After a very chalky start to the golf season, underdogs have started to bark on the PGA Tour.
Emiliano Grillo won the Charles Schwab Challenge last weekend as a +10000 outsider, and two weeks before that, it was Wyndham Clark who cashed as a +6000 long shot at the Wells Fargo Championship.
Neither came close to matching Kurt Kitayama’s Arnold Palmer Invitational win at 200/1, but it’s been refreshing to see some surprise winners as we head toward the U.S. Open in a couple of weeks.
Even better news is that Muirfield Village has been a happy hunting ground for long shots in recent years.
Five of the last eight winners at the Memorial Tournament have gone off at +4000 or longer (including defending champion Billy Horschel, who was +6000 before Round 1), and two of them (Will McGirt in 2016 and David Lingmerth in 2015) were triple-digit lottery tickets.
So while there’s every chance that we see one of the tournament favorites — Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, or Rory McIlroy — win this weekend, it’s also a good idea to take some chances on some long shots and hope for some magic at Jack’s Place.
2023 the Memorial Tournament picks
Shane Lowry (+5500, FanDuel)
It’s always easy to make a case for betting on Shane Lowry at this number, no matter the strength of the field.
In fact, you could say that the best times to bet on the Irishman are when things look tough.
Lowry’s PGA Tour wins have come at the Open Championship and in a WGC event, while he’s also got a BMW PGA Championship title under his belt, too.
Muirfield Village can play quite tough, and backing one of the game’s best grinders at this number seems a savvy punt.
Cam Davis (+11000, FanDuel)
It’s never a bad idea to buy low on yesterday’s news on the PGA Tour.
Cam Davis was getting plenty of betting support at Colonial last week thanks to a run of form that included three top-10 finishes in five full-field events culminating with a T4 at the PGA Championship.
Still, the Aussie missed the cut at the Charles Schwab, meaning you won’t hear much about him ahead of the Memorial.
That’s good news for value-hunters who can grab a great off-the-tee player who was trending in the right direction and was +3800 to win last week (albeit in a much softer field).
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Ryan Fox (+15000, FanDuel)
It’s been a quietly strong year on a bunch of different continents for Ryan Fox.
The New Zealander posted a T20 at the Dubai Desert Classic at the end of January and followed that up with three more top-20s and strong showings at THE PLAYERS (T27), the Masters (T26), the PGA Championship (T23) and the Charles Schwab Challenge (T21).
Those are not easy tournaments to navigate, which tells us that this challenging course and deep field won’t intimidate Fox.