Week one of two down at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio and Collin Morikawa managed to beat one of the pre-tournament favourites, Justin Thomas, in a three-hole play-off to take the Workday Charity Open.
Now we move onto the Memorial Tournament and its $9.3m purse. The ‘big guns’ are out in force with superstars like DeChambeau, Mcllroy, Johnson, Rahm, Koepka and even Woods teeing up on Thursday, which should make for an excellent four days of golf as we get ever closer to the first Major of the year in August.
Clues from last week
Plenty of players gave themselves chances and a few were just a bit too far off the pace to make a significant challenge on the final day.
Ian Poulter (tipped each way at 100/1) was very consistent across all four days but four bogeys on the final day hampered the card. Patrick Cantlay also put up another good performance at the course finishing on -11 (following his win in the Memorial last year).
Gary Woodland had a bad start (+1) after the first round but then went 68, 66 and 69 and he will be full of confidence going into this week’s event.
Zach Johnson is another who had a mixed bag with a positive round on Thursday & Saturday but needs to go lower across all four to be within a shout come Sunday night.
Adam Hadwin only finished on -5 but rounds of 66 & 68 showed enough that, whilst he doesn’t appear in this week’s Memorial Tournament, he might be one for the notebook moving forward.
Players To Watch
Hideki Matsuyama
Four top 10 finishes this season, and despite opening with a 67 & 68, Matsuyama finished a disappointing T22 at last weekend’s Workday Open. He is 29/1 with Marathonbet but many others in front of him in the market won’t have enjoyed the warm-up he has and a good first day could see his price tumble.
Jason Day
Finished last week on -11 and showed some signs of his old self. That offers encouragement given he has struggled since the return of competition, missing the cut in three of his previous four tournaments & finishing T46 at the Travelers Championship. The Australian has 12 PGA victories to his name and a boost of confidence from last week may be another positive sign of a return to form.
Gary Woodland
The 36-year-old finished T5 alongside Ian Poulter last week. Despite going into the final day of the Charles Schwab Challenge in contention (the first tournament after the break) he fell away to finish 9th, three shots from eventual winner Daniel Berger.
He then finished T62 before missing the cut at the Travelers Championship. The Muirfield course appeared to suit aspects of Woodland’s game last week and he may be the one to side with this week.
2 pts – Hideki Matsuyama 29/1
1 pt E/W – Jason Day 40/1
1pt E/W – Gary Woodland 50/1
Prices correct at time of publication.
