Memorial Tournament: Tiger's back for Muirfield doubleheader

The PGA Tour completes its doubleheader at Muirfield Village with the playing of the Memorial Tournament as Tiger Woods returns for the first time in the restart.

The brainchild of 18-time major winner, Jack Nicklaus, this tournament always attracts a top field and this year is no exception with Adam Scott the only player in the world’s top-ten not heading to Ohio.

World No. 1 Rory McIlroy returns to play for the first time since a T-11 finish at the Travelers Championship while Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Collin Morikawa all seek to defend wins in their last events.

Workday Charity Open recap

Colin Morikawa battled Viktor Hovland and Justin Thomas down the stretch and came out victorious for his second PGA Tour title and his first non-opposite field event win. With that moving up just outside the top 10 in the world ranking.

JT should have wrapped it up but lost a three-shot lead with three holes to go to Colin after bogeying both 16th and 18th.

Even if our pick Hovland could not quite keep up with Morikawa and JT on the back nine on Sunday the full each-way place was never really threatened and as, so we saw a small profit on the week.

Course/Field

Course: Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio
Length: 7,392yards (Par 72)
Greens: Bentgrass
Opened: 1976
Architect: Jack Nicklaus

As previously mentioned, last week’s tournament was played on a course that was set up a little different than what we can expect this week.

Where we should be back to even longer rough, faster greens and some other tee boxes and pin placements than last week.

The par 72 at “Jack`s place” stands out in my mind with 11 holes (seven par 4s and four par 5s) that measure between 444-556 yards and all four of the par 3s measuring between 175-210 yards.

This leads to one of the tournaments each year where mid and long iron play his most valued, after all the greatest iron player of all time has won here 5 times.

As always length is an advantage but with the punitive rough its more important to be straight than long this week but if you got the combination that could lead to a top finish this week.

It is not surprising that the top three places last week came from absolute elite ball strikers.

The greens are smallish bentgrass that are severely undulated, protected by water and bunkers, and has some of lowest up and down numbers on tour.

Here are some of the things I will be looking at/for:

Long irons
Par 5 scoring
Bentgrass putting
Total driving
Par 4 scoring 450-500 yards

2019/20 Season overview:

Wagered: 125,1 units
Won: 189.96 units
Result: + 64.86 units
Outright winners: Hero World Challenge: Henrik Stensson 25-1, Farmers Insurance Open: Marc Leishman 50-1, RBC Heritage: Webb Simpson 29-1

Picks

Tiger Woods
26.00*
1pt EW (1/5 the odds 6-places)

He has won here five times, he is the best iron player of all time and he is priced almost 3 times higher than Bryson and I could stop the argumentation there, but, of course, we have to keep in mind that he hasn’t played a competitive round since February.

So, let us look at what Tiger has done after extended layoffs the last couple of years.

The three times since the start of 2019 where he has had a minimum of 45 days since the last start he has this stat line: 20th – 9th – Win (He also has a 4th at The Hero but that’s only a 20 man field).

It has become more and more clear that Woods back simply can’t handle playing the 15-20 times a year that Tiger has been used to and I think we should be happy if we get to see the Big Cat 8 times a year going forward.

Brooks Koepka
26.00*
1pt EW (1/5 the odds 6-places)

Brooks finally showed some form with a T-7 at Heritage just to have to withdraw the week after because his caddie tested positive for Covid.

Last week saw him struggle in the first round carding a two-over 74, he fought back with a three-under 69 on Friday but ended up missing the cut by a shot.

If we dive into the stats, we see that he gained 2,8 strokes with his approaches on Friday, the most he has gained in a single round all year while the fact that the course is going to be set up even harder this week should also play into the four-time major champion’s strengths.