Hey golf fans!
We never had anyone close in the Colonial, but did cash two winners on Degen Corner in Chisato Iwai and Pontus Nyholm - hoping at least a few of you tailed in those markets. It’s our 3rd LPGA and 2nd Korn Ferry win on the year.
Now we shift to a better field at an awesome course for the PGA Tour. LPGA has their US Open this week and the usual Euro/KFT/Senior Tours are all active. With the weird work week this week, I ended up losing a lot of time - hence you may see some abbreviated portions of the email below.
Let’s get started…
Stats to Value
The Memorial is an event formed around Jack Nicklaus held at a really beautiful course (designed by Jack). The first one was played in 1976 and has taken place the week after Memorial Day since inception.
All the big names will be here this week. Even before the designated paydays, this always had a great turnout. Tiger Woods won the event five different times, a testament to this being one of the stops everyone would love to add to their list of wins.
Nicklaus purchased this land in 1966 after falling in love with the property in Dublin, Ohio, just outside Columbus. He started the build in 1972 and finished in 1974. Jack named it Muirfield Village when he bought it, a nod to Muirfield, Scotland where he had just completed the career grand slam with an Open victory. The goal was to make a challenging course clearly inspired by Augusta National - success.
Muirfield Village is the only course to host a Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, and a Solheim Cup. It can sometimes be tough for a 50 year old course to remain challenging, but Jack updates it in some way every year. It’s his masterpiece and he doesn’t want it to ever slide into a birdie-fest. Unfortunately for Ohioans, this is very much a private course with limited membership.
A lot of Nicklaus designs have similarities - he kind of designed them for his own game. He was a long hitter, so the courses are typically long - also, they favor a left-to-right ball shape, just like Jack had. He believed in creating a situation where accurate approach play was truly difficult, distance just helping you shorten the club in hand. Greens should be challenging and everyone should have to prove their ARG skills.
With the updates, Muirfield Village plays on the major-difficulty side. Only the four Par 5’s play under par each year - we’ll end up valuing Par 5 scoring in models with this in mind. Distance is going to matter outside of these holes too, the course measures out at a long 7550 yards. Finding the fairway is important from an approach point of view, but fairways are somewhat wide and I’ll be valuing distance over accuracy from a driving perspective.
Like many of the hard courses, approach will be where this is won or lost. Driving is a prerequisite to have the chance to attack of course, but it’s a second-shot course like usual. Proximity ranges are somewhat scattered, so I’m actually going to skip including that view this week. I’ll look extra closely at recent approach play and course history. Rough is grown intentionally long, something to consider.
GIR% is about 7% lower than average weeks, likely a mixture of hitting from long rough and long holes. The green size is pretty small as well, a contributing factor. More concerning, the scrambling rate is also way below average. I’ll be valuing ARG and Scrambling stats in models this week in response to these metrics.
Greens are pure Bent grass, another similarity to Augusta. They are known for being difficult with broad sweeping contours. This is likely where course history will matter the most - approaches hit into the correct quadrant can often funnel to a nice putt. I’m going to look at Bent Putting history as my only putting stat this week though; history has shown some bad putters have excelled here in the past, so I don’t want to overweight anything with the short stick.
Kind of charming, kind of weird, but the item this event is most known for is called a Buckeye Milkshake. They started selling them in 1976 and popularity has grown since. I can almost guarantee you will see footage of at least one player drinking a milkshake before or after their round.
The exact recipe is a closely guarded secret, but by most accounts it's just nicer ice cream, peanut butter, and chocolate. It's simple, very midwestern, and who doesn't like a milkshake?
Model Result
Form Fit
Scottie did not win last week, what a loser, but still carries that incredible form. Plus, he won at this course last year - so buckle up because it could be another Scheffler weekend.
Course Fit
Xander has been playing much better lately, appears any injury worries could now be fully in the past. He’s never won at Muirfield Village, but has usually performed well. You can see his entire row is very green - Nicklaus courses have treated him well, won his first major at Valhalla. As the week opened, Xander was on my short list.
Morikawa is just as appealing as Xander on paper, but I still have concerns about his winning problem. I decided early this year to stop betting Morikawa outright and just live with it if he gets off the shnide - this has proven wise so far and I’ll stick with it this week.
Skill Fit
Daniel Berger was one of my top plays last week and completely missed the cut. Muirfield Village is not a better fit for him by any means, so I am likely out on Berger moving forward. Good story as he continues his comeback, but we’re past the part of the schedule that suits his game best, could have missed his window.
Tommy Fleetwood was someone who did not tank last week, just the usual top 10 finish with zero threat of actually winning. He’ll be popular this week, next week, and likely most popular at The US Open after that - I believe you need to decide what to do with him as a ‘batch’ of weeks…meaning if you want to bet him this week, plan to do it each of the next three weeks. I just think he’s tough to predict and all of this stretch of courses will suit him. For me personally, I am out on Tommy outright unless we see a number north of 40/1.
Total Fit
Keeping up with the one-liner bullets of the past few weeks for this part:
Scottie - the best, makes sense to win but unbettable number
Collin - great history, hard to trust outright
Xander - I am starting to make my decision to go here
Cantlay - has won this twice, good before his last time out this year
Hovland - popular play with ball striking back, won here once, on my maybe list
Sepp - love me some Sepp, but prices are a bit short at this point for my taste
Keegan - easy skip for me, though skillset does align nicely
Tommy - great top 20 parlay play, doubtful he can win here
Berger - I am out on Dan, would be shocked to see him win
Si Woo - sneaky good history, good form, should be considered
My Plays
This is likely the smallest card of bets I’ve had this year. Some of that has to do with the short week I think, but we also did not see a ton of matchups available on legal books. Finishing position bets have not been overly kind to me this year, so encourage you to tread lightly on following me in those markets.
Xander Schauffele Outright Winner (17/1) - risk .60u to win 10.20u (Bet365)
Xander Schauffele Top 10 - risk 1u to win 1.50u (MGM)
I was always going to pick one of the guys up top on the oddsboard. Tough for me to trust Morikawa to win and Cantlay I struggle to see as a 3-time winner here. JT was tempting though. I ended up with Xander because I feel like we’ve been seeing his slow ramp up to form happening and we’re now to the spot where I find value on his number. A year ago he was almost half the price of the other names I mentioned above.
Xander topped the chart in Course Fit despite his best finish at Muirfield Village coming last year in the form of an 8th place. His last six years here have seen 5 top 20 finishes in total, so it’s more a thought around ‘steady good’ than ‘spike good’. He’s been good on other Nicklaus courses and is a career plus-putter on Bent.
I’ll rarely bet on him to win outright, the combination of liking the price and believing in his form coming together made this an easier decision though.
Jordan Spieth Outright Winner (55/1) - risk .20u to win 11u (Bet365)
This one is a lot less safe than Xander, but I can squint and see the win equity for Spieth. To begin with, his driving has been crazy good for him - gained OTT in 11 of his last 12 including +4 last week. Guys will need to be playing from the fairway more often than not to have any chance at contention, so I like seeing this form. Irons is where we will need a spike - since February, he has gained 6 or more 3 times and lost 5 or more 3 times. That’s a pretty stark up and down.
If the irons set up enough chances, Bent is Spieth’s career best surface and the fact that these greens get somewhat compared to Augusta should be an encouraging note (always good putting there, gained 5 putting this year). I also have no doubts in his ARG game when needed, specifically from the sand. I would not put anything on his finishing position or matchup plays, but I believe there is win equity beyond the 55/1 price tag.
Tony Finau Outright Winner (55/1) - risk .20u to win 11u (Bet365)
Tony’s been pretty shaky for most of the past year, been seeing him drop down the oddsboard for a while. I’m turning his way this week for similar reasons to Spieth - he’s gained OTT in 9 straight events and is coming off his best APP week of the year at the PGA Championship. Putter has been a glaring issue for him, but I can at least say Bent is his career best surface, so there is hope there.
He’s played well at Memorial, 8th last year, and really well on Nicklaus courses as a whole. The driver needs to be good to set things up, but it’s just like Spieth in hoping for that spike iron week - for both guys, I think there is immense value on them at anything north of 50/1.
Si Woo Kim Top 20 - risk 1u to win 1.10u (Draftkings)
Si Woo narrowly missed cashing the top 20 bet last week, coming back for another taste. The form stayed good and the history at Muirfield is impossible to ignore - 5 straight years he has finished top 20 here, most of those coming in with worse form than he has today. I’d suggest looking around for best odds always, but for sure on this one - I saw prices ranging from -115 to +110. That might seem minor, but shopping for the best price will be the best way to increase your ROI no matter how much you are betting.
Degen Corner
I think the obvious main event this week is the Women’s US Open. I considered betting Ruoning Yin plus a couple long-odds options, then ultimately felt there was more value on Nelly Korda at her current number. Rather than sprinkle something on a 100/1 range person, I am going single-bullet Korda with the chance of an 11x payout.
In Europe, we have the Austria Open, should be a super pretty course and worth checking out early mornings for the visuals if nothing else. Seniors will be back out, taking another shot on Paddy Harrington after a near-win for him last week. Korn Ferry also included below, another chance for me to bet on Pierceson Coody.
Closing Thoughts
The Memorial is one of the better non-majors on the schedule, really a testament to Jack’s involvement with the modern day game. I don’t have any clips to link to, but if you see any replays of his interviews on Monday and Tuesday they are worth a watch. Just a really thoughtful speaker in how he answers questions, think his opinions carry a lot of weight in the larger golfing world. As a proponent of a rollback in some form, I liked how he described the pros and cons of the debate.
By Sunday, I’m hoping we see good finishes in both The Memorial and The Women’s US Open. The latter is being held at Erin Hills, a course that’s also hosted a men’s major. The course schedule on the women’s side for majors is unquestionably more exciting than the men’s side - in terms of historical courses, unique courses, and truly challenging courses, they have it figured out.
The women’s game is not as dramatically impacted by the technological advancements, hence they are able to really consider an infinite amount of varieties in their schedule. If the rollback on the men’s side was thorough, this could be true for both Tours - alas, I expect the incredible money of manufacturing companies to continue to drive the conversation towards fewer restrictions. Money doesn’t talk, it swears.
That will do it this week! If anyone has questions on plays I listed or anything you are considering, you know where to find me. As always, best of luck with all your bets.
Matt / Ziggy
Hey Ziggy, I must have missed something you said, but is there any reason there are no model sheets this week?