The Range: The Memorial

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The Range is a course breakdown for the upcoming PGA tournament with a DFS perspective. This week the tour stays in Ohio as the players face off in The Memorial.

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The Basics

Course: Muirfield Village Golf Course
Par: 72
Length: 7,392 yards
Fairways: Bentgrass
Greens: Bentgrass / Poa
Architect: Jack Nicklaus
Past winners: ’19 Cantlay (-19), ’18 DeChambeau (-15), ’17 Dufner (-13), ’16 McGirt (-15) & ’15 Lingmerth (-15)
For a hole by hole breakdown, visit the PGA Tour website here.

Course Breakdown

Last week at the Workday Charity Open, my boy Collin Morikawa took down his second win on tour. The tournament was held at the Muirfield Village Golf Course. This week… it’s at the Muirfield Village Golf Course. For what I believe is the first time in PGA Tour history (at least recently), a tournament will held on the same course, on back to back weeks.

There will only be a few changes from last week and this week for The Memorial. One will be the speed of the greens. Last week they ran at around 11, with this tournament the speed reaching will be 13 on the stimp meter (fast). Also it’s said the grounds crew will be letting the rough become more penal. They’re letting it grow to 4″ where it was only 3″ last week. Other then that the course will play relatively the same.

The Memorial plays pretty average in terms of scoring, with the occasional low score. Last year Cantlay won it at -19 and just last week Morikawa won the tournament at -19 in a playoff against Justin Thomas’ The fairways are relatively easy to hit and while distance can help on a few holes, it’s negated with the setup of the course. While gaining strokes off the tee will help, the approach game is essential.

Bentgrass throughout the course, the greens are no exception. This week the greens’ speed will be ramped up and I believe this makes putting easier, overall on average. While I will still look at golfers who can stroke it with the short stick, it will not be as highly emphasized. Just last week two of the top 10 finished the week losing strokes to the field putting.

Player Fit

The Memorial has several par 4s that fall in the range from 450 – 500 yards. On the flip side the four easiest holes are all par 5 between 500 – 550 yards. While not exactly at 200 yards or less, all four par 3 are between 175 – 200 yards (hole 4 – 206 & hole 16 – 208). On average most of the approach shots come from this 175 – 200 yard range. Looking for golfers that perform well in these areas will be wise to not only scoring birdies but avoiding bogies.

Briefly mentioned up in the course breakdown section, Strokes Gained Ball Striking helps but I want to put a heavier weighting on Strokes Gained Approach. This course, like last week is a second shot course.

Using Fantasy National targeting golfers who do well in setting up themselves up to score birdies will be huge. On top, look at birdie or better and bogey avoidance for golfers who can score well here.

While we want all of our golfers to get up and down if not better with no problems, that’s simply not possible. To help with that though, golfers who do well in Greens In Regulation should be looked at. In case things that go sideways, scrambling will come in handy.

Final Recap of The Memorial

Last week there was a significant advantage to getting to the weekend stacking the PM/AM wave. Look again this week to see if there is a possible wave to take advantage. A stacked field at The Memorial chalk once again has a chance of winning. It will be finding the few diamonds in the rough that put your lineups over the top.

Course Setup
Average scoring
Easy to hit fairways
Bentgrass greens

Player Efficiencies
SG: Ball Striking (Heavier on Approach)
Par 4 Scoring: 450 – 500 yards
Par 5 Scoring: 500 – 550 Yards
Proximity: 175 – 200 Yards
Birdie or Better
Bogey Avoidance
GIR
Scrambling

Thanks for reading and I hope this article is a great starting place for your DFS research for The Memorial. Look out for the Insight Sheet dropping Wednesday. It will include my personal player pool and reasoning why each golfer was chosen. Also Wednesday night you can find me in the Win Daily Discord helping members with their lineups and last-minute questions.