Memorial Tournament: Stick with Scheffler at 3/1

• Scrambling the key stat at Muirfield

• Florida Swing form a huge plus

• Read my Austrian Open preview here

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Tournament History

First staged in 1976, the Memorial Tournament was the brainchild of the 18-time major winner, Jack Nicklaus.

The Memorial Tournament is the seventh of eight Signature Events on the PGA Tour and this will be the 50^th edition of the event.

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Venue

Muirfield Village Golf Club, Dublin Ohio.

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Course Details

Par 72, 7,569 yards
Stroke Average in 2024 - 73.5

Named after his favourite Open Championship venue and set in 240 rolling, wooded acres, Jack Nicklaus designed Muirfield Village himself and he very often tinkers with it. He did so in 2020, before the course hosted back-to-back PGA Tour events, with the Workday Charity Open preceding this event, and again before the 2021 edition, when he claimed it would be the last time that he'd make any significant changes to the layout, but he altered it again before the off last year, changing the tough par three 16^th.

In 2017, 2020 and 2023, the 16^th at Muirfield was the hardest of all par threes played on the PGA Tour in each of those seasons and it averaged 3.36 in 2023 but prior to last year's edition the tee was moved 30 yards to the right of its old position.

That shifted the perspective of the water hazard from front to primarily left of the target. A front bunker was replaced with short grass and the hole was reduced by two yards to a new maximum of 218 yards and it averaged slightly less throughout the week, at 3.25.

Muirfield was built in 1974 on land acquired eight years earlier and it's a strong but fair test. The fairways are fairly generous but the rough, consisting of a blend of Kentucky bluegrass, fescue and rye, is usually pretty penal (up to four inches high) and it always strikes me how lush the whole place looks.
In addition to the Memorial Tournament, Muirfield also hosted the 1987 Ryder Cup, the 1998 Solheim Cup, the Presidents Cup in 2013 and as already mentioned, the once-only staged, Workday Charity Open in 2020.

Water comes into play on 11 holes and the smaller than average bentgrass greens are undulating and usually set at around 13 on the Stimpmeter. 

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Weather Forecast

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TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 16:30 UK time .

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Last Eight Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices

2024 - Scottie Scheffler -8 5.24/1
2023 - Viktor Hovland -7 (playoff) 26.025/1
2022 - Billy Horschel -13 90.089/1
2021 - Patrick Cantlay -13 (playoff) 25.024/1
2020 - Jon Rahm -9 25.024/1
2019 - Patrick Cantlay -19 19.018/1
2018 - Bryson DeChambeau -15 (playoff) 48.047/1
2017 - Jason Dufner -13 80.079/1

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What Will it Take to Win the Memorial Tournament?

Last year's winner, Scottie Scheffler, ranked 16^th for Driving Distance and 24^th for Driving Accuracy and that was fairly typical given neither driving metric is especially important here.

Hovland only ranked 20^th for Greens In Regulation in 2023 but Scheffler, in third, ranked first, and he again hit more greens than anyone else when taking the title 12 months ago.

The four course winners before Hovland ranked sixth, third, first and first, so finding these smaller than average greens is clearly important but getting up-and-down when a dancefloor is missed is just as vital and Scrambling is a key stat here too.

Scheffler only ranked 12^th but the top four scramblers for the week all finished inside the top eight and ties. Hovland only ranked 21^st two years ago but the top-two scramblers, Jordan Spieth and Andrew Putnam, finished tied for fifth.

Billy Horschel topped the Scrambling stats when he won here three years ago, the top-five in in 2021 ranked sixth, second, 19^th, third and first and the first three home in this event in 2020 ranked one, two and three for Scrambling.

After his 2020 success here, Jon Rahm highlighted just how good his short game had been.

"One of the best performances of my life, yesterday (Saturday) was probably one of the best rounds of my life and I finished today with some clutch up-and-downs. And as a Spaniard, I'm kind of glad it happened that way. Every shot counts, and I tried every shot and got those two last up-and-downs, as a true Spaniard would.

"My short game has been unbelievable all week. It's been so good, and I've gotten close to chipping in a couple times. You always hear about people saying champions make it happen, and at that point I made it happen."

The last two winners have ranked 13^th and ninth for Putting Average but we've seen plenty of winners here rank fairly poorly with the flatstick.

Horschel only ranked 43^rd in 2022, Patrick Cantlay ranked 20^th in 2021 and the first three home in this event in 2020 had Putting Average rankings of 17^th, 32^nd and 43^rd. Bryson DeChambeau only ranked 27^th when he won here seven years ago and in 2016, William McGirt managed to win here with a ranking of 55^th!

Hovland and Horschel ranked third for Par 4 Scoring but Scheffler ranked first last year and 12 of the last 19 Memorial winners have ranked first or second for that stat.

That wouldn't be unusual on a par 70 track, with only two par fives, but given Muirfield is a par 72 with four long holes, it's a stat to consider closely this week. 

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Florida Swing form a big pointer?

 

The last three winners have all performed nicely on the Florida Swing a few months before going on to win here.

The 2023 winner, Hovland, had finished 10^th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and third at the Players Championship, the 2022 winner, Horschel, had finished second at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and last year's winner, Scheffler, had won both those two Florian events back-to-back.

They were far from the first Memorial Tournament winners to have played well on the Florida Swing a couple of months earlier and it looks like a great angle in.

Bart Bryant (2005), Carl Pettersson (2006), David Lingmerth (2015), William McGirt (2016) and Jason Dufner (2017), who all went off at huge prices, had all shown up earlier in the year with some decent form before they won here.

All five had bits and pieces of form on the Florida Swing at events like the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Cognizant Classic and the ultra-competitive Players Championship.

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Is There an Identikit Winner?

This used to be a great event for outsiders and first-time winners, but the last seven winners have been straight out of the top drawer.

All seven have won the FedEx Cup, at least one major championship or both.

Horschel, who was matched at 110.0109/1 before the off in 2022, is the only big outsider to win in the last six years but historically, this has been a good event for longshots.

Bart Bryant in 2005 and Carl Pettersson in 2006 were huge outsiders and the five winners before Patrick Cantlay broke his duck here in 2019 ranged from fairly tough to find to almost impossible... 

Jason Dufner was matched at 100.099/1 before the off in 2017 but like the 2014 winner, Hideki Matsuyama, he went off at between 70.069/1 and 80.079/1, but the two in between that pair were huge outsiders, matched at more than 700.0699/1 before the get-go.

Tom Watson, Hale Irwin, Greg Norman, Jack Nicklaus and Patrick Cantlay have all won the tournament twice, Kenny Perry has won it three times and Tiger Woods has claimed the title five times.

Justin Rose came within a whisker of winning it a second time nine years ago and Jon Rahm would have defended the title in 2021 if he hadn't needed to withdraw before round four (led by six) due to a positive Covid test, so past winners do well here. 

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Winner's Position and Exchange Price Pre-Round Four

2024 - Scottie Scheffler - led by four 1.261/4
2023 - Viktor Hovland - tied fourth, trailing by one 10.09/1
2022 - Billy Horschel - led by five 1.558/15
2021 - Patrick Cantlay - tied for the lead 2.588/5
2020 - Jon Rahm led by four 1.341/3
2019 - Patrick Cantlay trailing by four 7.613/2
2018 - Bryson DeChambeau led by one 3.55/2
2017 - Jason Dufner trailing by four 11.521/2

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In-Play Tactics

As many as four of the last seven winners were in front after 54 holes and three of them were clear and trading at long odds-on but this has been a great place to trade on a Sunday and the 2023 edition was no exception.

Having been matched at a high of 980.0979/1, the world number one, Scottie Scheffler, began the final round trailing by five and trading at around 140.0139/1 but he was matched at a low of just 2.3211/8 when he shot an impressive five-under-par 67 that looked like it might be enough.

Si Woo Kim, who began the day tied for the lead, alongside David Lipsky and Rory McIlroy, was matched at 3.02/1, Rory, like Scheffler, hit a low of 2.3211/8 and poor Denny McCarthy, who looked far and away the most likely winner, was matched at 1.182/11.

Rahm was trading at 1.141/7 when he was forced to withdraw in 2021 and Justin Thomas slipped up here having traded even lower than that.

Matched at a low of 1.031/33, the 2020 Workday Open runner-up, Thomas, was matched at less than 1.11/10 on two separate occasions.

There's very often plenty of drama and we've had seven playoffs in the last 12 events here now so taking on short-priced contenders in running on Sunday is often a worthwhile exercise.

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Stick with Scheffler

I'm going to keep things extremely simple here and back the defending champ, Scottie Scheffler.

He was disappointing last week in Texas, where a cold putter over the first two days severely hindered his chances of winning the Charles Schwab Challenge, but he rallied well over the weekend to finish tied for fourth and a successful title defence could well be on the cards here.

He's already won four events twice - the US Masters, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Players Championship and the Phoenix Open - and he successfully defended the title at the last two named.

The world number one has Muirfield figures reading MC-22-3-3-1, current form figures reading 2-4-8-1-1-4, and the stats suggest he's playing even better than he was last summer.

Scottie Scheffler is now averaging more strokes gained approach per round this season (+1.30) on the PGA Tour than last season (+1.27).

-- Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) May 26, 2025

He's ranked first for Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green in each of his last three starts and, while I'm a little concerned that his Scrambling numbers haven't been brilliant over the last few weeks, and that this will be his third start in as many weeks, he's far and away the most likely winner. I was happy to back him at 3/14.00.

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*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter

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