The leaderboard went through every stage on Saturday.
There were moments when it looked like Hideki Matsuyama might run and hide with the lead (wishful thinking). We also went from having all the stars in contention to having none of them in 15 minutes. For a second it looked like some of the final round's appeal would be dampened, but things turned around quickly and should set up a fun Sunday.
Rory McIlroy, Si Woo Kim and David Lipsky hold the overnight lead by one stroke over Viktor Hovland, Wyndham Clark, Mark Hubbard, Lee Hodges and Denny McCarthy. There are also a handful of chasers just a few shots back in Patrick Cantlay, Hideki Matsuyama, Collin Morikawa and Jordan Spieth.
If you haven't already, you can find me on Twitter @TeeOffSports. There, I provide a link to my pre-tournament model, a powerful and interactive data spreadsheet that allows user inputs to create custom golf rankings. That sheet is released every Monday, so be sure to check it out and construct your own numbers from my database of information.
Memorial Tournament DFS
Jordan Spieth
It will be a tough scoring day at Muirfield Village since it seems unlikely Jack Nicklaus just hands the title to the winner without a fight. That marginally increases the finishing position power on DraftKings when you consider not as many birdies will be made.
That note is always something that will naturally amplify the increased popularity when we look at names like McIlroy and Cantlay. I would prefer Cantlay if directly deciding between the two because of his steadier statistical profile for the week. I believe there are a plethora of ways to deploy him and get unique elsewhere. However, I'd still be cognizant of attempting to create leverage in other spots if you want a real shot to take down a larger contest.
I think there is a possibility to go extremely stars-and-scrubs with your builds as we've seen early morning participants find the best success. To me, that is taking shots on options like Thomas Detry or Chez Reavie, golfers who are massively underachieving in various expected output answers in my model.
That is a fun retort to give because it means you can consider two selections in the $6,000 range and still fit in two studs at the top in Jon Rahm and Cantlay, but even that boom-or-bust construction allows consideration of a name like Spieth (at $8,900) as the third stud in your build.
Nine players this week have finished each day without losing more than 0.30 shots with either their driver or approach play. Of those names, only four enter Sunday with a realistic chance of capturing this title.
Spieth has been under the radar for the entire tournament and will likely come in behind Morikawa and Matsuyama for projected ownership. While I like either of those names as options worth looking into because of their backdoor win equity, I will take a swing at Spieth in most builds where I decide to stack the top with a lineup like Rahm/Cantlay.
Byeong Hun An
We continue to see Thomas Detry pop up as one of the more significant underachievers for how he struck the ball. It is always volatile when we talk about a mid-$6,000 golfer who has yet to put the pieces together, but let's move a little up the DraftKings board to $7,400 and talk about Byeong Hun An.
Only nine players this week have finished each day without losing more than 0.30 shots off the tee and approach, though that total shrinks even further when we require the player to gain at least 0.20 strokes to the field. I'll include the entire list below.
An is one of my favorite golfers to consider in DFS because of his high-end potential and it feels like he might be sitting on a big round if he can get hot early on these more receptive greens.
