WGC Fedex St Jude Invitational Preview

After all the trials and tribulations associated with the return to golf on the PGA Tour, the season is starting to get towards the business end with the first of the post-lockdown World Golf Championships taking place this week at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee. This tournament in particular has griped with many golf fans who lamented the loss of the Bridgestone Invitational at the fantastic Firestone which regularly provided an elite test, only to see it replaced with another standard PGA Tour event being elevated to WGC status. But in golf as with all other sports, money talks, and the tournament formerly known as the St Jude Classic was handed the WGC prefix due to the tour’s reliance on their primary sponsor with this event moving to Fedex’s traditional home. Although TPC Southwind is unlikely to provide the thrills and spills we had come to expect at Firestone, we do at least have a top class field in action with 45 of the world’s top 50 in the world rankings taking up the option to warm up before the year’s first major.

What will it take to win here?

Though this is officially only the second edition of this tournament, we should know a lot about TPC Southwind with it having hosted a regular PGA Tour event every year since 1989 and that normally gives us a very good indicator of what’s required to win here. However, the strength of field we’ll see this year as well as last year is not what we had become accustomed to when looking at this event in the past and it’s fair to say the makeup of the winner has changed significantly in the last decade. It’s a 7,238 yard par 70 designed by Ron Pritchard, and usually plays pretty firm and fast with strong winds often a factor. Looking at last year’s leaderboard shows that different approaches can bear dividends and there’s no hard and fast way to win around TPC Southwind. Here is the list of the last ten winners across both tournaments at this course:

2019 – Brooks Koepka

2018 – Dustin Johnson

2017 – Daniel Berger

2016 – Daniel Berger

2015 – Fabian Gomez

2014 – Ben Crane

2013 – Harris English

2012 – Dustin Johnson

2011 – Harrison Frazar

2010 – Lee Westwood

You could be forgiven for taking one glance at that latest list of victors and thinking this was a bomber’s paradise, with multiple winners Dustin Johnson and Daniel Berger as well as Brooks Koepka and the slightly lesser profile Harrison Frazar regularly ranking highly in the driving distance category but it’s not always been the case here. None of Fabian Gomez, Ben Crane or Harris English are particularly long off the tee but won mainly thanks to some strong iron-play and tidiness around the greens. Brooks Koepka was 5th for the week in strokes gained off the tee last year on his way to a 3 shot victory but second placed Webb Simpson actually lost strokes to the field off the tee but ranked 5th for strokes gained approach, with Marc Leishman, Matt Fitzpatrick and Bubba Watson finishing 2nd, 7th and 8th in the same category on their way to a top 10 finish. Koepka himself finished 11th in that stat and it looks a vital aspect with none of the winners finishing outside 16th in strokes gained approach for the week since that stat has been recorded.

Daniel Berger was a slight outlier in that he didn’t scramble particularly well on his way to his pair of victories but 7 of the previous 10 winners of the old Fedex St Jude classic had been no worse than 7th in that stat. Par 4 scoring will also be key as is usually the case on most par 70s, and there looks to be some correlation with a couple of coastal courses such as Waialae GC and El Camaleon, regular hosts of the Sony Open and Mayakoba Classic. Although neither are geographically close, they do seem to test similar attributes with Fabian Gomez winning the Sony Open and Harris English winning in Mexico, and there are a number of similar cases with players playing well at all three venues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaScX2_r3tg

The Field

Though we are without Tiger Woods, who has chosen to keep himself fresh for the PGA Championship next week, there is a top class limited field in action here with most of the world’s best choosing to prepare for the year’s first major by taking in some competitive action in Memphis. Brooks Koepka comes here off the back of a missed cut at the 3M Open last week as he bids to defend consecutive titles both here and at the PGA last week. Bar a top ten at the RBC Heritage, Koepka has struggled to produce a big performance in the post lockdown period but he has tended to raise his game for the bigger events in the past as he showed in winning the inaugural edition of this tournament last year. Dustin Johnson is also in the field but has strangely shown very little since winning the Travelers Championship two starts ago, with three consecutive rounds of 80 preceding a withdrawl from the 3M Open with a back injury last week. As a two time winner of this event, he clearly has the credentials to go well here again but questions remain over his physical condition.

Bryson DeChambeau’s sparkling return to golf collapsed spectacularly at the Memorial after yet another controversial incident with a rules official eventually led to a 10 at Muirfield Village’s par-5 15th. Conditions will be nothing like as severe as they were there however, and although TPC Southwind has provided a reasonably stern test in the past, wayward tee shots won’t be punished to the same extent as they were at the Memorial. Newly crowned world number one Jon Rahm will also be back in action after his superb performance at the Memorial and should go well again. Rahm finished 7th here last year on his first attempt at the course and has shown remarkable versatility with his ability to adapt to any course and conditions throughout his career, producing the consistent level of performance that has led him to becoming the 3rd youngest player to reach number one in the world.

Last year’s runner up Webb Simpson is also back and can’t be discounted in his current form, while Justin Thomas will be bidding to atone for his narrow miss at the Workday Charity Open and he’s looked ready to return to the winner’s circle for a while now. Tony Finau flattered to deceive when in contention again at the 3M Open last week but has been playing consistently, and eventual winner Michael Thompson also gets in this field having won for the first time in seven years since his last PGA Tour victory at the Honda Classic at PGA National, a venue former back to back winner Daniel Berger has also had good results at. Patrick Reed caught the eye with a late flourish at the Memorial and his scrambling prowess should hold him in good stead here while the English trio of Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick and Matt Wallace all possess the ball-striking credentials needed to contend at TPC Southwind.

Irish Interest

Rory McIlroy tops the billing of Irish interest this week as he builds up to what feels like a hugely important major season. It’s been six years since McIlroy last tasted major glory at Valhalla and no one could have foreseen the drought that would have followed since. For all his career achievements so far his major haul of four has to go down as hugely underwhelming and is something the Northern Irishman is surely keen to put right. For that reason, you’d suspect McIlroy will have more than one eye on the PGA Championship at Harding Park next week, a venue where he claimed the World Matchplay title in 2015 and one that very much fits his style of golf. Having finished 3rd here last year, McIlroy can clearly contend if at his best but it’s not hard to envisage Rory using this week as an opportunity to apply the finishing touches to his game to prepare for the more important stretch that follows.

Though it’s no longer known as the Bridgestone Invitational, this is a spot in the calendar that will hold a special place in the heart of Shane Lowry as it provided him with his breakthrough success in the United States in 2015. Although Lowry missed out on last year having pulled out due to a massive hangover following his Open victory the previous week, Lowry has had one previous go at TPC Southwind in its former guise finishing 30th in 2018. Any forecast wind would be an advantage for the Offaly man and the sharp short game often needed here should help his chances but Lowry has been struggling for form of late with a missed cut at the Memorial the 3rd of the five events he’s played since lockdown. With his family having returned home, Lowry will be determined to make the most of the remaining ten week period he is planning on spending in the US so hopefully he finds something to build on this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsZI_1GSOxU

Graeme McDowell rounds out the Irish in action having also missed the cut at the Memorial, and comes into this week with some question marks having three missed cuts out of four after a turbulent few weeks with coronavirus complications. McDowell gets in this week by virtue of his European Tour victory in Saudi Arabia earlier this year and has played TPC Southwind six times before with mixed results, but does at least have a top ten to his name in 2009. Again, any wind would be a bonus for McDowell who revels in such conditions and his strong iron-play will help this week as he bids to regain some form. With no cut this week, he does have the consolation of knowing he’ll be receiving a cheque on Sunday night at the very least.

Rising Stars

With the nature of this event meaning it’s a reduced field compared to what we usually see, opportunities for those still making their name on the PGA Tour are thin on the ground. There are still a good group of those who are still in the infancy of their PGA Tour career in the field this week with Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Matthew Wolff and Joaquin Niemann amongst those who get in here having already won this season and have all impressed at some point over the past few weeks.

Qualification criteria based on official world golf rankings also gives the chance to those who have performed well on other tours to play in a big event on US soil for the first time and one who fits that mould is young Scot Robert MacIntyre. MacIntyre is making his first start on the PGA tour on mainland America having previously only played in the WGC Mexico Championship, and is making his first anywhere in the world since the Qatar Masters in March. His stellar performance on his first full season on the European Tour saw him soar up the world rankings, and though he’s yet to make a winning breakthrough, a string of good finishes including 6th at the Open in Portrush led to him finishing 11th on the Race to Dubai. Most of his best golf has come in very different conditions to what he’s likely to face this week but he undoubtedly has a big future, and has shown his capabilities in the US on the amateur scene previously when beating future two-time PGA tour winner Cameron Champ 6&4 in the Walker Cup singles in 2017. This is a tough place for MacIntyre to resume his season, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on his performance with regards to the rest of the year ahead.