The PGA Tour moves somewhat northernly after a couple of weeks deep in the heart of Texas to the almost pastoral-sounding Dublin, Ohio for the the Memorial Tournament, presented by Nationwide, at the Muirfield Village Golf Club.
Designed by Jack Nicklaus, Muirfield logs in at 7,352 yards with a par of 72 and features the requisite four threes and four fives with the balance of fours averaging 440 yards. In fact, only one four registers under 400 yards with both tees one and 10 offering some monster fours at 470 and 471, respectively, forcing the accuracy and distance targets to start each nine.
As usual I looked to GIR as a prime success target, but past success points to both course knowledge as
well as hitting well with the coming of the warm weather, even though rain is expected on Thursday, accompanied by the golfers’ mortal enemy, wind.
Sign up to play against me at FantasyDraft, a format I really like — they drop the low score from your seven-man roster ($100K cap) for the weekend. For this week, I am simply playing a $1 50/50 with 1,034 slots, so sign up and see if you can beat me! As for my top six picks (remember, at FantasyDraft you pick seven and the low score is dropped), here you go.
Tiger Woods ($15,800): If Tiger is going to grab a win, Muirfield would be the place, with Woods making the cut 15 times over 15 tries in Dublin. Over that span Tiger has five wins and 10 top 10s, and he has made seven cuts over eight tries this year, averaging 111 FPPG, and that I can hang my golf bag on.
Heinrich Stenson ($15,700): Stenson ranks #1 this year hitting greens in regulation, logging in at 74.24%. The Swede has made seven of eight cuts this season and is right behind Tiger with 110 points per contest to go along with four top 10s.
Bubba Watson ($15,300): As much as Bubba struggled over the 2017 tour, he still managed a sixth place finish at Muirfield last year, so let’s go at this in 2018 as a healthy man. Watson also ranks #8 in GIR.
Mark Leishman ($15,200): Wind is anticipated, and no one on the current tour plays that part of Mother Nature better than Leishman. Additionally, Leishman is in the top 10 at scoring birdies and has three top 20 finishes the past three years in Dublin. Add in six cuts made over seven tries and this is a no-brainer.
Emiliano Grillo ($14,700): Grillo is one of those go-to guys for me when scrounging for solid value. His third place finish last week was his fifth top 10, and he leads the universe in distance putts. Ranking #19 at GIR, Grillo is 16-for-16 at making the cut and is averaging 118.2 points per weekend.
Adam Hadwin ($12,500): Again, searching for value, we find Hadwin, who has made all 15 cuts he has tried this season. Hadwin ranks #31 at GIR, has three top 10s, and is averaging 109.13 points per week. Now, if all these guys just hit their point averages, we are gold!
