2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship Betting Picks, Odds, Course Preview and Prediction
2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship Betting Picks, Odds, Course Preview and Prediction
After a hectic, rain-soaked week in Greensboro, the PGA Tour heads to TPC Southwind this week for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Beginning last year, the field was shortened to just 70 players, and this event no longer features a cut. The tournament has undergone several structural changes of the years. Up until 2018, it was a regular PGA TOUR event, normally attracting a middling field. From 2018 through 2021, the FedEx St. Jude’s was elevated to a WGC event, which yielded a number of strong winners, including Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas. Over the last two years, the tournament has shifted into the role of the FedEx Cup playoff opener, and it has been won by Will Zalatoris and Lucas Glover, who joined a long list of elite iron players to have triumphed at TPC Southwind. The 2024 iteration will once again be the FedEx Cup opener, and the top 50 players in the standings at week's end will advance to the BMW Championship.
2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship DATE, START TIME, AND WHERE TO WATCH
- Date: August 15-18, 2024
- Where: TPC Southwind, Memphis, Tennessee
- Where to Watch: Golf Channel, NBC, Peacock
2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship ODDS
- Winner: Scottie Scheffler (+360), Xander Schauffele (+800), Rory McIlroy (+1000)
Click here for the latest FedEx St. Jude Championship odds
FedEx St. Jude Championship: Course Preview
TPC Southwind
In terms of the actual golf course, TPC Southwind was designed in 1987 by Ron Pritchard with a 2004 PGA Tour re-design. The Pritchard design is a standard par 70, measuring 7,233 yards that features four par threes, all measuring under 210 yards, but none are easy. All historically play over par. The course also features 12 par fours, none of them being overly short or overly long. The shortest par four measures just 395 yards, and eight measure between 430 and 490 yards, which explains why nearly 70% of all approach shots come from between 125 and 200 yards. And that is truly the name of the game. TPC Southwind is a pure middle-iron test that features incredibly benign greens and green-side surrounds. It generally plays middle of the pack in scoring difficulty, but it has been trending on the easier side over the last couple of years at technology improves. Very similar to PGA National or TPC Twin Cities, players must keep the ball in play off the tee, avoiding the sticky Bermuda rough and plentiful water hazards, and get to work with their irons. This is target golf to a tee and a ball-striker's paradise. It should not come as a surprise that elite middle-iron players such as Daniel Berger, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Abraham Ancer, Will Zalatoris, and Lucas Glover have dominated at TPC Southwind, and I expect that trend to continue this week. This week I will be looking for elite overall approach players who can keep the ball in play off the tee and have a strong resume on Southeastern Bermuda tracks.
FedEx St. Jude Championship Key Stats
- Total Accuracy
- Proximity 125-175 yards
- Strokes Gained Ball-Striking: Water Heavy Golf Courses
FedEx St. Jude Championship: Outright Picks
Collin Morikawa (+1200) Click here to see which sportsbook has the best odds
Even after a disappointing performance at the Olympics, I still firmly believe that Collin Morikawa will end the 2024 season with a victory under his belt. The two-time major winner has played some phenomenally consistent golf this year, and even in a 24th-place finish at the Olympics, Morikawa recorded his best iron week of the season, gaining 7.3 strokes on approach. Morikawa has now gained over six strokes on approach in back-to-back weeks at the Open Championship and Olympics, and we are beginning to see vintage Morikawa iron play once again. The 26-year-old has significantly raised his floor in 2024 via some much improved chipping and putting, and he has not finished outside of the top 25 in a tournament since prior to the Masters. Yet the strongest aspect of Morikawa's game, his irons, have not quite been at their typically elite levels this year until the last two weeks. Now he is traveling to another golf course that heavily emphasizes accuracy and middle-iron play. It is not a golf course that requires elite putting or short game skill, and for all of the reasons we loved him at Le Golf National, another water-heavy course with clearly defined hazards, we should love him even more at an Americanized version of this test, where he has finished top-15 in his last two appearances. There is a long history of elite approach players with sub-standard putting (Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Will Zalatoris, Lucas Glover) succeeding at TPC Southwind. Collin Morikawa is the next in line.
Tom Kim +3300 Click here to see which sportsbook has the best odds
Similar to Collin Morikawa, Tom Kim is another incredibly accurate driver in great approach form who has experienced success in the Southeast. Kim is coming off an eighth-place finish at the Olympics where he gained two strokes off the tee and eight strokes on approach, good for his best ball-striking week of the season. Now Kim returns to a golf course that he has finished top-25 at in each of his first two appearances. Kim always ranks top-25 in this field in total driving, driving accuracy, recent approach play, proximity 125-175 yards, and birdie or better percentage. He has also won on another Southeastern Bermuda course in Sedgefield that emphasizes accuracy over distance and middle iron, and I expect his strong run of play to continue in Memphis.
GOLF ODDS
Article Author
Andy Lack is a PGA Tour writer and podcaster from Manhattan, New York. Andy came to OddsChecker in January 2022 after previously writing for Golf Digest, GolfWRX, Rotoballer, and the Score. Andy is also the host of a golf betting and daily fantasy podcast, Inside Golf Podcast, as well as "The Scramble” with Rick Gehman, and a recurring guest on the Pat Mayo Experience. In his free time, Andy is still grinding away at his lifelong dream of qualifying for the U.S. Amateur, and if not writing, can likely be found somewhere on a golf course.