FedEx St Jude Championship 2025: Course and current form stats

• Precision iron play carries greater emphasis than sheer power

• Straka [33/1] a strong each-way candidate

• Fitzpatrick [28/1] to shine again at St Jude

Tournament and Course Notes

The 19th FedEx Cup Play-Offs begin in Tennessee, with further trips planned for Maryland and Georgia later in the month. The top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings, following last week's Wyndham Championship, have qualified to tee-up in St Jude. Field sizes for the remaining two Play-Off events, at Caves Valley and East Lake, will be 50 and 30 respectively.

The St Jude Championship takes place at TPC Southwind, approximately 20 miles south-east of Memphis city centre. Designed by Ron Prichard, in consultation with two-time major winners Hubert Green and Fuzzy Zoeller, TPC Southwind has staged a PGA Tour event every year since making its debut in 1989.

TPC Southwind, which opened in 1988, is a gently undulating tree-lined course which was built on the site of a former dairy farm. Precision driving and pin-point iron play is the key to success, while water comes into play on 10 holes, the majority of it on the back-nine.

In 2004, the original Bentgrass putting surfaces were switched to Bermuda. During this upgrade they narrowed many of the fairways, planted more than 100 new trees, added 15 bunkers and enlarged three ponds. The average fairway landing areas are 25 yards wide.

More modifications were made to this parkland course in 2020 that included renovating every bunker, while extending the seventh hole by 15 yards, and relocating the third fairway. The greens at TPC Southwind are considerably smaller than the PGA Tour average, which is why the emphasis is more on accuracy than sheer power.

Since last year's tournament, the course has undergone more significant renovation. There has been a total rebuild and resurfacing of all 18 greens, while improvements were made to the irrigation system. These changes began in November 2024, and continued through the first six months of the current year.

TPC Southwind holds the record for most balls hit into the water, of any PGA Tour course. Since ShotLink began recording this data in 2003, more than 6,000 golf shots have ended up in lakes, ponds and streams, making the course even more notorious than the famed TPC Sawgrass which is second on the list.

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Five To Watch

With Rory McIlroy not teeing-up this week, it means Scottie Scheffler 11/43.75 will be the clear favourite when the tournament starts on Thursday.

The world No 1 has not finished lower than eighth in any of his last 11 starts, dating back to mid-March.

It took him a few years to get the hang of Southwind, but he posted a career-best fourth in last year's edition.

Xander Schauffele 14/115.00 seems to be returning to some better form in recent weeks, following a downturn in performances which shouldn't come as a huge surprise.

Following his superb year in 2024, when he won a couple of Majors, the world No 3 experienced a reaction at the start of this season.

However, he wasn't playing particularly badly, just lacking a little inspiration. He now heads to Tennessee on the back of two top-10 finishes in the UK. He tied-second at St Jude 12 months ago.

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A rejuvenated Matt Fitzpatrick 28/129.00 should find TPC Southwind to his liking.

Four straight top-10s, which includes The Open Championship, has moved the Englishman up to 41st in the FedEx Cup standings.

He's also posted three top-six finishes at this week's course, from half-a-dozen visits.

Two other accurate pros to watch out for are Russell Henley 25/126.00 and Sepp Straka 33/134.00.

The 36-year-old Henley is ranked eighth in the PGA Tour stats' category Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, while topping the table for Approaches from 75-to-100 yards.

Straka, meanwhile, is third in Strokes Gained: Total, behind only Scheffler and McIlroy.

The Austrian is also top eight for both Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and Strokes Gained: Approach the Green. And he was runner-up at TPC Southwind in 2022.

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Stroke Averages

Lowest 10 At TPC Southwind (2019-24)
Average .... (Rounds)
67.56: Sam Burns (16)
67.60: Hideki Matsuyama (20)
67.94: Scottie Scheffler (18)
68.00: Lucas Glover (12)
68.10: Collin Morikawa (20)
68.10: Justin Thomas (20)
68.29: Patrick Cantlay (24)
68.30: Tommy Fleetwood (20)
68.30: Russell Henley (10)
68.40: Viktor Hovland (20)
Min. No. of Rounds = 10
Only those entered this week are included in table

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