WGC FedEx St Jude Invitational 2021: Form guide for this week's event in Memphis

The PGA Tour makes its annual trip to Tennessee for this week's WGC FedEx St Jude Invitational.

Up until 2018, the tournament was played shortly before the US Open, but was then upgraded to World Golf Championship status and moved to a date later in the schedule.

Host course TPC Southwind has been part of the Tour calendar since 1989 and is a venue where accuracy from tee-to-green holds greater importance than power.

This gently undulating tree-lined course was built on the site of a former dairy farm and opened 33 years ago.

It is a rural location, approximately 12 miles south-east of Memphis city centre, and was given a major facelift 17 years ago.

Back then, the original Bentgrass putting surfaces were switched to Bermuda. They also narrowed many of the fairways, planted more than 100 new trees, added 15 bunkers and enlarged three ponds.

There was another complete revamp of the venue's bunkers ahead of last year's tournament in early August.

The greens at TPC Southwind are smaller than the PGA Tour average, which is one reason why accuracy holds the key to success this week.

Water comes into play on nine holes, with tricky dog-legs a particular feature of this parkland course.

Strong entry

The only big name missing from the starting line-up this week is world No 1 Jon Rahm who missed out on competing at The Olympics because of a second positive Covid-test.

Tournaments at TPC Southwind have been dominated by American pros since 2000.

Only two of the last 22 champions here (Fabian Gomez (2015) and Lee Westwood (2010)) were not home grown.

Latest odds for TPC Southwind

WGC events do tend to be won by golf's elite, and that is unlikely to change this week.

One golfer on the fringes of this category is world No 17 Daniel Berger, a two-time winner at TPC Southwind, and who tied-2nd here last year.

Berger is currently 14th in the category Strokes Gained: Approach the Green, and eighth for Greens in Regulation - so don't be surprised if he enjoys another strong running this weekend.

Also finishing second last year was a 50-year-old Phil Mickelson who just a few months ago became the oldest major champion of all time. Mickelson has stood on the podium at TPC Southwind four times since 2013.

Jordan Spieth, who tees-up for the first time since finishing runner-up at Sandwich, is probably a more realistic winner than Leftie.

Spieth is within touching distance of securing an automatic slot in this year's American Ryder Cup team, and would probably be handed a wild card anyway if he failed to qualify.

Finally, if you do fancy a flutter on one of the non-Americans, then how about Matt Fitzpatrick for an e/w finish?

The Englishman has finished 4th and 6th at Southwind these past two years, and tends to perform his best at venues which require accurate iron play.

Three of his PGA Tour top-10s during 2021 have come at such courses as Riviera (T5), TPC Sawgrass (T9) and Harbour Town (T4).

Course Comparisons (1.1.16 - 31.12.20)

Greens in Regulation (%)
75.98: Sedgefield (Wyndham) (1/29)
61.73: TPC Southwind (FedEx St Jude) (24/29)
58.99: Innisbrook (Valspar Ch`ship) (29/29)

Putting (GiR)
1.664: PGA West (host) (American Express) (1/29)
1.738: TPC Southwind (FedEx St Jude) (10/29)
2.668: Augusta National (Masters) (29/29)

Key: Above stats are for all 29 courses which staged four or more PGA Tour events between January 1st, 2016 and December 31st, 2020. To qualify for a ranking (between 1 & 29), tournaments must have a minimum of 50 players competing over the final two rounds of the event. Averages do not include players who failed to complete at least 54 holes.

Twitter: Andy Swales@GolfStatsAlive

MC* - Missed Additional 54-Hole Cut

Note: List Contains Leading Reserves