The Memorial Tournament Picks & Odds

The Memorial Tournament
May 30 – June 2, 2019
Muirfield Village GC – Dublin, OH
The Golf Channel/CBS

The Tiger v. Jack debate received a little boost with Woods’ most recent Green Jacket win but no matter who ends up with more Majors, Jack will always have a claim to golf’s throne. Jack was one of the hardest workers on Tour and he puts just as much effort into his course as his tournament. The PGA makes it annual trip to Jack’s Place this week and few events outside Majors have the draw that The Memorial does. Tiger is a five-time Memorial champion and he is among the betting favorites with Bovada.lv listing him at +1100 to win. Rory McIlroy (+900) and Justin Rose (+1600) lead a strong group of international contenders with Bryson DeChambeau listed at +2800 to defend his 2018 Memorial title. Justin Thomas will make his first start since missing the PGA Championship with a bad wrist. Former champs Hideki Matsuyama and Matt Kuchar are also teeing it up in this star-studded event.

Muirfield Village has been a labor of love for Nicklaus and it is clear that Jack has accomplished his mission of making this course a showcase of what championship golf should be. There isn’t a detail around this 7,400 yard, par-72 layout that hasn’t been signed off on by the Golden Bear himself and Muifield is undergoing near constant change to stay ahead of the game. This layout demands a strong ball-striking skill, making it very similar to Bethpage Black and Colonial. Players that can handle the tee-to-green challenges will see birdie looks and those that are off will struggle. Jack was one of the best around the greens and Muirfield has plenty of tough chances for players that miss the greens. Winning totals are most often in the 12-to-15 under par range and watch that playoff prop bet as four of the last five editions have needed extra holes to name a champion. With so many big names in the field, it can be easy to focus on the top of the board only but guys like David Lingmerth and William McGirt have proven that this is one of the most wide-open events on Tour.

Each week, we take a look at the online betting sites and highlight the best values on the board. We’ll give you a short, middle and long odds pick to win and breakdown a couple of head-to-head matches that you can find at just about any golf betting outlet. Picks and pairings this week come courtesy of the board at Bovada. Here are our picks to win the 2019 Memorial Tournament.

Hideki Matsuyama (22 to 1 odds to win)

The 2014 Memorial champ is still perfect in 2019 with no missed cuts in fourteen starts. Matsuyama had solid weeks at the Genesis, Players and PGA Championship which present similar ball striking challenges to Muirfield. He’s got the pop at over 300 yards per drive and finds enough fairways to enter the week 35th in strokes gained off-the-tee. Hideki is 4th in overall tee-to-green performance and rounds out the stat sheet with a top-10 scrambling rate. There is literally nothing to not like about Matsuyama when he is executing a full swing but the putter has been an issue at times. He is outside the top-125 in strokes gained putting but still does well enough on his greens hit in regulation to net top-30 birdie and scoring marks. Given he is a former Memorial champ, he should have some comfort on these greens and a good putting week should have him in contention again.

Gary Woodland (28 to 1)

Woodland is quietly putting together a big time season with just one missed cut and seven top-10 finishes in fifteen starts. He started the season with a couple of early runner-up finishes and most recently put together a T8 at Bethpage. If he brings his tee-to-green performance from the PGA Championship, he will see success at Muirfield and he can gain an edge on the field by employing his massive drives and 6th best off-the-tee stat. Woodland is also top-10 in overall tee-to-green strokes gained and greens hit while putting well enough to come in 2nd in birdie average. Gary has only missed one Memorial cut since 2012, topping out at T4 in 2016. He has the raw talent to win just about anywhere, including at the Majors so a Memorial win would be a nice start to that phase of his career.

Louis Oosthuizen (50 to 1)

Oosty remains one of the best ball strikers on the planet and while his results haven’t fully shown that this season, he enters as the 20th ranked player in the world and still checks all the boxes for success at Muirfield. Louis hasn’t made the Memorial a frequent stop but he did have a T13 last season that included a Sunday 65 to give an idea of how well suited he is for the course. He is top-50 in both driving distance and fairways hit to enter the week 4th on Tour in total driving. He is a solid scrambler and ranks 4th in strokes gained around the greens. Louis has routinely lost strokes to the field with the putter which drags him down into this longshot territory but his overall putting is more in line with the Tour average so he isn’t poor with the flat stick, just streaky. A hot streak with that putter almost always has him in contention as his ball striking never seems to go on vacation.

Head-to-Head Matches

Picks to win based on predicted score after all four rounds. Check with your favorite online betting site for single round matches and be sure to get the very best odds.

Patrick Cantlay (-130) v. Matt Kuchar (EVEN)
Pick to win: Kuchar

Cantlay has one of the best recent trends on Tour with three top-10 finishes in just the last four weeks but Kuchar isn’t far behind with 12th or better finishes in each of his last four starts. With two wins and two more runners-up, Matt is in the running for player of the year and enters the week ranked 1st in FedEx Cup points. Kuchar is also the 2013 Memorial champ and has finished outside the top-15 here just once since. Cantlay should see success at Muirfield overall based on his 15th ranked off-the-tee performance and 5th best tee-to-green game but Kuchar leads the Tour in greens hit and still outscores Cantlay despite carding fewer birdies on average. Patrick has a clear advantage with driving distance but he will be seeing fewer fairways than his opponent and I would rather have the control game on my side at one of Jack’s courses. The even money for Matt is just gravy in what could be one of the more curious lines of the week. The books don’t miss often but they may have here.

Jason Day (-115) v. Rickie Fowler (-115)
Pick to win: Fowler

Picking this match has a high degree of difficulty with very little separating these two on the stat sheet. Day’s strokes gained off-the-tee should produce a bit of an edge through the week but it is Fowler that has the better scoring average entering play, meaning his is the more efficient player. Efficiency is a good thing to have around challenging layouts. Day has gotten the better of this pairing in two of the last three events where both played but Fowler is 2-1 in the last three Memorials. Rickie has a win and a runner-up this season, Jason has zero of either, so Fowler’s top gear has emerged more often as well. Their work on and around the greens doesn’t appear to be an opportunity for either to gain on the other so this is just a straight forward pick ‘em to a large extent. I’m going to lean on Fowler’s consecutive top-10’s here, including a 2nd place finish in 2017. There is nothing to suggest that Rickie will fall far from that Muirfield trend and that puts Day in a position to be near perfect to win.

Good luck and good golf!