Tiger is back, baby! Tiger Woods will make his first appearance since the PGA Tour took off due to coronavirus. This is also the second straight week we’re at Muirfield Village with the 2020 Memorial Tournament following the Workday Charity Open. The difference between this week and last week is pin placement, rough length, and the field. This is easily the most stacked field we’ve had since the PGA Tour’s return. With a ton of big names to go over, let’s get into some DFS picks on DraftKings.
Why I’m not picking Tiger
We’ve seen players come back from the layover and struggle a bit. Tiger has great course history at Muirfield and has shown he doesn’t need to shake rust off after long breaks. Still, the field is tough and there are a lot of golfers I like in this mid-to-low $9K range. In the event that Woods’ ownership is high-ish in tournaments, I’m fine looking elsewhere. That isn’t to say I’m fading him entirely.
Rory McIlroy ($10,700)
There’s a lot to like about Rory from a leverage standpoint this weekend. Many are saying this tournament will have a “Major” feel to it, sort of like a U.S. Open. Pretty much everyone is talking about everyone other than McIlroy, who didn’t look great in his three appearances after the break. With ownership likely going to Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, Tiger, Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, we should be able to get leverage on McIlroy in high-pop GPPs. It’s not just the leverage too — Rory has three top 15 finishes at Muirfield Village and we know he could easily run away with a win here.
Jon Rahm ($9,300)
Rahm is a similar pick to Rory, plus his price is insanely low. So the thinking here is we can get a bit of leverage on Rahm in GPPs in hopes that he shows up to a tournament with a big-time field. Rahm also didn’t look like himself in the past few tournaments, but it was encouraging to see him shoot a 64 on Sunday at the Workday. Rahm found his irons a bit last weekend, so really all we need out of him is a hot putter. The win equity and leverage will be big in GPPs.
Gary Woodland ($8,600)
Woodland may be chalky, but it can’t be nearly as chalky as last week at Workday, right? Woodland was around 20% owned in GPPs and 30% in cash games. That was in a weaker field at Workday, but again, same course this weekend. Woodland put together a T5 and really could have won last week if he doesn’t get off to a slow start on Thursday. Ownership should be more spread out and not as top heavy this week with Bryson, Tiger and Rory back in the mix. Woodland, like Rahm, is someone we know has winning upside.
Doc Redman ($7,600)
Doc has been money in three starts since the PGA Tour came back, finishing inside the top 21 in each tournament. It feels a lot like Redman is close to breaking out and we know Memorial can be stepping stone for young golfers. We saw Muirfield do that to Collin Morikawa last week with his big win. Redman should go a bit overlooked in this price range next to names like Kevin Streelman, Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth and Marc Leishman. Redman’s irons have been fantastic — over the past five tournaments, Redman is gaining 4.1 strokes on approach, which is nutty.