If you don’t have the patience to wait for all four rounds of a PGA Tour event to conclude to find out if you’ve won your bet, or if you just want to make watching the first round more exciting, than betting on who will be the first-round leader may be the move for you.
You can find my favorite full-tournament outright picks in my betting preview here, but in this article, we’re going to focus on who’s going to be leading after Thursday’s opening round.
Collin Morikawa has been trending in the right direction lately, finishing T4 at the PGA Championship and then solo fourth at the Charles Schwab Challenge where he gained strokes in all four major areas. He struggled through February and March but now it seems like not only are his irons back in form, but his short game has been great as well. He has gained strokes on the greens in four of his last five starts in individual stroke play events.
Morikawa has also had plenty of success at Muirfield Village. He won the Workday Charity Open here in 2020 when the course hosted back-to-back events due to the COVID-19 schedule and then followed it up with a solo second finish here in 2021.
If we’re going to bet on anyone to be the first-round leader, we need to look to see how they have scored in opening rounds this season and Morikawa passes that test with flying colors. Only Scottie Scheffler has a better Round 1 scoring average than Morikawa, who has an average opening round score of 68.08. That’s by far his best average score amongst all four rounds.
He’s averaging a score of 70.50 in Round 2, 69.70 in Round 3, and 71.00 in Round 4. That paints the clear picture that if you want to bet on the 27-year old, the time to do it is on Thursdays.
Pick: Collin Morikawa First Round Leader +1600
Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
We are three rounds into the Memorial Tournament and it looks like Scottie Scheffler is set to return to the winner's circle to capture his fifth win of the 2024 season.
Despite an ultra-rare triply bogey by Scheffler on the ninth hole, the No. 1 ranked golfer in the world still shot one-under par on the day to extend his lead on the field by one. If the live odds are any indication, the three golfers who are tied for second have little hope of catching him on the final day.
If you translate Scheffler's -450 live odds to implied probability, there's an 81.82% chance he wins the Memorial Tournament. Knowing Scheffler, those odds may be too long. It's tough to imagine a scenario where he coughs up his lead on Sunday.
Collin Morikawa (+1000), Sepp Straks (+1800), and Adam Hadwin (+2800) are the three golfers who sit four shots back of Scheffler at six-under par.
Xander Schauffele (+3000) and Ludvig Aberg (+4500) are the only other two golfers who have a remote chance of pulling it off. They both set at four-under par, six shots back from the Masters champion.
If you want to place a live bet on the Memorial Tournament but you don't want to go against Scheffler or lay the -450 juice on him to win, BetMGM is offering odds on "winner without Scheffler". Unless Scheffler lets the tournament slip from his hands, this will be a bet on which golfer finishes second.
If you want to get in on that market, I suggest Hadwin at +550 for a lot of the same reasons why I thought he was worth a sprinkle to win ahead of Round 3.
The Canadian has been showcasing elite ball striking so far this week, ranking third in strokes gained: approach through the first three rounds at +2.34 per round. His putter has caused him to fall behind Scheffler, but at a course like Muirfield Village, I want to take the guy who's had sharper irons than most of the field.
Pick: Hadwin (winner without Scheffler) +550
Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
The PGA Tour heads to Muirfield Village for this week's signature event, the Memorial Tournament. All the best golfers on Tour will tee it up at Muirfield as they prepare for next week's U.S. Open.
Attempting to predict the winner is one thing, but how about predicting the exact final score of the winner along with the exact final score of the top 10 golfers in the field? That's what I'm going to attempt to do in this article.
We've seen a wide range of winning scores at Muirfield Village over the years. Even over the past decade, we've had a winning score as high as -7 like Viktor Hovland last year and as low as -19 like Patrick Cantlay in 2019. That makes it difficult to predict the winning score this time around, but I'm going to guess it'll creep into the double-digits at finish at 11 under par.
Scottie Scheffler (+350) Score Prediction: -11
Do you really want to bet against Scottie Scheffler this week? I certainly don't. The fiasco in Louisville is behind him and now he's coming into this event off a week of rest. Not only that, but he has finished third at this event the last two years he's competed in it. It's time for him to reestablish himself in the winner's circle once again.
Rory McIlroy (+900) Score Prediction: -7
Rory McIlroy only has one top 5 finish at the Memorial Tournament. He's had good results, but nothing crazy. Muirfield Village takes come creativity at times and McIlroy doesn't always have that ability. I expect another good but not great result from him this week.
Xander Schauffele (+900) Score Prediction: -9
Schauffele is another golfer, like McIlroy, who hasn't had great results at Muirfield but it's tough not to expect something special from him this week now that he's fresh off his first major victory. There's a chance that big win got the weight off his shoulders and he may just go on a run and rattle off a few more wins. He has statistically been the second-best golfer on the Tour this season.
Collin Morikawa (+1400) Score Prediction: -10
Morikawa has found his game once again. He found his short game in April and has now found his iron play in May. All signs point to him trending in the right direction and now he returns to a course that he's already won at once in his career. This could be his week but I think he may fall just short.
Viktor Hovland (+1800) Score Prediction: -8
The defending Memorial Tournament champion is returning to Muirfield Village in good form after finishing solo third at the PGA Championship a few weeks ago. Did he find his swing again or was that an anomaly performance? We'll find out more about Hovland's 2024 performance this week.
Ludvig Aberg (+2000) Score Prediction: -1
It might be time to sell a bit of stock in Ludvig Aberg. He missed the cut at the PGA Championship, is battling a nagging knee injury, and now goes to a course that doesn't exactly fit his style of play. I don't think he'll be in contention on the weekend.
Justin Thomas (+2500) Score Prediction: -5
Just like Morikawa and Hovland, Thomas is another golfer who had a tough first half of the season but may have found something after finishing T5, T21 and T8 in his last three starts. He finished runner-up at Muirfield Village in 2020.
Patrick Cantlay (+2800) Score Prediction: +1
Cantlay has won this event twice in his year and it's historically been a great course fit for him, but his game is trending in the wrong direction. He has gone T23, T29 and T53 in his last three starts. I think he's going to finish above par this weekend, but if there is a course where he can turn his game around, it's Muirfield Village.
Hideki Matsuyama (+4000) Score Prediction: E
Matsuyama's peak came in February and March and now he seems to be on a downward spiral, finishing T38 and T35 in his last two starts. Much like Cantlay, he's a past winner of this event but his recent metrics make me think this won't be the week for him.
Jordan Spieth (+4000) Score Prediction: +3
Jordan Spieth has been in horrific form. He hasn't finished 28th or better since the Valero Texas Open in early April. His ball striking is bad, his short game is out of sorts, and he can't hit a putt. I'm all out on Spieth this week.
Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
We are halfway through the 2024 edition of the Memorial Tournament and low and behold, the No. 1 ranked golfer in the world, Scottie Scheffler, has a commanding lead heading into Saturday's Round 3.
He has a three-stroke lead at nine-under par after the second round. Viktor Hovland and Adam Hadwin are tied in second place at six-under par. Keegan Bradley and Christiaan Beuidenhout round out the top five, each at five under par.
If you haven't placed a bet on the event yet or if you want some more action heading into the weekend, you've come to the right place. Let's take a look at the live odds via DraftKings Sportsbook and then I'll break down two golfers you should consider betting on before the leaders tee off on Saturday.
Scottie Scheffler enters the weekend as the -190 favorite, which means he has an implied probability of 65.52% of capturing his fifth win of the 2024 calendar year.
Ludvig Aberg +2000
Ludvig Aberg is a driving and ball-striking machine, but that's been his weakness through the first two rounds. It's his short game that has helped him sit at four-under-par, good for solo sixth place ahead of Saturday's round. He has gained over a stroke per round both around the greens and on the greens so far in this event.
There are questions surrounding the health of his knee, which could be the cause of his ball-striking not being as sharp as we normally see it. If his knee holds up and he starts striking the ball on Saturday and Sunday as well as he can, he's one of the few people in the top 10 who have the firepower to catch Scheffler.
He's five strokes off the lead ahead of Round 3.
Adam Hadwin +2500
Adam Hadwin is T2 ahead of Round 3 but is still available at 25-1. The Canadian is an interesting golfer to handicap because he doesn't have any kind of consistent form, but when he randomly finds his game in a tournament, he contends. To illustrate that point, just consider the fact he has only finished inside the top 30 five times in 2024, but those five finishes were T14, T6, T4, T5, and solo 10th. When his game is on, it's on.
We could be seeing another example of that at the Memorial. He is second to only Scheffler in strokes gained: approach in this tournament, averaging +3.22 strokes per round with his irons heading into the weekend.
Don't underestimate the Canadian. He's worth a sprinkle at his current live odds.
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Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
