The Daily Spin – the Memorial

The Daily Spin – the Memorial

RECAP

Ben Griffin took home his first title as a solo player just weeks after winning the team event with Andrew Novak in Louisiana. It was a great win for Griffin who had previously had a couple of close calls and come up short. In fact, he was the bubble boy this year for The Masters, moving just outside of the rankings the week it was solidified. He no longer needs to worry about 2026 after his win at Colonial and is no looking at a likely deep playoff run in the FedEx Cup to end his summer.

Sadly, I did not land on Griffin last week as I paid up for Scottie and had nowhere near enough funds to get back up into the $8k range for any of my other golfers. It was quite frustrating to see Scottie start out so poorly, nearly blowing the cut before rallying back to finish in 4th place. It is amazing to me that even when Scottie does not have his ‘A’ game, he still routinely finishes near the top of the leaderboard. His short game was a disaster on Friday, costing him over four strokes and that was all it took as he lost by, you guess it, four strokes.

The risk of using Scottie in a weaker field like last week is that if he does not get the win, you really have to hope that the rest of your team can hold it together. Unfortunately, you have to take on a lot more risk than normal with your roster construction when you pay $13700 for Scottie so nothing is assured. I did my level best to try to find some cut makers or golfers that were in decent form, but I never really loved the look of my team.

Ryan Gerard did make the cut, but after a nice first round, he was terrible the final three rounds and finished T73. Matt Kuchar gave me what I needed at $6800. He got through the cut and did just enough with his irons in the first two rounds to get to the weekend and pick up those extra key points. Good guy Mark Hubbard was the best of my value plays, sliding in at T28, playing pretty steady golf throughout the weekend.

I got nothing out of Alex Smalley or Sami Valimaki. I liked the rolling numbers that Smalley had going in and his experience at Colonial was promising. Valimaki was the last golfer to get into my lineup. He had missed the cut at Quail Hollow the week prior, but before that, he had a really nice run, making nine straight cuts with four Top-25 finishes in his last six starts. A poor start of 74 on Thursday doomed him as he did play better on Friday, but was way too far back to make a meaningful run.

This is the dilemma when it comes to using Scottie in these weak fields. It is not easy to find golfers you can trust to play around him. Fortunately, this will likely only be an issue for the Dallas/Ft Worth tournaments each year so we have another year before he is in another tournament where the field is so soft.

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. Viktor won it in 2023 as a more established top level player and then Scottie took it home last year as a player who can simply win anywhere at anytime. Par 5 Scoring will 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
• 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 72 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 over the last couple of seasons 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. With Scottie being priced up at $13,300, there are some tricky decisions to be made for the lower dollar value names to pair with him. With Rory inexplicably taking off this week (I thought the whole point of the signature events was to have ALL the top pros here), Scottie will carry even more ownership than he would have otherwise. You could get cute and fade Scottie, but in cash games, he is likely to be 60% owned. On the GPP side, it probably does make sense to fade him and take a shot at a balanced lineup with the hopes that an 8-10k golfer can pull out a win, thus isolating most Scottie owners from carrying the winning golfer on their rosters.

If you do build a Scottie roster on the GPP side, you should definitely try to get contrarian with your deeper value plays. I have a feeling a lot of Scottie lineups will start with him and Cauley and then play around in the lower $7k range for the other golfer. Find a couple of lower owned names down there and give yourself some room to differentiate the rest of the way so that your lineup is not mirrored by so many other owners.

Weather

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

So far, I am not seeing too much on the Thursday weather report that requires our attention. Tee times are not out yet, but with a smaller field, they are generally tighter together so weather waves are not something to focus on. Friday could see rain in the morning with moderate gusty winds that tail off in the afternoon. Once I get a good check on the hourly numbers, I will provide a more thorough update.

Local Connections

• None that I could find. Let me know if I missed anyone

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 – He is the defending champ and finished 3rd in the two starts here prior to that. He has two wins in his last three starts overall and just took down the PGA Championship. I already wrote at length about him above so there is not much more to say. He is at the top of my model, the top of my comp course model, the top of the rolling stats tool in SGTG and SGTOT over the last 16 and 24 rounds. He is the best player in the world and will likely be 50-60% owned in cash games this week. Fade him at your own risk.

Xander Schauffele – Without Rory in the field, Xander is the next man up in pricing at $2400 less than Scottie. He plays well at Muirfield, but for whatever reason, he has not been able to breakthrough and truly contend here. However, Xander is always a threat to win in these smaller field events among the elites of the world as he has had tremendous success throughout his career in similar events, be it the major, other signature event, the former WGC tournaments, FedEx Cup playoffs or Olympics. He finished 8th here a year ago and though the results have not been up to the standards he set a year ago, his game over the last couple of months has not been far off. It is just a matter of time before he is back in the winner’s circle.

Patrick Cantlay – I went back and forth on this spot between Tommy and Cantlay. Tommy is playing better overall than Cantlay this year, but in the end, the upside just is not there compared to a proven winner on tour like Cantlay. While inconsistent this year, Cantlay does have six Top-15 finishes and is a two time champion at this tournament. His short game stinks, but his tee to green game is just fine. He is Corey Conners, but with a little better ball striking and a far superior pedigree and yet Conners will likely have more ownership.

Corey Conners – Speaking of Conners, I do not mind using him this week. He has three Top-25 finishes here in his last five starts and seven Top-20 finishes in his last eight starts this year. He has always excelled off the tee and from mid to long approach range shots. His short game usually keeps him outside of the Top-10, but he does have five this year and most of them were on tough courses in loaded fields. He has not been as terrible as normal this year with his putter which is usually the trend when he is at his best on tour. Whether or not that can hold up for the summer is anyone’s guess, but I love what he brings to the table in terms of tackling a long and difficult course.

 

Middle Tier

Sepp Straka – Straka is having the best season of his career in 2025 though I feel like his three missed cuts this year have all come during weeks when he was a core play for me. Missed cuts aside, he has enjoyed wild success this year with two wins and ten Top-25 finishes. In fact, his worst finish when making the cut this year is 30th. His irons should be the reason he contends again this week. He ranks 2nd on tour in SGAPP, 1st in GIR% and 2nd in PROX play. He is accurate off the tee, is able to avoid trouble on approach and is one of the better putters on tour this year. He finished 16th here two years ago and 5th last season so he has plenty to build on coming into the week.

Si Woo Kim – Si Woooooo is likely to be one of the more popular value plays of the week. He has made the cut here in 8/9 starts with only a 2017 WD showing up as a blemish on his record at Jack’s tournament. His finishes have been strong as well with his last five starts resulting in Top-20 finishes. He enters the week in good form having made the cut in five of his last six starts with four Top-25 finishes, including an 8th place finish two weeks ago at the PGA Championship.

Keegan Bradley – Keegan is my “safe” play in the low $8k range this week. I know that Fitz is getting a lot of steam, but I am not sure I can totally trust that he has turned his game around when Keegan is right here and has played well consistently all season. Bradley is 11/12 making the cut this year with seven Top-25 finish including an 8th place finish two weeks ago at the PGA Championship. This has not been his strongest course in recent years, but I think he is much less of a liability to miss the cut than some of the other flashy plays in this range. I trust his tee to green play as the only thing holding him back at all this year is that pesky putter.

 

Lower Tier

Denny McCarthy – While we are on the subject of putters, why don’t we go 180 degrees in the other direction and use a little Denny McPutts this week? Are you tired of watching Keegan/Conners/Cantlay blow four footers? That will not happen all that often with Denny. Of course, the tradeoff with Denny is that nearly all of those short putts are for par, but when you putt as well as Denny, it can paper over a lot of other mistakes along the way to the green. He has been perfect this season going 13/13 making the cut with seven Top-25s and even a couple of Top-10s for good measure. He also had Top-5 finishes here in 2022 and 2023. Like Keegan and Kim, he also tied for 8th place at the PGA Championship two weeks ago.

Andrew Novak – This might be a little ambitious for cash games, but Novak’s recent form is impressive. He finished 17th or better in five of his last six starts which includes a win at the team event a 3rd place finish at Valero and a 2nd place finish at the RBC Heritage. Outside of a miserable 2nd round at the PGA Championship, he has been playing really well the last couple of months. Among the low $7k range, he stands out in the rolling stat numbers, ranking 9th in SGTG and 12th in SGTOT over the last sixteen rounds.

Bud Cauley – Cauley seems way too cheap this week. He has made 10/11 cuts this season with four Top-10 finishes including a third place finish at Colonial last weekend. Over the last 24 rounds he ranks 15th in SGTG and 5th in SGTOT, not bad for a player in the $6k range of a signature event. He does have some experience here over the years, going 4/5 making the cut from 2016-2020 with two Top-25s, one of which resulted in a 9th place finish in 2019. Cauley is one of the best stories in golf this year and he still has all summer to improve upon his excellent start.

 

GPP Player Pool

Core 

Scottie Scheffler	13300
Xander Schauffele	10900
Patrick Cantlay	9500
Corey Conners	9100
Sepp Straka	8800
Si Woo Kim	8300
Keegan Bradley	8000
Denny McCarthy	7900
Andrew Novak	7100
Bud Cauley	6800

 

Secondary

Tony Finau	8200
Sungjae Im	8100
Sam Burns	7900
JT Poston	7600
J.J. Spaun	7500
Alexander Noren	7400
Adam Scott	7200
Rickie Fowler	7000
Christiaan Bezuidenhout	6900
Matthias Schmid	6400

 

Tertiary

Ben Griffin	7800
Harris English	7800
Robert Macintyre	7700
Taylor Pendrith	7300
Max Greyserman	6700
Sam Stevens	6600