Jason Kokrak impressively captured his second win of the season this past weekend at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Next up on the PGA schedule is the quality field at The Memorial Tournament that rivals some majors. This event will be played at Muirfield Village Golf Club (par 72, 7,543 yards), which was designed by the great Jack Nicklaus. Hence, the nickname, “Jack’s Place.” If you haven’t already, right now is a perfect time to check out Monkey Knife Fight — a new style of PGA fantasy — with the DFS site offering some great contests for The Memorial. Below I break down some of my favorite picks for their featured contests of the week.
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More or Less – Pick More/Less For Each Player | Prize: 2.5x
For this Monkey Knife Fight contest, it’s just like with a prop in that we have to choose if each player will score more or less their fantasy-point line. If you get both correct, you receive a 2.5x return on your buy in. It’s worth noting Monkey Knife Fight’s fantasy golf scoring system is different compared to other DFS sites. No points are awarded for finishing position or streaks, nor do players lose points for bogeys. Their scoring system is simple:
Eagle or Better: 5
Birdie: 3
Par: 1
Rory McIlroy: More than 93.5 fantasy points
Collin Morikawa: More than 93.5 fantasy points
At Muirfield Village, I like both McIlroy and Morikawa to surpass this line. First with McIlroy, the Irishman is coming off an underwhelming 49th place at The PGA Championship. However, we can chalk that up to some poor putting at the Ocean Course. McIlroy ranked eighth worst in strokes-gained putting of any golfers who made the cut at the major. Although, he did rank 27th in strokes gained tee to green and 20th in strokes gained on approach.
In his previous start, McIlroy rejoined the winner’s circle for the first time in nearly two years at The Wells Fargo Championship. Over his last 24 rounds, McIlroy ranks third in strokes gained on par fours that are between 450 to 500 yards in length. Why is this important? Well, seven of the 10 par fours at Muirfield Village are in this range. Not to mention, three of the past four golfers to win The Memorial have finished inside the top five in strokes gained on these holes. McIlroy owns four top-10s in nine career starts at the Memorial. If he can get back on track with the flat stick, beating 93.5 fantasy points should be an easy task.
Last week at the Charles Schwab, Morikawa finished 14th and tallied 104 fantasy points at Colonial Country Club. In his first 10 starts on the new year, Morikawa has posted seven top-20s, including a win at The Workday Open at The Concession. Last season, The Workday Open was hosted at Muirfield Village the week prior to The Memorial, to limit travel during the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. We can’t ignore that Morikawa collected the second PGA win of his career here at Muirfield last year for The Workday.
Morikawa’s 48th place finish the following week at The Memorial obviously isn’t as notable as a win. However, the 24-year-old still ranked fourth in strokes gained tee to green that week. If his putter didn’t implode to a field-worst -8.3 strokes, he very much would have been in contention for his second straight win. Nevertheless, Morikawa is one of the top talents in golf right now and his next PGA victory is coming very soon. Anything less than a top-10 finish would be disappointing for Morikawa this weekend.
More or Less – Pick More/Less For Each Player | Prize: 2.5x
Jon Rahm: More than 16.5 birdies
Justin Thomas: Less than 16.5 birdies
Rahm carded 18 birdies in his win at The Memorial last season. He ranks 15th in birdie or better percentage this season, so this could be a nice fit. In his last start, the Spaniard notched an eighth place at the grueling PGA Championship, giving him his eighth top-10 in only 14 starts this season. No player on the PGA Tour has more top-10s under their belt than Rahm this season. Over his last 10 starts on courses that are home to Bentgrass greens, the defending champion has finished in the top 10 six times and produced two a pair of victories. At +1200, Rahm is the betting favorite to win the Memorial this weekend.
On the other side of this matchup, Thomas heads to Muirfield Village with far less encouraging form. He missed the weekend at The PGA Championship and then finished 40th at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Across these two events, Thomas is amassing less than 1.0 strokes gained tee to green and on approach. Furthermore, he is only recording nine birdies per start and has only found 57.6% of greens in regulation. While Thomas has finished in the top 10 twice at The Memorial, he has also missed three cuts in seven appearances at this tournament. Nothing about Thomas’ recent play suggests he will excel this week. I believe taking the under on this number is the right move.
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