governing bodies continue to work things out in the boardroom. It emerged over the weekend that big things are coming in 2026, which called to mind Fat Sam telling Fizzy to ‘come back tomorrow’ on the promise of nothing, when what we really need are the sort of calm assurances offered by Jim Morrison in Wayne’s World 2.

On the course, it’s Scottie’s world and Scheffler is the price he is for this week’s event. He didn’t play especially well at Colonial last time and therefore finished second rather than first, and there is one fearsome statistic to contemplate as he attempts to put that right: for all the tournaments he’s won now, by some distance the best tee-to-green display of his career to date came here at Muirfield Village a year ago.

Now, Scheffler did not win – Viktor Hovland did, somewhat fortuitously after Denny McCarthy bogeyed the last and then lost the ensuing play-off – and that’s because this tournament marked the nadir of his putting woes. He was eight shots worse than the average putter that week and an eye-watering 20 (yes, t-w-e-n-t-y) worse than McCarthy, who was a single stroke ahead of him when all was said and done.

Take that whichever way you would like to, either as evidence that he’ll win doing handstands now he can putt again, that he won’t because these lightning-fast greens scared the life out of him, or that it doesn’t help in any way to determine whether he’s a bet at 7/2. I err towards the later, but with the solemnity of the Weird Naked Indian will quietly pass over the favourite.

The challenge here at Jack’s Place is a rounded one because this classical par 72 can’t necessarily be overpowered and all four par-fives are within everyone’s reach. Ultimately, we’ve had all kinds of contenders here, before and after the latest and most significant set of changes, and a collection of champions who do most things quite well. Thick rough and small, fast, often firm greens demand a level of accuracy and hopefully early-week rain doesn’t alter that too much.

While the limited field limits the prospect of a Lingmerth/McGirt-style skinner, that pair having been genuine outsiders with little on paper to recommend them, relatively speaking the list of potential winners is probably quite long.

It really is a shame that the PGA Tour hasn’t yet realised that you can have events with the money to guarantee the attendance of the best players without getting rid of the rest of them, who collectively are able to throw up subplots to give us all something to ponder before Scheffler inevitably wins.

Anyway, I’ll kick off with what would classify as a main storyline were TOMMY FLEETWOOD to secure his first PGA Tour title.

Sunday’s final-round performance in Canada will have some writing him off again but anyone can succumb to a nightmare opening hole and now that the dust has settled, we can see that he produced his best strokes-gained approach figures since winning the Dubai Invitational.

That of course came at Rory McIlroy’s expense and Fleetwood must surely look to Bob MacIntyre, who was famously denied by McIlroy in Scotland last year, for inspiration. Similarities extend to their likeability and the fact that Fleetwood is also having to experiment on the caddie front while Ian Finnis recovers from surgery.

All that aside, this demanding test should be right up his street and he even hinted as much in 2015 and 2017, his only two previous visits. The first was his PGA Tour debut, ensuring a debt of gratitude he’ll no doubt be keen to repay, and his ball-striking was excellent when he returned to Ohio, only to suffer a putting performance not unalike that of Scheffler’s a year ago.

That was before Fleetwood graduated to elite level and just as he cracked Augusta’s similarly dramatic and speedy greens in the spring, his putting can pass this test at a course which should otherwise play to his strengths.

Fleetwood came close to winning out here in the Honda Classic, played at the Nicklaus-designed PGA National, and it was at another Nicklaus design that he first won on the European Tour.

More relevantly, perhaps, he has a really strong record at Bay Hill, a classically similar course where Hovland, Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau all have won or nearly won, and I really like Quail Hollow as a form guide and he’s been inside the top 15 there three years running.

Whereas there are some doubts around the players immediately ahead of him in the betting, Fleetwood looks rock-solid and can shake the monkey off his back.

We’ll see whether Hovland can follow up his PGA Championship performance but I’d rather take that chance with him at a slightly bigger price than I would Collin Morikawa at 14/1. The latter is also a former course winner via the one-time Workday-sponsored event held here in 2020, but for all his abundant promise and right-in-your-face profile for this, he feels a little on the short side.

Xander Schauffele probably won’t suffer the post-major slump that lesser golfers sometimes do but nor is he likely to become a frequent champion in my eyes, while I’d call McIlroy’s record here underwhelming. Given his capabilities, a dated best of fourth suggests it’s not necessarily his dream course for all it looks like it should be, although I should mention he did share the lead through 54 holes last year.

Preference is for MAX HOMA, who I’ve put up a couple of times without reward lately but have to stick with at 40/1.

Just two starts ago Homa was an extremely popular 25/1 shot for the PGA Championship and even allowing for the pinched prices owing to enhanced place terms, that was clearly a much deeper field featuring many more PGA Tour players capable of contending, plus the pick of LIV Golf among whom Bryson DeChambeau was the standout.

It was also at a venue where we had to take on trust Homa’s suitability and if anything, lower-scoring conditions and a point-and-shoot test probably didn’t in the end. Homa himself spoke in a subtly disparaging way about Valhalla and finishing mid-pack was neither what we wanted, nor anything to worry about in the long run.

The reason he’s shifted out in price is probably a subsequent missed cut at Colonial, but that remodelled course, complete with new, firm greens, caused plenty of problems. Robert MacIntyre and Ben Griffin have responded from early exits by duelling it out for the Canadian Open and Homa’s second-round 69, which was bogey-free, was more than enough to suggest we can overlook an opening 78.

Here at Muirfield Village, he’s right at home. Sixth and fifth since the greens were dug up and replaced in the summer of 2020, Homa has really got to grips with it and there are parallels with Augusta in how he took time to figure that place out before contending in the spring. The test here is in many ways different, but elevation changes, greens that are fast and hard to hit and high demands on a good short-game mean that in other ways, it is comparable.

Homa gained strokes in every department here last year and his wins at Quail Hollow, TPC Potomac, Riviera and Torrey Pines, plus Sun City in South Africa, all support the idea that a long, demanding, championship course suits. The only question mark is his overall form but he was eighth in the last Signature Event, played at a course he loves, and can produce something similar if not a little better at a considerably bigger price.

There are a few who appeal at around the 50/1 mark and had Matt Fitzpatrick shown just a little more of late, he’d have made the staking plan. The 2022 US Open winner has two top-10s around a course he’s spoken fondly about and that’s despite always being outside the top 70 after round one, testament to his patience and the skills that earned him a major championship.

He did strike the ball well at Valhalla but his results are ultimately not good enough right now, so I’ll move along to SAM BURNS.

With finishes of 13th and 11th either side of a missed cut in the PGA, Burns has returned to form and that’s despite not putting anywhere near as well as he can. Last Sunday in particular saw any number slide by and at seventh in the tee-to-green stats, 10th place feels a good way short of where he ought to have been.

There should be more to come from him now and though he’s yet to contend at Muirfield Village, two top-20s in his last three visits, all powered by quality approach play, offer enough encouragement. That aspect of his game has looked really sharp again and there are strong signs his driver is back where it was at the beginning of the year.

My main concern would be that he’s won in the south and southeast only so far – Florida, Mississippi, Texas, plus Georgia on the Korn Ferry Tour and a play-off loss in Tennessee – and that is where he’s most comfortable, but Burns will graduate from that soon enough and was knocking on the door out on the west coast not long ago.

He should certainly be buoyed by having his family with him again, his wife and newborn son having been at home while he went to Canada last week, and of all the players around the 50/1 mark, he has fewest questions to answer. Burns looks close and this could be a good chance to build on being back in the mix last week.

Corey Conners will go well if putting anything like he did on home soil and is very solid, while Hideki Matsuyama is so well suited to Muirfield Village that it’s tempting to chance his health. Ultimately though there’s a reason why he hasn’t played a non-major since the first week in April, skipping two Signature Events since then, and the evidence of his ball-striking in two majors suggests that he’s struggling physically.

Justin Rose played better than his finishing position when selected at Colonial and is respected as a past champion who loves this part of the US and will have enjoyed watching MacIntyre win, but preference at slightly bigger odds is for RICKIE FOWLER.

Clearly, he hasn’t kicked on since returning to winning ways in Detroit last summer and several of his nine cuts made from his last 10 starts have been knife-edge stuff on Friday afternoon, but there are underlying positives which suggest he’s not far away.

Fowler was 11th through 54 holes at Colonial last time, he played beautifully over the weekend of the Heritage and defied a slow start for 39th at Augusta. Along the way, he has tightened up significantly off the tee, producing his best figures in a year and a half when ranking third last time out.

With his approach play there also his best all year, building on some good signs in the spring, and improvement too on the greens, it was only some anomalous around-the-green play which kept him to a mid-pack finish in Texas, where a good final round could’ve seen him hit the frame.

As a consequence, we’re now getting twice the odds at which I selected him for the Wells Fargo, and his record at Muirfield Village is good. He’s been runner-up twice, including on debut when Rose beat him, and more recently has been 11th and ninth across the last three years. The first of those was his best performance of the entire 2021 season.

A prodigious bentgrass putter who has a Nicklaus-design win to his name at the Honda Classic, and who has always preferred mid-level scoring conditions, Fowler looks value at three-figure prices. Granted a better start I feel very hopeful he can be in the mix for places come the weekend.

Patrick Rodgers missed out on qualifying for the US Open after a poor second round on Monday and will do well to recover from that despite this being a good course for him, whereas Cam Davis’s abysmal record here is enough to dissuade me from chancing the talented Aussie after he came through his qualifier.

My final selection then is AUSTIN ECKROAT, whose record under difficult conditions is encouraging.

Granted it wasn’t the toughest renewal of what’s now the Cognizant Classic that he won in March, but PGA National is never easy and that course, as mentioned designed by Nicklaus, has thrown up many a contender here down the years.

Eckroat also has 10th and 18th from two recent major starts, the US Open last year and then last month’s PGA, while here at Muirfield Village last year he faded from a good start to finish 30th on his course debut.

Granted, he was playing well at the time but he’s taken a significant step up the ladder since and with top-20 finishes in elite company in two of his last four starts, both at courses where he was making his debut, he can take another at one he already knows.

As with Homa, I can easily forgive him a missed cut at Colonial and there was an encouraging aspect to his play, as his approach work was excellent. That had been the case in Mexico a week before he won in Florida and is very much his strength, so if he can tighten up off the tee (generally good this year), he can confirm his abundant promise.

Posted at 1100 BST on 04/06/24

Safer gambling

We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.

If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.

Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.