The Daily Spin – The Memorial

The Daily Spin – The Memorial

RECAP

Scottie was not in the field last week, but Rory was and given his history in Canada and recent run of solid play, he was extremely popular in cash games. It was the obvious starting point for your cash game lineup with no other big names up at the top that you could truly count on for a big finish. While a couple golfers at the upper end played pretty well, there were plenty of busts including Sahith, Noren and Cam Young. Even guys like Lowry and Fleetwood did not live up to their salaries. Rory managed a 4th place finish for the week and while it would have been great to get a win from him, you can never complain about a Top-5 finish…well, maybe if it were Scottie.

The rest of my team was a mixed bag. I ended up with 5/6 getting through the cut. Davis Thompson started off well with a 69 on Thursday, but forgot how to putt on Friday, missing one short putt after another. Every time I looked at him on shot tracker he was blowing a 5 footer to sink him into oblivion, ending the round losing over 4.6 strokes putting in a single round. It is frustrating as he was just fine from tee to green. He is still playing well this spring going into the summer so I will continue to roster him from time to time as I think the second round was an outlier on the greens.

To offset the salary for Rory, I needed to find a couple of golfers at the lower end of the spectrum to balance out my team. I felt like a genius early on as Mac Meissner was -4 after nine holes in the first round and Kevin Tway was -3 going to the weekend. Unfortunately, Tway only had three birdies left in him over the final two rounds and dubiously had zero in the third round. He went from a potential Top-10 finish to a smooth 68th. Meissner slipped back a bit after a hot start and finished 57th, but at least made it interesting with 16 birdies and a birdie streak. He outscored players that finished inside the Top-40 and he was only $6500 so it was not a total loss, even if there was a lot of potential on Thursday.

My other two golfers were selected for their cut making ability in Mark Hubbard and Adam Scott. Hubbard went without a birdie in the 3rd round to match Tway, though he at least made an eagle to score a few points. He had only ten birdies for the week so his 42nd place finish actually generated 3.5 less that Meissner in 57th place. Adam Scott made all of three birdies through the first two rounds, but managed to make the cut. He was a little better over the weekend, but like Hubbs, he had only ten birdies for the week and zero eagles. It was not ideal to land on Scott for the week, but he was there for my last pick and he has not been bad this season so a 42nd place finish was disappointing.

Course

• Muirfield Village Golf Club (Renovated in 2021)
• Par 72
• 7,569 yards
• Bentgrass greens

Muirfield Golf Course is located in Dublin, Ohio and is our lone stop in the Buckeye state this year. It’s a 7,569 yard course and plays as a Par 72. There have been a ton of renovations to the course over the last couple of years so we have a pretty good idea of how it will play now that we have seen it for a few years. Even in back to back weeks in 2020 the folks running the course managed to make it play radically different so keep an eye on how it sets up this year. It may not be a perfect comp course to Augusta, but I find that the similarities work well for me when looking at the field each year to choose my players. The fairways are wide, though Augusta is more open overall and a little more forgiving. The rough at Muirfield tends to be pretty thick so though the fairways are wider than normal, players will want to stay in the short grass or they will face trouble with their approach shots.

Muirfield includes many doglegs, water hazards and strategically placed fairway bunkers in the range where most bombers would land their tee shots with driver so it tends to be much more of a second shot course than at first glance which means that you will see some players club down to 3 Wood and work a longer iron shot into the green. The greens themselves are small, bentgrass and play very fast and with a good deal of undulation. Precision iron play will be the key to success or players that can scramble well to get up and down. In looking at some recent winners, you can see that mid range iron play really made the difference for Jason Dufner, William McGirt and David Lingmerth, but the bombers have had more success of late with Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay winning in four years out of five before another ball striker in Billy Horschel won it in 2022 before Viktor won it last year as a more established top level player. Par 5 Scoring will also be important this week. Like Augusta, all four Par 5 holes this week are reachable in two shots for most players, though 20-30 yards were added to each in the recent renovation. Those are going to be the best scoring opportunities that golfers will have this week as the Par 3s play very tough here and seven of the Par 4 holes are longer than 455 yards.

Course Comps

• Augusta
• TPC Boston
• Liberty National
• Riviera
• Torrey Pines
• Quail Hollow
• Summit

Field

This is an elevated field this week, but with a lot of changes from last season. This is a 73 man field and there is in fact a cut this week. Riviera, API and Memorial all have a cut as elevated events. The Top-50 players and ties will make it to the weekend which sounds like an easy 6/6 week, but that has not been the case in the first two events as many notable golfers have managed to miss the cut to cripple fantasy owners. I have not seen any noteworthy withdrawals this week. Cash games again will be a challenge. Whether it is Rory McIlroy last week or Scottie Scheffler most other weeks, the strategy remains similar for most tournaments. With such a small cut in play, it makes it incentives the stars/scrubs lineup that much more, though if you get greedy and miss in the $6k range, it could end your chances of cashing by Friday afternoon.

What this means is that when you are building your GPP rosters and even Single Entry teams, you should make a conscious effort to be at least a little bit contrarian in at least on roster spot or two. First of all, it’s never fun to be in a single entry contest and to see that you’ve built an ultra chalk team that is duplicated 8 times. Also, you want to find at least one lower owned player that can help vault you up the leaderboard if they payoff. This does not mean that you need to get reckless and completely dump any golfers that are owned by more than 20% of the field, but finding one on your team that is in the 5% range should give you enough wiggle room to work with without compromising on the overall skill of your team. Pricing is really reasonable this week. There are so many good golfers in the field that the middle range is full of incredible options.

Weather

• Dublin Forecast – https://www.windfinder.com/forecast/shawnee_hills_o_shaughnessy

Gusty winds will be in play throughout Thursday and Friday. With a smaller field, there are no waves this week and at this time, I do not see any windows where any golfers would have any advantage. On Thursday, sunshine will be the order of the day with winds around 15 mph with gusts into the low 20 mph range during the day. At this time, the winds look a little worse on Friday with winds around 15-20 mph and gusts in the mid 20s during the time the players will be on the course.

Local Connections

• Jason Day

Key Stats

• Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 25%
• Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
• Birdie or Better Percentage: 15%
• Proximity: 15%
• Driving Accuracy: 10%
• Scrambling: 10%
• Par 5 Scoring: 5%

 

Cash Game Plays

Top Tier

Scottie Scheffler – The charges were dropped for Scottie this past week and while he was never going to face serious trouble from the incident, it would have been an irritating distraction to have hanging over his head all summer. With that behind him, he can get back to crushing everyone on tour each week that he shows up in the field. Prior to the PGA Championship, he had won four of five starts and even the last couple of starts where he was not at his best, he still managed an 8th and 2nd place finish. He has finished 3rd here at Muirfield in his past two starts and considering the similarities to Augusta where he has two wins, it likely will not be long before he wins a couple of times at Jack’s tournament.

Rory McIlroy – Rory is on the verge of an ugly divorce, but considering that it was likely hanging over his head for months until it was announced, maybe now that it is out there, he can relax and enjoy being on the golf course again. The last four starts have seen him win twice, finish 12th at Valhalla and 4th last week in Canada. He ranks 2nd in SGTG and 3rd in SGTOT over the last 16 rounds and his short game is back in solid form. He ranks 1st in my comp course model and he has a lot of quality finishes at this tournament including a 7th place finish last season. It is not a major so there is also some extra possible upside for the week.

Collin Morikawa – Morikawa finally looks like the guy we expected him to be a couple of years ago after winning his second major. While he has been awful with his putter in the final group at The Masters and PGA Championship, his short game has actually been really good in recent starts. He has six straight Top-25 finishes including four Top-10s. He ranks 7th in SGTG and 4th in SGTOT over the last sixteen rounds and ranks 3rd in my comp course model. He won here back in 2020, finished 2nd in 2021 and withdrew last year before the final round when he was only two shots off the lead.

 

Middle Tier

Corey Conners – Conners is back to his classic self after flirting with being elite at moments in recent years. His tee to green game is rock solid and his short game is dreadful. It keeps him from winning, but he has not missed a cut in 15 starts this season and does have seven Top-25s. He finally cracked the Top-10 last week for the first time in 2024 with a 6th place finish up in Canada last week. He has a couple of Top-25 finishes here in his career and his tee to green game on comp courses puts him near the top of the field.

Russell Henley – Henley ranks at the top of the Odds vs Pricing tool this week. He has missed just one cut this season in twelve starts and has five Top-25 finishes in his last seven starts. He has two Top-20 finishes in his last three starts at Muirfield and his tee to green play at comp courses has been very good throughout his career. Henley keeps it in the fairway, is excellent from short to midrange with his irons and has an excellent short game.

Tony Finau – We love Tony on longer courses like this one. He has four Top-15 finishes here in seven starts during his career and he’s enjoyed plenty of success at Augusta and other major courses throughout his career that tend to be on the longer side. He ranks 5th on tour this season in SGAPP and is really good from beyond 150 yards. He ranks 11th in GIR% and 17th in proximity play. He’s missed only one cut in fourteen starts this season and though he has been a little up and down this season, he has four Top-20 finishes in his last six starts. If he can get his putter going, he can contend, but either way, he is a fantastic value play at this salary.

 

Lower Tier

Tom Kim – Kim seems to be playing his way through an early season slump. He has back to back Top-25 finishes and cracked the Top-10 for the first time in 2024 last weekend with a 4th place finish in Canada. Since The Masters, he has made seven straight cuts with five Top-30 finishes. His tee to green game is steadily improving and even though he has played five straight weeks, he is only 21 so it seems like the more he plays, the better he gets, reminiscent of Sungjae’s rookie season or Eric Cole last season.

Sepp Straka – Sepp is one of the more streaky golfers on tour, looking incredible for stretches and then missing the cut for weeks on end. Since finishing 16th at The Players Championship, he has been on a nice run finished 16th at Augusta, 5th at Harbor Town, 8th at Quail Hollow and 5th two weeks ago at Colonial. He has made the cut in 4/5 starts at Muirfield with two Top-20 finishes. His approach game is sharp right now and he is putting the ball well, ranking 13th in SGTOT over the last sixteen rounds among the field. It could all blow up on Straka at any moment, but the cut will not hit a lot of golfers this week so it is a great risk versus reward situation.

Lee Hodges – Here is the likely chalk explosion of the week, but we need some reasonable low dollar plays and Hodges is a compelling case. He has some nice finishes this season at longer courses with a 24th place finish at Riviera, 12th at Bay Hill, 24th at Quail Hollow and 12th at Valhalla. He has three straight Top-25 finishes and finished 12th here last season. He has gained over .56 strokes per round in ten starts on comp courses during his career. He ranks 6th in SGAPP and 14th in SGP over the last twelve rounds.

Taylor Pendrith – Pendrith had some nice finishes in the fall and a couple of Top-10 finishes to start 2024 before stumbling over his next six starts. Since then, he has rallied nicely with five Top-25 finishes in his last six starts including a win at the Byron Nelson. He ranks 11th in the field in SGTOT over the last sixteen rounds. He is also dramatically better with his putter on bentgrass over other surfaces by nearly .35 strokes per round.

 

 

GPP Player Pool

Core

Scottie Scheffler	12500
Rory McIlroy	11100
Collin Morikawa	9800
Justin Thomas	9200
Corey Conners	8500
Russell Henley	8000
Tony Finau	7900
Shane Lowry	7900
Si Woo Kim	7700
Sepp Straka	7500
Lee Hodges	6500

 

Secondary

Byeong Hun An	8400
Tom Kim	7800
Denny McCarthy	7600
Will Zalatoris	7500
Billy Horschel	7400
Brian Harman	7300
Christiaan Bezuidenhout	7300
Kurt Kitayama	7000
Taylor Pendrith	6700
Adam Schenk	6600

 

Tertiary

Keegan Bradley	7700
Ben Griffin	7200
Stephan Jaeger	7100
Mackenzie Hughes	7100
Thomas Detry	6800
Andrew Putnam	6500
Brendon Todd	6200