2022 Memorial Betting & DFS Preview
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All right. Welcome in. We are back inside golf podcast, Memorial betting and DFS preview. Thanks for bearing with me. Uh, we did not have an episode last week on colonial. Uh, if you missed it, I did release a really fun podcast with Twitterless Steve, where we went through the 15, not necessarily, uh, the best by the current world rankings, but, uh,

probably the 15, I'd say, most interesting players in the game and debated how many majors they would finish their career with. It's not a time-sensitive episode, although it may not age super well. We'll have to see about that. I had a couple of people ask me if I would change my number on JT after he won the PGA. I think I put the over-under for JT at 3.5, and me and Steve both went under and said he'd only win three times.

which is still a lot. I'd probably go four now, I think. I think we can kind of close the door on some of the tough core stuff and win stuff with him now. I mean, Southern Hills, I didn't get a chance to talk about it at all because I was doing family stuff last week. It played every bit as tough as a typical U.S. Open venue. And I used to not...

Really feel like a U.S. Open was really Justin Thomas's vibe or a British Open for that matter. And I think I feel differently about that now after watching him at Southern Hills. Honestly, of course, like Brookline kind of feels pretty good for him in a lot of respects, given the length, it's shorter length.

One of the reasons I landed on Justin Thomas at the PGA was I thought I had something in my head about how this course was going to play that I didn't think a lot of people were talking about with the I thought that.

150 yards and in was going to be super, super essential. When I mapped out the course, I said, I don't know if I'm seeing the length that a lot of other people are seeing when you actually go through the par fours and how many times you have to hit shorter iron shots. So I had this narrative where I'm going to go really, really heavy on guys that are absolutely elite from 150 yards and in.

And also have a good short game. And Justin Thomas, Cam Smith was kind of the next closest one. And Hideki kind of. But JT was the one guy that was like a top 10 around the green guy in the world and top 10 inside 150 in the world.

And that's how I landed on Tom Hoagie and Chris Kirk as well. Right. Those were both guys that like 150 yards and in 150 yards and in. So anyway, I mean, I had there's a there's a lot I would I could say on the PGA. I got to watch the tournament Thursday and Sunday. I was on a plane all day on Saturday and had a golf thing on Friday and

I do have a ton of takes on how the golf course played. The slowness of the greens, the bunkers. There's a bunch of nerdy architecture stuff that I found interesting.

pretty interesting in terms of the stuff that I look for when I watch golf and care about. I feel like we've kind of reached the statue of limitations a little bit with that tournament, though. Probably not going to do a whole bit on that here. There's a lot to talk about with the Memorial, and I want to talk a little bit about Colonial, too. I've got Steve Hennessey from Golf Digest on tomorrow, and we're probably going to end up talking about

about some golf course stuff. So maybe we could fit some Southern Hills into that discussion. But yeah, Justin Thomas, another one for us. And the Prince of Shinnecock, Tommy Fleetwood, super proud of his performance. Best score on the weekend, overcame the wrong side of the draw to finish top five. Three of my guys, JT, Rory, Berger,

And Fleetwood, three of them finished top eight. Berger missed the cup by like six, I think. He was on the wrong side of the wave, but I don't think it would have mattered that much. But it was...

Good to hit JT. We've got five outrights this year already. I think I guaranteed profit on the season even before the JT hit. It's been really good this year. So bear in mind, I'm probably due for a little regression at some point. Although I kept saying that with the NFL last year and I finished the season with 22% ROI, hitting 65% against the spread. And golf right now, we're at 13%.

ROI, which is still unbelievable. Anything over five is pretty good. But I don't know about the sustainability rate on that. We'll see. Maybe we can keep it going. Very doubtful that we'll hit one at Colonial this week. Hovland was terrible today. I'm recording this Saturday afternoon, by the way. Davis Riley kind of stalled. I mean, he's got a chance, but I'm not counting on it. The top 40s are in great shape.

But I mean, I'm kind of out of words for Scotty Scheffler. I mean, to place this in a historical context, which I love doing, we're now talking about potentially like one of the greatest statistical seasons of all time. I mean, if he gets to...

If he gets to five wins and a major before June, I think Justin Ray tweeted this. Tigers never actually done that. The last time that happened was Tom Watson in 1980. And it's funny too, because, and hand up on this one myself as well, I'm just as guilty of it. But I still think people don't really buy it. He was under-owned in DraftKings this week. And like I said, I'm guilty of it too. I didn't play him.

I think the over-unders pod that I recorded right before the PGA, I had him at three majors. I went under. I put him at 3.5 and me and Steve both went under, which is still a ton, by the way. But I don't really know what else. I mean, I think we just, at the very least, we need to put the word heater to rest with him. Can we at least just replace heater with season? Because it's now at the point where

It's a pretty foolproof argument that he's been the best player in the world when you look at the whole track record, honestly, for the last six months now. No one has really been close to as good as him over the past six months, even going back to a year before he started winning. If you go and stack up his last year of golf versus anyone else's last year of golf, it's not particularly close. And then if you even go back...

and stack up since the COVID restart. Who has been the best golfer since COVID? He's there with DJ, who had this unbelievable run at the beginning of COVID and has closed things down a little bit. I'd have to go back and look on DJ, but I know DJ got a master's and I think he reeled off four or five wins, but no one's close really.

I mean, Rom would probably be third because he just had this run where, you know, he only won the U.S. Open and I guess Mexico, but he racked up a ton of top tens. So he's probably he doesn't have the wins, but he's probably third behind DJ and Scotty since the COVID restart. But it's unbelievable. And I was thinking about it today. It's just a lesson about how quickly things can change.

I went to the Ryder Cup last year with my dad at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. And I remember the narrative heading into that Sunday match between Scheffler and Rahm, where it was almost like Scheffler was the sacrificial lamb. Like Scheffler was considered...

even though I had watched him for the three days prior and he was maybe the best player on the golf course on either team. He was up there top five for me that I watched, but he was still considered the U S team's weakest player. And Rom was of course considered the European team's best player. And I think the line on that matchup was like minus one 80, which is a lot by the way, for a single round 18 hole golf matchup, that's a lot.

And I walked all 18 holes of that match. I don't know if it was on TV much because Scheffler got out to this huge lead. And at that point, once Scheffler got out to the big lead, that was it. Like the US had them dead to rights. But I could not believe how much better he was.

I mean, it was a fucking ass kicking and it wasn't a match that didn't matter, by the way. Like it was the second match of the day. And I think Europe had like a 9% chance of winning heading into the day, but they did have a chance. It wasn't zero.

um they did need to win the first couple though that was the thing uh they were cooked if they didn't get those first two and that's why they sent rory off number one who took care of business against xander and rom off number two against scheffler and if europe got those first two it probably would have raised their percentage chance closer to like

20-ish, 25%. And then it was like, okay, we'll take our chances farther down the board and see what happens. And like I said, Rory did win the first one. So you think if Europe wins the first two, it's like, okay, we've got something here. Point being, it was an important match. They needed to have that one. Europe needed to have that one to have any chance at winning the Ryder Cup.

It was the only... I mean, the matches later down the road didn't matter if they didn't get that one. That's why they put Rahm out there. And Scheffler took him to the fucking woodshed. And this was at the peak of the Rahm is on a different level nonsense too. The peak of it. And he kicked the shit out of him. Just like he kicks the shit out of Rahm in pretty much every tournament they've played this season. And I remember after... I was already in on this guy for life. But I mean, after this...

He got interviewed after, and he said, yeah, I wanted Rom. And my teammates were actually happy that I got Rom because they knew I could beat him. And to me, that match kind of got lost to time. No one really talks about it or really talks about the Ryder Cup at all because I think it's just going to be remembered as this historic beatdown, whereas there was so much other stuff going on there that was interesting.

Um, but to me, that match was an inflection point for Scotty Shuffler where it was like, okay, this guy belongs. And I think I've always been higher on him than most. I did run an aggressive Twitter campaign to have him on the Ryder Cup team because never forget that some people thought Kevin Nong, Kevin Kisner should have had his spot, but I never could have predicted this. And, um,

I'm recording this on Saturday evening. I don't really think it matters how he does tomorrow. I mean, he could shoot 75 or 63 and win by seven. And I don't think I would feel much differently, to be honest with you, whether he wins or loses tomorrow. I think at this point, he's kind of earned the benefit of the doubt to me. He could suck for the rest of the season, and it really wouldn't change how much I've how I feel about him long term.

Because like I said, he's earned that benefit of the doubt. Conventional wisdom suggests he is due for a regression. I certainly would have predicted that coming out of the Masters. I didn't think he would win again this season. It's someone else's turn, right? But after a certain point, it's just like, you know, it's weird to me because if Rom had this exact same run or even DJ, he would be 35% owned at every single tournament regardless of price. And Scheffler just isn't.

So maybe it's the eye test with the footwork, which I struggle with too, by the way. Like I said, I didn't play him this week either. I'm just as guilty of it. But it's interesting in terms of the perception of him right now, because I don't think people, myself included, really know what to do with him at this point. I mean, how do you contextualize this? Now we're talking one of the greatest PGA Tours, like it's,

It's kind of a little bit of a different level. So why is he never chalk? I've been thinking about this a lot. It's interesting to reflect on, and I wanted to talk about it a little bit before we got to the memorial, but we can move on. Let's do an ad read because we didn't do that. Rick Run Good. This podcast is presented by Rick Run Good. All the stats, all the tools that...

I will talk about on the rest of this Memorial podcast. You can find over at Rick run good.com. Awesome Slack channel. Um, you can feel free to ask me any questions in there. There's a bunch of really smart DFS people in there that are very active as well. Uh, and sign up using promo code. Andy,

Um, that's promo code Andy for all of my written work, my course breakdowns. You know, I didn't do colonial content on this podcast feed, but I still did all of my Rick run good stuff. And that's going to happen from time to time. I've got some weddings this summer, some golf trips this summer. So I'm not always going to be able to do a podcast every week. I will always have my thoughts and my stuff and be reachable, um,

on Rick Run Good. So sign up now. It's very cheap. You can try it out for a week. Promo code Andy, A-N-D-Y, and join the community. What else? Thank you to all that left reviews last week or two weeks ago now, I guess, for the PGA. Our winner was Spaz Golfer, who I have PayPal'd. Shout out Spaz Golfer.

And thank you to all for all the kind words. I was incredibly humbled by the, uh, amount of people that listened to the stuff. PGA championship week. We'll bring back Kobe. I thought that podcast worked really well. Um, he's probably going to be there for, for the majors going forward and, uh, cheers to all. Thanks again on that. Um,

All right. Let's talk about the Memorial. I think that's all I had to do at the top. This tournament has been hosted at Muirfield Village since the course opened in 1974. Nicholas basically wanted to create his own version of the Masters, all the way down to the way that he designed the course. It was modeled after Augusta in many ways, and the whole tournament...

was inspired by a lot of the traditions that the Masters had as well. The Memorial has this yearly induction ceremony honoring the past golfers. They get a plaque near the clubhouse. And similar to the Masters, it's also a smaller tournament. It's one of only five tournaments on the PGA Tour that has an invitational status. So there's only 120 players in the field compared to the normal 156 tournament.

And it generally has a pretty strong field and a great history of past champions, which is very much the case this year as well. We've got Rahm, Murakawa, Cantlay, Rory, Zander, Zalatoris, Fitzpatrick, Lowry, Neiman, Berger, Spieth, Cam Smith, Hideki, Hovland, just to name a few. So a lot of good players this week. No JT, no Scheffler, but a lot of good players this week.

Last year, Patrick Cantlay won. I mean, Rom, it's a little bit of an asterisk. Rom did have a six-stroke lead before he had to withdraw from COVID. But last year, Cantlay, was it five? It's five or six. Cantlay won at 13-under in a playoff over Morikawa. Prior to that, Rom won at nine-under.

over Ryan Palmer. That was a really hard year where they had the greens baked out. 2019 was Cantlay again. 2018 was Bryson before Bryson, right? Actually before Bryson beefed up. 2017 Duffner, 2016 William McGirt, 2015 David Langmerth in a playoff over Justin Rose, 2014 Hideki in a playoff over Kevin Knott, 2013 Matt Kuchar, 2012 Tiger Woods.

So you have these two really weird years back to back with McGirt and Lingmuth. But other than that, it's generally won by a class player. Even Kuchar, you know, Kuchar was 20 to one that year. Kuchar is really playing well. And Duffner too. Duffner was 65 to one.

But he had won the PGA at that point. He was not the Jason Duffner that he is today. But the last three years, the winner has been under 25 to 1. And I would expect that trend to continue with the recent renovation, only making the course a little bit harder. So let's talk about Muirfield Village and that renovation. So the course did...

change a lot prior to the 2021 tournament. 150 yards were added. So it now plays as a par 72 measuring over 7,500 yards in the scorecard, 7,543 yards.

And it's pretty much got brand new greens as well. Bent grass fairways, four inch Kentucky bluegrass rough with rye and fescue. This is a tournament with pretty thick rough actually. And the greens are small, 5,000 square feet on average with bent grass. And those run 11 on the stamp. Water comes into play on 11 holes. One thing that I want to say with Jack Nicklaus that I think is pretty consistent with

throughout his work is that a, he tends to design golf courses that primarily favor a fader of the ball. Why do you think Morikawa has been so good on some of his courses and B the whole tends to get more challenging the further away that you get from the T. So many of his courses are pretty wide off the T and,

But the approach shots are generally a lot more challenging, and his green complexes have a ton of slope to them as well. So in his design philosophy, he really likes to embody the idea of a second shot golf course. And some of the other courses that he's designed on the PGA Tour include Glen Abbey, which hosted the RBC Canadian Open in 2008 and 2013.

Between 2015 and 2018 to Montreux Golf Club, Old Greenwood, which both formerly hosted the Barracuda PGA National hosted the Honda Classic PGA West Sherwood right down the road for me, which hosted the Zozo, the concession, which hosted the WGC.

and Valhalla, which hosted the 2014 PGA. I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two. But in terms of comps, I probably like Valhalla the most out of those. Glen Abbey isn't terrible either. But here's what... Let's talk about the renovation because I think that's pretty important in my opinion. Here's what Jack said about the renovation, which was it was essentially an attempt to make the course...

harder after he saw Patrick Cantlay shoot 20 under here in 2019. So Jack said, far too many tournaments have eliminated the rough and the firmness of the greens. And that is just not my idea of what the game of golf should be. So I'm going to stick with my old fashioned beliefs about how the game of golf should be played and the way golf courses should be set up.

the whole gamut of all shots is what the game of golf is about. The game should challenge every facet of every club in the bag. So that kind of gives you a picture of what Jack was going for here, right? He wanted to, it was an attempt to defend par. In the past couple of years before the renovation, you had 19 under, 15 under, 15 under, 13 under, 15 under, right? So it got a little bit longer. Most of the length was added to the par fives.

which were kind of getting beat up. So all the par fives got longer and so did the par four first hole. All of the greens were reconstructed with new back grass. They all now feature a sub air system. And some of the fairways got pinched a little bit more. So, but pretty much all the greens except 12, 13, 14 and 17 are completely brand new, brand new greens. Fairway bunkers got pushed back on one.

15, and 17 to basically account for players hitting it longer. And I think for the most part, the renovation was largely able to accomplish what Jack was looking for. Last year, it played as

the seventh most difficult course on tour. I think 13 under is, uh, I think Ron probably would have gotten ahead of that, but I think 13 under is probably a, a comfy winning score for Jack, right? I think he probably wants it to play, you know, cloisters to the masters, maybe a little easier than the masters. Um, but overall, I think the renovation accomplished the idea of making this course have a little bit more teeth. Um,

specifically the par fives got a little bit harder. The far, the par fives actually played as the fifth hardest set of par fives on tour last year. Uh, and I would say the, you know, the one thing that I would, that I did notice the most is that I think the course I talked about how Jack Nicholas courses are primarily a second shot golf course, but I do think since the renovation, the biggest thing that stood out to me was that I think this course got a fair bit,

a fair bit more harder off the tee. I used to think of Muirfield as really this, you know, irons and short game course, like most Nicholas courses. But with the pinching of some of the fairways and the repositioning of the bunkers and how thick that rough gets, I think you've got to be a really good total driver of the ball here too. That was the, this was the first time

dating back. I thought this was interesting. This is the first time dating back to 2015 that Muirfield Village ranked inside the top 10 in strokes gained off the tee difficulty. So let's run through what I think you need to be looking at here. Muirfield Village ranked eighth out of 40 courses last year in strokes gained off the tee difficulty. This was, like I said, the hardest it ranked dating back to 2015. It still had the 11th easiest fairways to hit

But if you miss the fairway, you're in real trouble. It ranked third out of 40 courses and miss fairway penalty. It ranked first out of 40 courses and average difference of strokes gained between the fairways and rough number one course. So this rough is a legitimate problem. If you're in the rough, the average score between drives in the rough and drives in the fairway here, it's the widest discrepancy on the PGA tour. So it's really, really important to play from the fairways here.

I think it's a big week for good drive percentage because while yes, these fairways are relatively wide, the penalty for missing them is huge. Last year, Cantlay absolutely lapped the field in good drive percentage. He kept the ball in play off the tee. And what do you know? That created a huge correlation with his ability to hit greens in regulation.

You know, you lap the field in good drive percentage and therefore lap the field in greens and regulation percentage. There's a direct cause and effect there. It's really important to be playing from the fairway here. Every single player in the top 10 last year gained relative to the field in good drive percentage. In the first year since the renovation, 14 of the top 15 players gained strokes off the tee. It didn't used to be like that. So,

One thing, and I touched on this a little bit with Southern Hills, but one thing that I think is really important in terms of having some success in DraftKings, right, is it's really, really easy to predict early on in your research process, right?

what everyone else is going to be saying on podcasts and content, right? It's very easy to think about what are going to be the big narratives heading into the week, right? And with Muirfield Village, it's always been irons and short game, right? And that's true. Like I'll talk about that a little bit more as we get into those stack categories. I think it's a massive week for irons and short game. I get it, right? But

It's always about, in my opinion, what I like trying to do is I like trying to find something different that might potentially lead me to some different players. Like a good example of this is two weeks ago at Southern Hills. The reason why I did so well at the PGA Championship was I went all in on this 150 yards and in thing. And I went all in on it on the Shinnecock comp.

And all the Shinnecock guys did well. And a lot of the best guys from 150 yards in did well too. And so I was able to get Tommy Fleetwood at low ownership. I was able to get Tom Hoagie at low ownership. I was able to get Chris Kirk at low ownership. Right? Webb too. Because those guys weren't fitting all the other narratives that other people were talking about. But I was able to find something a little bit different there.

And use that. And I think if I was doing that for this week, I would say, hey, I think, you know, I know we always talk about Jack Nicklaus as this second shot golf course guy. But I really think you have to be a good driver of the ball now here post the renovation. There's some quotes on it, too. Cantlay talked about it a lot. And, you know, it's not.

It's not too much about length here, right? Like eight of the top 15 on last year's leaderboard lost to the field and driving distance. But I really think if you, if you have a big mess, you're in deep trouble. I think you got to hit the fairway here. Iron play 40.7% of strokes game have come on approach, which is well above the tour average of 34.7. So yes, it's big.

Um, fourth out of 40 courses last year in strokes, gain approach difficulty last year, it featured the six most difficult greens to head on the PGA tour. It ranked 10th out of 40 courses in strokes, gain approach difficulty inside one 50, uh,

Fourth out of 40 courses in strokes gained approach difficulty from beyond 150 yards. So overall, you know, these are small greens with a fair amount of contouring. Your irons have to be firing on this golf course. The top 15 players on last year's leaderboard gained strokes on approach. The top five players on last year's leaderboard gained over 4.8 on approach.

It's absolutely essential to hit greens here because it's a tough short game course too. Like last year, Cantlay absolutely crushed the field in greens and regulation. And 23 out of the top 25 on last year's leaderboard gained in greens and regulation relative to the field. Jason Duffner talked about how it's important to be below the hole here. Ricky Fowler talked about the control that you need to have coming into these greens.

Bubba Watson talked about it too, especially because these par threes are really hard. Like you have to step up to the plate and hit good iron shots on these par threes. And it's definitely a mid to long iron course, right? Especially with the added length.

21% of approach shots came from 175 to 200, which is well above the tour average of 17.5. Remember, you want to be looking at the approach distribution from last year, not historically, right? Because the course has changed. And 28% of the approach shots have come from 200 yards plus, which again is well above tour average.

So now you've got seven par fours over 450, three par threes over 200, and all the par fives are generally reachable. But the approach shots are going to come from like the 230 yard range. So almost like 50% of approach shots are coming from 175 plus. That's a lot. So this is definitely a course you want to be looking at long arm play. Around the green, it's tough here. Fifth out of 40 courses last year in around the green difficulty.

And the two prior years, it ranked first. So dating back to 2015, Mirafield Village has never ranked outside of the top five in strokes gained around the green difficulty. The top six players on last year's leaderboard gained over two strokes around the green, which is not as common as you would think. 30 of the top 36 on last year's leaderboard gained strokes around the green last year.

For context, Colonial had half that, 18 of the top 36 gained around the green. So it's big here. 13th out of 40 courses in up and down percentage from the fairway. Third out of 40 courses in up and down percentage from the rough. And 12th out of 40 courses in up and down percentage from the bunkers. This golf course has a lot of bunkers, a lot of deep bunkers. You're going to want to look at sand saves this week.

And there's been a really strong correlation between sand saves and top 10 finishers here. But I think you'd actually probably rather be in a bunker here than you would in some of that thick rough around the green. It's just really hard to judge how your ball is going to come out. And that explains why dating back to 2015, this course has essentially been one of the hardest courses around the green on the PGA Tour. Arguably the hardest course ever.

on the PGA Tour to get up and down from the green side rough. The greens are fast, but it's not a particularly difficult putting course. I've talked a lot about how I actually believe, it's personal preference, right? But I actually believe that

Bent grass is the easiest green, is the easiest to putt on, right? And you have all these weird examples of these guys like Zalatoris and Hideki just totally raising their baseline on these like pure, pure bent grass greens, right?

And these are like, these are like them, right? He did, you know, there's a lot of Augusta in these greens. They're not as undulating as Augusta. They're not as tricky as Augusta. But here's a quote from Jason Duffner that I liked. These are probably the best greens that we play on all year from a standpoint of consistency on speed from green to green. When I step on the seventh green, I'm,

I feel like it's the same speed as the 14th and the 17th. And then also just the consistency of the role. You feel like you get a really pure role. If you start in on your line and your read is right, you're probably going to be holding a lot of putts, right? So what a PGA Tour pros get most tripped up about is a lack of consistency. And that's why they got so frustrated at a course like Southern Hills, right?

Because they were mowing the greens one day and then they weren't mowing them the next day. And it was hard to get comfortable on those greens, right? You had guys like Cam Smith, who's arguably the best putter in the world, having like one of the worst putting performances of his career, just like him befuddled all day. You know, Mirfield is kind of the opposite of that. Mirfield is,

You get what you get is what you get, right? The speed of 14 and 17 and seven, they're all, it's all the same, right? Spieth said the same thing. He said these greens are tied for the first or second only to Augusta in terms of how pure they are. I love putting on these greens.

He said so. And the stats back it up to, I mean, 35th out of 40 courses and putting difficulty from five to 15 feet. So you can hold putts on this course, you know, yes, they're fast. Yes. There's some undulation to it, but they're not very big. So you're not going to have to do a ton of lag putting, um,

But I'm pretty low on putting this week. I just think it's such a tea to green test. So a little bit of a familiarity on bent grass, but not a huge putting week for me. And then scoring stats. So the par fives are pretty big here. You've got to be able to take advantage of the par fives. 23 of the top 25 players on last year's leaderboard gained relative to the field and par five scoring. Scotty Sheffler led the field and finished third.

Morikawa, who's next finished second, Lowry, who is third finished six. And just looking at difficult courses in general, right? Like the same players tend to play well at your Bay Hills, your Torrey Pines, your Memorials, your Rivieras, your Quail Hollows, your major championships, right? Like they all, they all kind of, there are certain players that just raise their baseline and step up to these courses. And I think you want to be looking for those players.

In terms of course history, you look at player quotes, they talk a lot about experience and how you learn the golf course and continue to understand it better each time you play it, which makes sense, right? Because that's how players tend to talk about Augusta. And that is kind of what Jack was going for here. The only courses on tour that have a stronger course history correlation are

are Augusta, Bay Hill, Harbortown, TPC Scottsdale, and Wiley. So I do think experience matters here, although Hideki did win on his first appearance. It's doable. Valhalla, as a comp, I really like Valhalla. It's this other Jack Nicklaus course with similar agronomy and more difficult scoring conditions. A lot of the Nicklaus courses that we see on tour are

are either really easy. It's like the barracuda, you know, PGA national barracuda, or they're in Florida on Bermuda grass. I think a lot of people are going to talk about concession. Hmm. It just, of course, didn't have any rough, right? And Valhalla checks the box as you've got the bank grass, you've got the thicker rough, you've got the more difficult scoring conditions. You've got the longer par fours. And by the way, you look at that Valhalla leaderboard in 2014, right?

Rory, Ricky, Ryan Palmer, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Jimmy Walker, Graham Dillette, Justin Rose, Adam Scott, Kenny Perry. All those guys have also been really good at Memorial. And then, you know, with Augusta, I think the course is probably more similar to Augusta in theory than it is in required skill set.

Yes, it was a huge aesthetic inspiration to Jack during the design process, especially with the greens and the conditioning. And yes, approach in short game is really essential at both courses and par five scoring.

And there is a ton of crossover on those leaderboards, by the way. But the reason why I struggle with it a little bit is because I think since the renovation, like I talked about, Muirfield became way more of a challenging golf course off the tee. And there's a real penalty here for missing the fairway and being in that four-inch rough.

So, whereas Augusta, you don't have that penalty or pretty much any penalty at all in terms of way we're driving. Augusta was a course where I was really low. I think you'd be silly to look at driving accuracy at a course like Augusta National. But here, the fairways are wide, but if you're wild, you're done, right? Whereas there's a lot more forgiveness off the tee at Augusta. All right.

Let's run through the model. So, you know, this was a very, I don't know, chalky model, you know, just like the best players kind of rose to the top with a couple surprises. And that's because, you know, I kind of came to the conclusion of this.

I'm probably heavier on off the tee this week than most, but I'm not skimping on iron play and around the green either. You know, I'll skimp on putting right. I'll skimp on other stuff. So I really tried to find this complete tee to green package that I

scored on par fives and was good out of the bunkers and was a good long iron player and raised their baseline on difficult scoring conditions. And, you know, shocker, look at the leaderboards of major championships and generally this tournament and the other hard courses that offer a sterner T degree test and you get the best players. That's what makes it the best players. So here's my top 20. Number one was Rory McIlroy.

Pretty perfect course for Rory, I'd say. Number two was Jon Rahm. Pretty perfect course for Rahm as well. Three was Xander. Four was Patrick Cantlay. Five was Will Zalatouris. Six was Shane Lowry. Seven was Sudeikis Matsuyama. So no surprises yet, right? Daniel Berger was eight. He just finds a way for me at all these places. I always have him higher than he should be.

but he's eight. Matt Fitzpatrick is nine, right? Guess who's turned into a great total driver of the ball? And obviously has a short game, Matt Fitzpatrick. 10 is Victor Hovland. Probably gets hurt a little bit by the short game, but he does pretty much everything else I'm looking for here. 11, Chris Kirk.

Probably the first real big surprise, but he's just playing really good golf right now. 12, Jordan Spieth, 13, Gary Woodland, 14, Cameron Smith, 15, Tom Hoagie, 16, Joaquin Neiman, 17, Colin Morikawa, 18, Sung J.M., 19, Adam Hadwin, who be careful with that one too. He was high at the PGA, and I think he's kind of on the back end of a run. And 20 was Luke List.

All right, early leans. So it's going to be interesting this week what people are going to do with Rom because you've got the revenge narrative going. I would imagine he is the highest-priced golfer. But then you also have Rory, who has been objectively playing better than Rom, also has good history, not as good course history. But it feels like there's this weird...

It's weird because late on Sunday, Rory wasn't really in contention to win the PGA, but it still felt like he was extremely relevant at all points of that tournament. And it still felt like this big emotional week for Rory. I don't know if that makes sense, but just the way it was talked about and the way it went from start to finish with him having the first run lead and then that run on Sunday morning.

It feels like it's going to be interesting to see how he plays coming off a performance like that. And then you've got Cantlay, who sucks now, but has won this tournament twice. Will Zalatoris coming back to a harder golf course that is better for his game than Colonial. Hideki wet a lot of people down at the PGA. Super, super popular at the PGA, but now there's some injury concerns and he didn't play great.

And then what are you going to do with Fitzpatrick and Lowry? Or do you want to play Fitzpatrick coming off that PGA, that Sunday where he looked bad on Sunday, right? But, you know, talk about a good golf course for Matt Fitzpatrick. There's a great one. And Lowry, did Lowry peak? Does Lowry still have some juice left in the tank, right? And then we'll see what Hovland and Spieth do next.

Cam Smith's another interesting one too, because Cam Smith has terrible course history here, weirdly. And I think I have a, I think that's because, uh,

The penalty off the tee is big here. You know, I think that's the huge difference between this and Augusta. And so I think a lot of people look at Augusta and say, oh, Cam Smith should do great at Muirfield Village too. But he hasn't. He's been terrible at Muirfield Village. A guy who's really accurate off the tee and doesn't miss fairways like Morikawa has been awesome at Muirfield Village. And Cam Smith's been terrible here. But he also...

led the he also hit the ball better than anyone else at the pga championship right and has turned into like this awesome awesome iron player right like cam smith in the three biggest tournaments of the year has gained over 6.5 strokes on approach you gotta talk about cam smith now is like an elite iron player he's gained over nine in both the majors on approach it's insane i have to go back and check if anyone else has done that like ever

in the same year. And, and Morikawa will be interesting too, because he's another guy that has the course history. Remember we, uh, he won that work day, which was a little bit different. That one played a little bit easier than a typical Memorial, but he won that one. And Hovland was up there at that one too. So I think we'll have some decisions to make. You know, I've always had it in my head. I'm not going to talk about this guy.

But I've always had it in my head that this is a golf course Xander Shoffley should win at. And he's been incredible. And incredible is an overstatement. 14, 13th, 11th. So he's been great. But he's three consecutive top 14s. 8.5 strokes ball striking in his last two starts that he's played here.

Oh, another 14th at the workday too. I don't really have the stomach for a Xander chalk week. So I'm not going to do my part to contribute to that. Uh, that happened last year. I was all in on him last year and then it kind of got out of control and you know how that always ends up. Uh, but in terms of some of the lower guys, you know, I was looking at Leishman. I like Leishman a lot.

Uh, Cam Young and Davis Riley is going to be an interesting one for people because I, I wonder what I'm going to be curious to see what people do with Cam Young. I may be curious to see more so Cam Young than Riley even. Um, but I like Leishman a lot. I think you'll be able to get like a nice little break on Leishman this week. Um, he's showed a couple things that, you know, I was looking for, but it hasn't really been playing the best golf lately. Um,

And then a couple other guys farther down. I really like Luke List here, and I really like Siwoo Kim here. Both those guys on the surface, you know, didn't they finish 41st and 60th at the PGA, but List gained 7.2 off the tee at the PGA. And he caught the wrong side of the draw and played well over the weekend.

Um, so I think this is the type of golf course too, on the surface that you want to play localist at. And I think he, I mean, he's came right back down to earth since the farmers, um, since he won the farmers, but that 7.2 strokes that he gained off the tee, it's the best off the tee week of his career. And the putter started to come back for him as well. Uh, and then with C will, uh,

hit the ball really, really well at the PGA too. And Si Wu actually, you know, the interesting thing with Si Wu, he's become incredibly consistent this season. He's made 12 of 13 cuts this year. The only cut he didn't make was at the Byron Nelson. And he's turned into this very, you know, consistent ball striker, which I don't think is Si Wu's rep. You know, he's only lost off the tee once this year. And he still has that ability to spike with the irons. So those are, those will be some of the guys that,

that I look to in, in draft Kings and top forties. Um, and that's it. What else? We'll be back on, uh, we'll be back on Monday that, I mean, I'll probably come out Tuesday morning or late Monday night, me and Steve Hennessy. I'm excited to talk to him about some general golf course stuff as well as the Memorial. I want to talk to him about the Curtis couple landing national, uh,

I want to talk to him about the upcoming golf trip I have planned and maybe some Southern Hills thoughts as well. And of course we'll run through the, the Memorial betting board, but that's it. You can find my article on Rick run, good.com. Remember promo code Andy on Monday with a more in depth look at, you know, some of the changes to this golf course and all of my statistical updates.

you know, inputs and nerdy stuff with, with my model and how I break that all down. Uh, Wednesday, final DFS thoughts article, right? We've been killing those with our core force. These guys are just making cuts left and right. Um, and that's it. That's it. All right. Have a great rest of the weekend. Happy Memorial day. Good luck with your bets. The rest of the weekend at colonial, uh,

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