The PGA Tour heads north to Muirfield Village for the Memorial Tournament hosted by Jack Nicklaus!

My name is Josh Thomas, and I am a PGA and NFL Coach here at DFS Army! Welcome to the 2019 PGA Season! We here at DFS Army have got you covered this year for DFS golf with my weekly preview out on Sunday Nights, Chalk Donkey article breaking down the ownership projections, where to pivot, and GPP strategy out Tuesday Nights, and our Research Station that is full of more information than you could ever need!

What a crazy week down in Texas at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial! Essentially 75% of the players priced above 9K last week either missed the cut or barely did anything with Tony Finau and Jordan Spieth being the only two to finish in the top 10. There were WD’s, missed cuts, and Spieth setting putting records. Just an insane week. While I took last week off providing content due to my wife giving birth to our second child, I didn’t take the week off from playing, and I regret that!

This week the tour heads up to Dublin, Ohio for the Memorial held at Muirfield Village Golf Club. This tournament is affectionately known as “Jack’s Tournament” and Muirfield Village as “Jack’s Place” since legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus built this course in his hometown of Dublin, Ohio to host this tournament specifically. Muirfield Village and the surrounding community is home to Jason Day (which you’ll hear about 1000 times on the broadcast this week)

The field is again smaller this week, with 120 players compared to 156 at a normal tour event, and as such, that means that you need to do everything you can to get 6/6 through the cut to have a chance at a big cash. The field is absolutely stacked this week with 6 of the top 10 in the OWGR playing and 11 of the top 20.

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It’s a great week and I’m excited to be back at it full time this week providing content and my gpp player pool for our VIPs at DFS Army. We’re due for a big week and this one is shaping up to be a great one!

Course Breakdown:

Muirfield Village has hosted the Memorial Tournament since its inception in 1976 and is Jack Nicklaus’ baby as the course he designed in his native Ohio to host such an event. Roger Maltbie won that first Memorial Tournament and since then we have seen a variety of winners including Tiger Woods having won here a whopping 5 times!

At 7392 yards, this par 72 isn’t overly long and it also has extremely wide and easy to hit fairways, but it’s not a course that you can just rip driver around. The rough is always at US Open height and there are cross sections that force you to hit 3 wood or less. In fact, some players will hit 3 wood or less on half of the driveable holes. Still, this is absolutely a second shot golf course. You need to be in the fairway to attack, but even then you are hitting into small, heavily undulated greens that play incredibly fast.

The greens are bent grass which is a bit of an oddity up here in Ohio and the fairways are bent as well while the rough is Kentucky Blue Grass which can get very thick. If you listen to any of Nicklaus’ press conferences here from the last few years he’s always talking about how they are trying to fight the poa annua back from creeping into the greens and they feel like they’ve done a pretty good job of it. That being said, if you are into the First Round Leader market you may be better off targeting the guys off the AM Thursday as they won’t deal with that bumpy poa regardless.

With a standard par 72, we get four par 5’s this week and all are actually fairly gettable as they played as the four easiest holes on the course last year. They aren’t overly long, and even the shorter hitters can get theRE in two. With the size of the greens though we still won’t see many eagles.

Speaking of green size, at only 5,000 sq. feet on average these are some of the smallest the players will play this year and a premium will be placed on not only SG: Approach, but also on SG: Around the Green and scrambling. Players WILL miss greens here and how they handle that will be huge. Not only will they miss greens though, but they will also likely end up in the bunker if they do. These are some of the toughest bunkers the players play all year so ending up in there will likely result in a bogey.

One thing you might hear quite a bit of talk of this week is how the course sets up for a fade. Jack Nicklaus was known for hitting a high, soft landing fade and it’s no surprise that the crown jewel of the courses he designed rewards that. It’s not something I’m going to put a ton of stock in though. Anyone out here can hit a fade. Maybe guys feel a little more comfortable on the tee if they naturally hit one, but it’s not really enough of an ‘edge’ to make me want to chase it.

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Typically scoring here is double digits under par, but nothing crazy and even though we have seen those winning scores reach -15 in three of the last four years the cut line has been par or worse in three of the four. So while you likely need to go low, you can still contend with a bad round or two. Last year, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, and Dustin Johnson all finished in the top ten after starting out with rounds of even par. (DJ actually had two 72’s and still finished T6).

It’s a course you can go low on, but slow and steady has also won the race here. There are a ton of ways to get it done, but it all starts with finding the fairway. Do that and then you can worry about the approach into the greens and putting it in the right spots. This should be a great week and one I’m really looking forward to.

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Key Stats:

Key Stats to look for this week – Birdies Gained, Par 5 Scoring, SG: Approach L25, SG: Off the Tee, Driving Distance, Course History, SG: Putting Bent, and Projected Course Score.

You can find all of these key stats in our DFS Army research station accessible ONLY for our VIPs.

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The Field:

In this section, I’ll cover who is in the field this week, the odds, any pricing discrepancies, and a few of my favorite plays on first look!

As always, we get one of the best fields of the year outside of majors this week. In fact, it may actually be the toughest field in golf as we don’t have any PGA Professionals or Open Qualifiers. As an invitational, there are only 120 players in the field and they are among the worlds best (besides Norman Xiong).

Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods top the board this week and they are both slam dunks this week. Both have excellent history (albeit Tigers a few years back) and should be in contention come Sunday.

I’m actually kind of blown away at the tight pricing here between 18-1 and 25-1. There are a ton of good options here, but all feel too short given either their current form, course history, or a combination of the two. If I’m going to make a play in this range its probably going to be with Rickie Fowler or Hideki Matsuyama and on Draftkings/Fanduel Justin Rose off a poor week at Colonial is an excellent play at low ownership.

Further down the list, we have guys like Henrik Stenson and Emiliano Grillo who both have great history here and good current form.

Deep darts on guys like Hao-Tong Li, Kevin Streelman, and Byeong-Hun An make a ton of sense and are guys I’m considering this week in not only betting but DFS as well.

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Beat the Bookie Betting Card:

Something new I’m adding each week to this article is my personal betting card for the week for Outrights, First Round Leaders, Top 5’s and Top 10’s. The real bread and butter with golf betting is a tournament and round matchups but I’m saving those for our Beat the Bookie VIPs!

As a rule, I typically don’t bet many outrights under +3500 unless its an extremely weak field (DJ at the FedEx St. Jude last year comes to mind) It’s just not a +EV most weeks when you think about 156 guys teeing it up. Hitting 3-4 outrights a year is a fantastic year for most golf bettors. The return on investment of hitting an outright at 50-1 can pay for a long dry spell (which is fairly typical in golf betting if you are only playing Outrights, FRLs, and T5/T10).

My outrights have a strong Non-American Flair this week with four of the five being internationals, and there’s a reason for that. There is always a strong run on the leaderboard from internationals every single year. Ben An was 2nd here last year, Matsuyama has won here, Anirban Lahiri was second. Six of the top 10 in Strokes Gained: Total here over the last five years are internationals.

Adam Scott has been trending in the right direction since the Masters and I really like tee to green game here this week. I have some concerns about his around the green game and putting as usual (though he’s been crushing it with the putter lately). He has the skill set of those priced shorter than him so we’re getting him at a bit of a discount and on a course, he has had quite a bit of success on no less.

Going back to the well with Henrik Stenson here at a course that should really fit his style and is evidenced by his 13th here last year. He is absolutely crushing it with his irons and just can’t putt. I know I’ve been saying that for a few weeks but at some point, the putter will flip and I’m pot invested at this point that if I miss at a course where all signs point to him being a great play I’ll kick myself.

Byeong Hun An was second here last year and he tends to play well at the same courses year after year. I’m banking on that and on his iron play to continue to be great. The neck injury from a few weeks ago is concerning but that 100-1 price tag is juicy.

Similarly, I’ve bet Sungjae Im at way, way shorter odds so 175-1 is an auto click for me. Yes, he’s played a ton and his game has fallen off recently but I’ll bite the bullet at another course that should fit his game.

And finally, David Lipsky is the lone American on the list and if you followed DFS Army a few weeks ago during the PGA Championship you know we were all over him. He made the cut and faltered on the weekend but he has a ton of game coming over from the European Tour. 225-1 is a lotto ticket, but Lipsky can win and has proven that before. In a field like this, its a bit of an ask but we’ve seen guys like David Lingmerth and William McGirt pop here as long shots and Lipsky is one of my favorites this week.

I’ll have Head to Head and full tournament matchups posted for our Beat the Bookie VIPs on Wednesday. And there are some reaaaaly juicy ones this week! These are truly where you can make your money in golf betting, while not as sexy or as big as an outright win, they are much more profitable.

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Final Thoughts:

This is a fun week and I always love listening to the interviews with Jack Nicklaus. It’s a beautiful course and one that shows really well on television so be sure to watch. Right now there doesn’t look like a huge wave advantage with the weather but that can always change.

We will have content for you all through the week at DFS Army. Our research station and domination station optimizer will be updated on Tuesday and I will have my full Chalk Donkey article breaking down all the ownership and GPP strategy for our VIP’s on Wednesday afternoon! If you aren’t a VIP yet, use code UPNORTH for 20% off EVERY MONTH FOREVER!