Large-Field GPP Breakdown: Memorial Tournament

Winning seems to be in the water here at ETR right now, doesn’t it? Shout-out to everyone’s favorite ball knower, Sky, for taking down the $100K-to-first contest on FanDuel. I fully expect him to book us a baller AirBnB for the Travelers in June, where I would like to remind everyone that he will be dressed as Payne Stewart in the DK Sky Box on Sunday. We of course will be getting footage throughout the day, and who knows, maybe a few other subs will be on the grounds. But before we get to the Travelers, we have one of my favorite tournaments of the year in the Memorial Tournament coming up this week. Now, the event has lost a little bit of its luster because of the removal of a full field and a pretty soft cut, but at the very least we know that we’re getting the absolute best players in the world playing on one of the best courses in the world. I’ll quickly go through the week that was as I always do before talking about the upcoming slate.

Charles Schwab – Recap

I went into the Charles Schwab hoping to continue the momentum from the PGA Championship, but unfortunately, it wasn’t the most successful week for me from a classic perspective. My fade of Scottie Scheffler actually turned out pretty positive in my favor, as I was able to really disperse my ownership amongst guys like Tommy Fleetwood, Robert Macintyre, and Hideki Matsuyama. While that doesn’t seem like a win at first glance, the fact of the matter was that you could not play Scheffler with Fleetwood, for example, while also playing a guy like Ben Griffin. People often ask “what place does Scheffler need to get to pay off his tag?” in tournaments like this. The answer to that is more complicated than just a finishing position. Scottie obviously finished in the top five, but the fact of the matter is that Fleetwood matched his score at basically $3K cheaper. That is a HUGE difference between the two, and one that made winning lineups with Scheffler in large-field contests few and far between.

Let’s take a look at the winning lineup in the lottery:

• It actually did not have EITHER Fleetwood or Scheffler! This lineup was a 9/8/8/8/7/7 balanced build, which was extremely unique given the condensation of Scheffler ownership. Even in non-Scheffler lineups, many chose to start with Fleetwood, Jordan Spieth, or someone else in the $9K range that wasn’t named Robert Macintyre. I personally wasn’t a HUGE fan of the $8K range, but because of my Scheffler stance, I was naturally overweight on many of these players. 
• The lineup came in with a ~48% cumulative ownership, just under the 50-70% range that I was targeting in non-Scottie lineups in particular. If you didn’t play Scheffler up top, you simply could not get enough cumulative ownership to even come close to the normal 80% maximum that we traditionally see. This is what makes Scottie slates so interesting to me, because you are basically forced into a 50/50 choice of whether or not you want to play the best player in the world, and likely winner.

The Memorial Tournament – Preview

Luckily for us, this week we won’t be getting Scottie as a heavy favorite. We will be getting another signature event here at the Memorial, and I’ve honestly lost track of the amount of signature events we’ve had already this year. The Memorial, as many golf fans know, has a long history on the PGA Tour and is generally known as one of the most iconic tournaments on the PGA Tour circuit year in and year out. Played at the historic Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, the Jack Nicklaus-designed course should provide the field their last and toughest challenge before the U.S. Open in a couple of weeks. One of the best things about Muirfield Village is that it really has withstood the test of time and has not become a birdie fest like some of the “historic courses” that we’ve come to know and love. I’m looking at you, Kapalua. Here are the last five winners of the Memorial Tournament and their scores. 

• 2024: Scottie Scheffler (-8) def. Collin Morikawa by one stroke

• 2023: Viktor Hovland (-7) def. Denny McCarthy in a playoff

• 2022: Billy Horschel (-13) def. Aaron Wise by four strokes

• 2021: Patrick Cantlay (-13) def. Collin Morikawa in a playoff

• 2020: Jon Rahm (-9) def. Ryan Palmer by three strokes