This article is part of our Yahoo PGA DFS Picks series.
The Memorial Tournament
Dublin, Ohio
Muirfield Village Golf Club - Par 72 - 7,569 yards
Field - 73 entrants
Purse - $20M
The Preview
The PGA Tour journeys from Canada down to Jack's place in Dublin, Ohio this week for the penultimate Signature Event on the 2024 schedule, with a $20M purse set to be spread among those who stick around for the weekend after a 36-hole cut trims the 73-man field down to the low-50 and ties. Given a significant portion of the contingent in attendance will survive on to Saturday's third round, expect to see more prevalence in stars-and-scrubs strategies when it comes to lineup building from a DFS perspective, especially with some of the softest pricing in the industry on Yahoo.
To lend a quick course preview, the difficult Muirfield Village Golf Club is known for its small and firm bentgrass greens, which become burdensome to hit in regulation when wayward tee shots find the thick rough that lines these otherwise relatively wide fairways. Adequate long iron play is paramount, as seven par-4s measure between 455 and 503 yards, while all four of the layout's par-3s fall within the 180-218 yard range. Aside from a strengthening breeze each afternoon, the weather should cooperate with highs in the upper-70s each day and a limited chance of precipitation throughout the week.
Recent Champions
2023 - Viktor Hovland
2022 - Billy Horschel
2021 - Patrick Cantlay
2020 - Jon Rahm
2019 - Patrick Cantlay
2018 - Bryson DeChambeau
2017 - Jason Dufner
2016 - William McGirt
2015 - David Lingmerth
2014 - Hideki Matsuyama
Key Stats to Victory
SG: Approach
Proximity: 150-200 yards
Par-4: 450-500 and Par-5 Efficiency
Bogey Avoidance
Yahoo Value Picks
Based on $200 salary cap
Cream of the Crop
Rory McIlroy - $45
It's preposterous that anyone's priced higher than Scottie Scheffler, but a $45 salary on McIlroy still presents enough value to stack this duo, while the latter is coming off a T4-T12-Win-Win stretch since the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Not only did McIlroy rank T3 in GIR percentage en route to his recent T4 at the RBC Canadian Open, but he also putted and scrambled extremely well at Hamilton Golf and Country Club. Over his last 24 measured rounds, he's top-3 in each of P4: 450-500 Efficiency, Prox: 175-200, Bogey Avoidance and P5: 550-600 Efficiency. Additionally, he's gained at least 7.5 strokes from tee to green each of the past two years at Muirfield Village.
Scottie Scheffler - $44
The World No. 1 continued his absurd run by following up a stressful week at the PGA Championship with a runner-up finish at the Charles Schwab Challenge, where he even gained a collective six strokes both on and around Colonial's greens. With the Louisville legal troubles in the rearview and a short period of rest under his belt, Scheffler unsurprisingly arrives at the Memorial with shorter than 4/1 outright odds to win at most shops. Once again, his salary should be $50-plus.
Collin Morikawa - $37
Morikawa paces the PGA Tour in driving accuracy percentage this season, and he's been hot since a T3 at the Masters sparked a span of four top-10s in five starts. He recently gained 10-plus strokes from tee to green on the way to fourth-place finishes at both the PGA Championship and the Charles Schwab Challenge, and his excellent around-the-green play has been a somewhat stunning boost ever since THE PLAYERS in mid-March. Morikawa lost in a playoff here at Muirfield Village to Patrick Cantlay in 2021 when the former gained 5.4 strokes with the flat stick, marking the fourth-best SG: Putting performance of his career.
Glue Guys
Justin Thomas - $32
Thomas hasn't played particularly well at the Memorial since back-to-back top-8s here in 2017 and 2018 when his irons and putter were fully tuned, but he's recently turned his 2024 campaign around after slumping from a missed cut at the Genesis Invitational through another MC at the Masters. After placing T5-T21 at the RBC Heritage and Wells Fargo Championship, Thomas paced the entire PGA Championship in SG: Tee-to-Green, rising to sixth in SG: T2G and fourth in Bogey Avoidance over his last 12 rounds.
Byeong Hun An - $29
Averaging just north of 93 fantasy points per event throughout his last three starts, An has ascended to second in SG: Par-5s, second in P3: 200-225 Efficiency, fifth in Prox: 200-plus and 10th in Bogey Avoidance over his past 12 rounds, ultimately finishing T4-3-T43 from THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson through the PGA Championship. He's gained strokes off the tee in all but two outings this season, and An tied for second at the 2018 Memorial Tournament when he led the event in GIR percentage.
Shane Lowry - $27
The putter had betrayed Lowry for much of the season before gaining a nuclear 9.1 strokes on the greens at the PGA Championship en route to a sixth-place finish, and he finished on the positive side of SG: Putting again this past week in Canada where he closed out the event with three straight 68s. Lowry is fifth in the key Prox: 175-200 range over his last 24 rounds, and his accuracy off the tee is a major advantage at Muirfield.
Bargain Bin
Si Woo Kim - $23
Despite a disappointing MC-T56 stretch at the PGA Championship and the Charles Schwab Challenge, I was hoping Kim would come in much higher than $23 to potentially take advantage of deflated ownership, but he should earn plenty of attention down here, especially after placing 4-T13-T9-T18 across the last four editions of the Memorial Tournament. An accurate driver of the golf ball, Kim's iron play also impresses as he ranks fifth in both SG: APP and SG: T2G over his last 24 rounds. He's just struggled mightily with the flat stick as of late, which is definitely frustrating, but he's at least a solid candidate for positive regression since it can't get much worse on the greens.
Corey Conners - $20
Another name that's typically associated with nightmarish metrics on the greens, Conners actually just posted the best SG: Putting performance of his entire career this past week on native soil at the RBC Canadian Open, where he averaged an admirable 1.67 putts per GIR while gaining 6.9 strokes putting on the way to 20 total birdies and a sixth-place finish. Conners' ball striking has been phenomenal this season, and he's gained an average of 6.6 strokes with his irons per event throughout his past three starts.
Lee Hodges - $20
Hodges tied for 12th at his Muirfield Village debut last year, gaining strokes across the board in the process. He's currently riding a streak of three consecutive top-25s from the Wells Fargo Championship through the Charles Schwab Challenge, notably picking up a combined 12.1 strokes on the field with his irons across his past two outings. Over his last 12 rounds, Hodges is sixth in SG: APP, eighth in Prox: 175-200 and 10th in Prox: 200-plus, while he's also 15th in SG: Putting and fifth in putting from 20-25 feet within this frame.
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