St Jude Classic - 7th - 10th June 2018
The event prior to the second major of the year, the US open, the St Jude Classic finds itself with a good field. Daniel Berger comes here after winning the previous two editions.
The course is TPC Southwind, hosting its 30th edition of the event. It is a par 70 at 7244 yards. The greens are Bermuda and are quite small targets. The iconic par 3 11th hole is similar is stature to the 17th at TPC Sawgrass. Water is in play on 10 holes.
13 Players in total (at the time of writing) will be teeing it up at TPC Southwind who are also heading onto Shinnecock.
There are a number of players who love this course and perform well year after year. The obvious one is Berger, who has a 100% winning record on this course. Another is Mickelson, whose form here reads: 9 - T2 - T3 - T11 - T2. Ben Crane is a past champion of the event who also regularly performs well. Billy Horschel and Harris English are also very competent at TPC Southwind. A mixture of super ball strikers (DJ, Berger, English, Westwood) and short game wizards (Gay, Crane, Toms) make up the past champs here.
The weather forecast for the week looks very good, maybe a little hot. No wind to speak of.
Key Stats
The stats that I have used to inform my picks are as follows:
GIR - The small greens are difficult to hit around Southwind, supreme iron play is required.
Scrambling - Greens will be missed due to their small size, past champions have generally scrambled efficiently on their road to victory.
Par 4 Scoring - particularly with a focus on those in the 450-500 yard range - of which there are eight in total.
Course form - There are a number of players who regularly perform well here. However, I would not rule out a first timer or someone with a so-so record (English won on his first attempt, as did DJ and Berger). I have also factored in similar courses such as El Camaleon, Waialaie, Sea Island and Coco Beach.
Based on these stats I came up with a ranking as follows (Generated using Fantasy Nationals stats database, highly recommended):
From this list I have narrowed down my shortlist to the following:
Brooks Koepka - Previous results at TPC Southwind - 37- 2 - 3 - 19
Brooks is playing incredibly well considering his wrist injury late last year. He has only played 3 events since January. He was close to winning The Fort Worth Invitational, pushing Rose all the way. Following a week off and with the defence of his US Open title looming I feel he will be raring to go this week.
His recent form puts him a the top of most of the key variables this week. For his last 12 rounds he ranks (out of this field) 3rd in scrambling, 23rd in Ball striking, 1st in Par 4 Scoring and 15th in GIR.
His price is short, but he is an elite player in supreme form. At the moment I think he offers much better value than DJ or Stenson.
Odds: 12/1 - Win only 4pts
Russell Knox - Previous results at TPC Southwind - 37 - 8 - MC - 74
Russell’s recent form reads 44 - 20 - 16
His putting isn’t great at the moment but he is giving himself a lot of chances with his red hot iron play. He currently ranks 7th in GIR % on tour and 8th in average proximity.
He also has strong finishes at correlated courses this year - 9th at the OHL Classic and 10th at the Sony Open.
Odds - 66/1 - 1pt each way - 7 places 1/5
Joel Dahmen - Top 20 - Previous results at TPC Southwind - 18 (2017)
I’ll be honest, Dahmen popping up so highly on my stat rankings did surprise me a little, but quite simply his ball striking recently has put him up there.
He has finished in the top 20 in his last three events with impressive ball striking performances.
He also encouraged me with a good showing here last year in his first appearance at TPC Southwind.
He looks a good top 20 bet and small stakes outright.
Odds - 150/1 outright 0.5pts - 6 places each way and 2 pt top 20 @ 6.5/1
Peter Uihlein - Previous results at TPC Southwind - 78 (2017)
Like Koepka, Uihlein is in great form. He finished in the top 5 at Memorial and again at the Wells Fargo with a top 25 at the Byron Nelson in between.
His ball striking right now is quite possibly the best it has been since he switched to playing his golf stateside.
As you can see from the screen grab, his game is in great shape for this course.
He must have an eye on his Ryder Cup ranking also. He needs to improve, and very quickly if he is going to have chance to make the team. This could be a great week to do just that.
In terms of recent form, he ranks 2nd for scrambling, 7th for ball striking, 4th for par 4 performance and 16th in GIR. His final round at Memorial was very impressive, a bogey-free 66.
He surely has the talent to win multiple times on the PGA tour. His victory at the Web.com finals to get his playing rights is an indication of that.
Odds: 40/1 1pt each way - 6 places 1/5 (posted to Twitter when 50/1)
Ben Crane - Previous results at TPC Southwind - 10 - 41 - 37 - 1 - 18
A TPC Southwind specialist. Crane is also coming in with some strong form with an 8th place finish at the Fort Worth Invitational and an 11th in Texas two weeks prior to that.
A very deliberate player (AKA slow) Ben performs well on par 70s when the focus is more on par 4 scoring as opposed to taking on the par 5s.
His putting has returned to a much higher standard this year (top 30 in Strokes gained putting this year as opposed to 100+ last year). He is ranked in the top 20 for par 4 scoring this season.
Odds: 100/1 0.75pts each way 6 places 1/5
Tony Finau - First time at TPC Southwind -
Recent form - 13 - 57 - 21 - 10 - 24
A good week last week for Finau at the Memorial with a good all round showing makes me think he is ready to push on and get his second tour win.
His tee to green game returned to its usual consistency last week. He is also putting better than he normally does, a dangerous combination when you consider this guys power.
He is another guy on the fringes of the US Ryder cup team - currently ranked 17th. A big week here will certainly be a step in the right direction. I definitely feel like the Ryder cup is coming into the thought process now for some of these players - especially when looking at the leaderboard at the Italian Open over the weekend. The likes of Gmac, Pieters, Sullivan, Westwood, Kaymer, Willett and Poulter all rising to the top which leads one to think that they eye on their Ryder cup rankings or impressing enough in the next few months for a captains picks.
28/1 1.5pts each way - 5 places 1/4 (Posted to Twitter when 33/1)
Total staked = 15.5pts













