Memorial Tournament: In-form Griffin backed at 43/1

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Memorial Tournament history

First staged exactly 50 years ago, 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 51^st edition of the event.

Tiger Woods won the event three times in-a-row at the turn of the century and having won the last two editions, the world number one, Scottie Scheffler, will be bidding to emulate him this week. 

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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 2025 - 73.41

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 in 2024, 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. Last year it averaged only 3.18.

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 12:45 UK time.

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Last 10 winners with pre-event Betfair Exchange prices

2025 - Scottie Scheffler -11 4.03/1
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
2016 - William McGirt -15 (playoff) 360.0359/1

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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 36^th for Driving Accuracy and that was fairly typical given neither driving metric is especially important here. He'd ranked 16^th and 26^th for those two metrics when winning in 2024.

Hovland only ranked 20^th for Greens In Regulation in 2023 but Scheffler, in third, ranked first, and he hit more greens than anyone else again when taking the title two years ago, before ranking second for GIR when defending the title last year.

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 two years ago but the top four scramblers for the week all finished inside the top eight and ties and he topped the scrambling rankings 12 months ago. Hovland only ranked 21^st three 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 four years ago, the top-five 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."

Scheffler has only ranked 23^rd and 13^th for Putting Average over the last two years and 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 eight years ago and a decade ago, 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 in 2024 and fourth last year and 12 of the last 20 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

Having won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson by eight strokes and the US PGA Championship by five, before finishing fourth in the Charles Schwab Challenge, Scheffler was in full swing when he arrived at Muirfield 12 months ago but after cutting his hand on Christmas Day, he'd taken a while to get going and his facile victory at the Byron Nelson a month prior had been his first of the year.

He'd performed fairly poorly in Florida earlier in the year as he was still finding his feet after the injury but the previous three winners had 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 before winning here for the first time in 2024, 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 eight winners have been straight out of the top drawer.

All eight 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 seven years but historically, this has been a good event for long-shots.

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.

In addition to Scheffler, 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 10 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 really well here.

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Winner's position and Betfair Exchange price pre-round four

2025 - Scottie Scheffler - led by one 1.392/5
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
2016 - William McGirt - tied for the lead 12.523/2

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In-play tactics

As many as five of the last eight winners have been in front after 54 holes and four of them were clear and trading at long odds-on.

The best player on the planet has been out in front through three rounds in the last two editions, but we still witnessed someone go odds-on and get beat last year.

Having won the Charles Schwab the week before, Ben Griffin was matched at just 1.84/5 when he led here by five strokes after eight holes of his third-round, but he hit the brakes after that, bogeying his next four holes.

Scheffler ended round three in front after Griffin's hiccup and he won the 2024 edition cosily, but we've seen plenty of drama here over the years, with the 2023 edition a great example...

Having been matched at a high of 980.0979/1, 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.

Although we haven't witnessed much over the last couple of years, there's very often plenty of drama here and we've had seven playoffs in the last 13 events so taking on short-priced contenders in running over the weekend is often a worthwhile exercise.  

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In-form Griffin fancied after fine finish on Sunday

The world number one, Scottie Scheffler, has won the last two renewals and Billy Horschel, who was 90.089/1 chance four years ago, is the only outsider to win in the last eight years. That suggests we should concentrate on the top of the market but I like a couple of long-shots here that I'll highlight in the Find Me a 100 Winner column.

Of those trading at less than a three-figure price, Matt Fitzpatrick looks a reasonable price given his wellbeing, and Ben Griffin has hit form at the same time as he did last year.

As highlighted above, Griffin traded at odds-on during round three last year and his defence of his Charles Schwab Challenge title last week was eye-catching.

His 65 on Sunday at Colonial to finish tied for third, and just one shot shy of the playoff, was equalled only by Steven Fisk. Griffin returns to Muirfield Village, where he finished second last year, in fine fettle.

Griffin is no bigger than 33/134.00 on the High Street so the 44.043/1 he currently trades at on the Betfair Exchange is more than fair and I was happy to back him modestly at that price.

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Defending champ fairly priced

It's very hard to work out what to do with the defending champ, Scheffler, but it's difficult to argue a case for taking him on at around the 7/24.50 mark.

From May onwards last year he was an extremely profitable player to follow. Since his American Express victory way back in January, however, he's drawn a blank in each of his last 10 starts this year, although he's finished inside the top four on six occasions.

Since ranking fifth for Putting Average when finishing 12^th in the Genesis Invitational in February, he's ranked 23^rd, 35^th, 40^th, 13^th, 28^th, 55^th and 24^th for PA. It's not hard to pinpoint why he hasn't tasted success since January, but a return to course he loves makes him very difficult to dismiss.

With course form figures reading MC-22-3-3-1-1, Muirfield is clearly a place where he feels at home and, with the US Open now only a couple of weeks away, an event he needs to win to complete the career grand slam, he'll be desperate to return to winning ways.

As highlighted above, Scheffler has only ranked 23^rd and 13^th for PA when winning the last two editions so a mediocre week with the flatstick won't necessarily be a disaster and he's fairly priced at around 4.77/2.

It's very hard to see him not figuring over the weekend and, whether I have a saver before the off or in-running, I suspect I'll be getting him onside at some point.

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