GPP Data Review: FedEx St. Jude Championship

The FedEx Cup Playoffs kicked off with an absolute banger in Memphis for the St. Jude Championship! Justin Rose showed once again how he can find his vintage self when the stage is the brightest, beating J.J. Spaun in a three-hole playoff at TPC Southwind. Rose birdied four holes in a row to tie Spaun’s lead, then finished birdie-birdie in the playoff to take down this year’s U.S. Open champion in dramatic fashion. As much as the win deserves to be celebrated, way more attention falls on Tommy Fleetwood’s shoulders as yet another victory slipped through his hands. Tommy was two clear late into the back nine, which was a bit of a blessing as his ball striking wasn’t nearly to his standard, yet the putter kept him alive. But everything failed him on the final three holes; a brutal par on the easiest hole on the golf course at the par 5 16th, followed by a bogey on 17, and not even a sniff at a birdie attempt to get back to the playoff on 18 left him on the outside yet again. The scar tissue continues to get thicker for Tommy as we all genuinely seem to be rooting for him at this point to get the monkey off his back. I do appreciate how much he wears his emotions on his sleeve. The willingness to talk to the media after the heartbreaks shows the hurt he has but also the positive mindset he seems to be taking to the next tournament, too. Let’s hope it’s soon for Tommy Lad.

The St. Jude Championship was also the last 70-golfer, limited-field event for 2025, and with this setup making up roughly one-third of the PGA Tour calendar at this point, it felt like a great time to circle back on lineup construction in these events. Whether there’s a small cut or not, I think we can lump all these signature and FedEx Cup Playoff events (even the BMW Championship I’d say, which does have just 50 golfers this week) together. Looking through the field by contest size can give us guidance on how to prep for these in 2026. I pulled data from the top five contests on DraftKings this past week, which gives us a variety of sizes, max number of lineups, and entry fees to get a good grasp of how the field approaches each of these styles. Let’s kick it off with the Drive The Green:

If I’m breaking down three factors of how to digest these contests, it comes down to what we can control pre-flop in our building process. Those that are most controllable for us are Salary Used, Projected Ownership, and Projected Points. All are settings that we can adjust in The Solver and can easily digest on the outcome of the lineups if we would like any cutoffs. What I felt was very important was to compare those three factors against lineups that ended up being unique in that specific contest, as I would say the goal of my lineup construction is to build the best possible unique lineups. Being duplicated simply cuts your EV in half, if not more, but also I’m not looking to force crazy parameters to get there.