RADIO
After 40+ tournaments across six different countries, the 2024 PGA Tour season has finally reached its climax. Just 70 players remain in the race for the season-long title, and only 50 will finish this week with eligibility to move onto Colorado for the playoff semi-finals. One of these lucky players will stand on the 18th green at Eastlake with an $18,000,000 check and the title of FedEx Cup Champion, but despite that date being just 20 days away, the path to glory is just getting started.
FedEx Cup points will be quadrupled over the next two weeks as players jockey for position in Atlanta, which means it really is anyone's game from here on out. A win here in Memphis could catapult you into "favorite" status for the season-long title, but an untimely mistake around these treacherous confines could just as easily spell the end of your 2024 campaign. Strap in, boys and girls - the PGA Tour's biggest prize is up for grabs, and the stars are out in the Home of the Blues!
This piece will serve to break down every key trend and statistic I'm weighing to project a player's viability in the outright market and set our readers up to make the crucial decisions necessary on pre-week betting boards. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting report on TPC Southwind and the 2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship!
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The Golf Course
TPC Southwind - Par 70; 7,243 yards
Past Champions
- 2023 - Lucas Glover (-15) over Patrick Cantlay (playoff)
- 2022 - Will Zalatoris (-15) over Sepp Straka (playoff)
- 2021 - Abraham Ancer (-16) over S. Burns & H. Matsuyama (playoff)
- 2020 - Justin Thomas (-13) over P. Mickelson, T. Lewis, B. Koepka & D. Berger
- 2019 - Brooks Koepka (-16) over Webb Simpson
Southwind by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):
- Average Fairway Width -- 29.2 yards; seventh narrowest on the PGA Tour
- Average Driving Distance -- 289.7 yards; 16th highest on Tour
- Driving Accuracy -- 56.3%; 12th lowest on Tour
- Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.43; fourth highest on Tour
- Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: (-0.003); 16th easiest on Tour
Looking purely at the course specs and part of the country, I’m sure many of you expect me to copy and paste the analysis I gave you last week at Sedgefield (Birdie Making, Wedge Play, Bermuda Putting, etc.). However, although TPC Southwind does seem to fit the mold of your traditional Southeastern Bermudagrass Par 70, I wouldn’t look too deeply into the correlations between the likes of Sedgefield, Sea Island, or Harbour Town.
It’s been twenty-one years since any touring professional has been able to reach the (-20) mark here at Southwind, and with just three holes on property that carry birdie rates over 20%, this is far from the O.K. Corral-esque shootout we’ve become accustomed to in recent months on Tour. What makes this week Memphis so much more perilous than its neighboring counterparts?
First and foremost, TPC Southwind presents these players with far more in the way of peril off-the-tee. Eleven holes on property are guarded by water hazards, and at 0.67 shots per round, only Muirfield Village, TPC Sawgrass, PGA West, PGA National, and TPC Twin Cities have produced more penalty shots since 2015.
Southwind also features the same penal Bermuda rough we saw in Greensboro, plus the seventh-narrowest fairways on the PGA Tour. With a missed fairway penalty of 0.43 shots (sixth highest on Tour), as well as some of the smallest green complexes on the schedule (4300 sq. feet), players who can't consistently find the fairway will be in for a Major Championship-esque grind of scrambling for pars.
Since 2016, over 80% of the Top 10 finishers have rated out above field average in Good Drive Percentage (any drive that hits the fairway or results in a GIR), and each of the last eight winners here has gained on the field in Fairways Hit. I'll absolutely be weighing accuracy over distance this week, and placing a greater emphasis still on players who can provide an elite Total Driving ceiling.
Southwind by the Numbers (Approach):
- Green in Regulation Rate -- 60.2%; 10th lowest on the PGA Tour
- Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: (-0.009); 13th toughest on Tour
- Key Proximity Ranges:
- 150-175 yards (accounts for 25.7% of historical approach shots)
- 175-200 yards (22.0%)
- 125-150 yards (19.0%)
Another key differentiator Southwind holds to many of its Southeastern cousins is in the hole-by-hole yardages -- particularly on the par fours. Eight of the 12 two-shotters this week will measure over 440 yards (compared to just two at Sedgefield last week), and as such, players will not have nearly the same volume of wedge opportunities.
Instead, we’ll be looking primarily at middle iron play, as nearly half of all historical approach shots have come from 150-200 yards, and another 15% have come from 200+. Longer approach shots tend to favor better ball-strikers, and with a past Champions list like Will Zalatoris, Lucas Glover, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and Daniel Berger, it’s clear to me that not only is iron play the most correlative stat to success here at Southwind, but this layout does a very good job at allowing the cream to rise to the top.
Top 5 finishers at Southwind have gained an average of 4.98 shots to the field with their iron play, and since 2016, winners at TPC Southwind have ranked 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 11th, 3rd, 14th, 14th, and 3rd in SG: Approach. Unlike last week, where GIR rates routinely sit in the high 60s-mid 70s for even the field's middling ball-strikers, players will have to string together multiple quality shots to generate birdie opportunities. I'll be looking heavily at players who excel from our key proximity range of 150-200 yards -- provided I believe they've got the prerequisite driving chops to put themselves in position to attack with their second shots.
Southwind by the Numbers (Putting):
- Average Green Size: 4,300 sq. feet
- Agronomy -- Champion Bermudagrass
- Stimpmeter: 12
- 3-Putt Percentage: 2.5% (0.5% below Tour Average)
- Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: (+0.007); sixth easiest on Tour
Moving onto the green complexes themselves, where Southwind begins to loosen its grip ever so slightly. We talked about Champion Bermuda in last week's preview, but the greens here in Memphis lack the same tricky Donald Ross character that can strike fear into the hearts of the best players on the planet. These are also some of the slower Bermuda Greens we tend to see all season, and the lack of severe undulation means that virtually any putt inside 15 feet has a green-light birdie look.
Since 2015, TPC Southwind has ranked as the sixth easiest course on Tour to gain strokes on the greens, so while there is a clear and obvious correlation between putting well and scoring well (as there is every week), I don’t view these greens as a huge separator in ability.
Not only have we seen “bad” putters like Paul Casey, Zalatoris, and Collin Morikawa routinely climb to the top of the Stroke Gained Leaderboard, but players like Thomas (Winner, 2020), Koepka (runner-up, 2020), and Hideki Matsuyama (runner-up, 2021), have proved that you can still contend at this tournament on the back of purely elite tee-to-green play -- losing 1.9, 2.7, and 1.0 shots respectively on the greens over the course of the week.
This is a ball-strikers week above all else, and my statistical formula is as cut and dry as you’ll ever see: 1) Can you keep the ball in play on one of the more treacherous driving courses we’ve seen all season? And 2) Do you possess the upside to lap a top-tier field with your iron play? If history is anything to go on, those two keystones will determine the champion in Memphis this week.
Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):
- Middle-iron play -- specifically looking from 150-200 yards
- General Approach stats (SG: APP, Green in Regulation %, Opportunities Gained)
- Heavy on Elite Total Drivers of the ball this week, but weighing accuracy stats like Good Drive % or Fairways Gained slightly ahead of Distance in the modeling
- Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green
- Recent Performances in difficult scoring conditions
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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod
2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 UnitsTotal Winnings: +311.229 Units
Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36
H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE
— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022
The Sunday Shortlist
Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are two to three names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.
Ludvig Aberg
Debutant Ludvig Aberg is now just 1 shot off the lead after a beauty of a birdie at the 7th🇸🇪#TheMasterspic.twitter.com/QWGZaQrCXy
— Golf On Tap (@OnTapGolf) April 14, 2024
Frankly, I didn't think we'd be coming back to Ludvig so soon after his Sunday collapse in Scotland, but if there's anything this topsy-turvy 2024 has taught me, it's that when in doubt, ignore the narratives and follow the data.
From a ball-striking perspective, there aren't many in this field who can match Ludvig's combination of Total Driving acumen and mid-iron play, as the Swede ranks inside the top five in every single one of my weighted tee-to-green metrics:
- Second in Total Driving
- Fourth in Strokes Gained: Ball-Striking
- Fifth in Birdie Chances Created
- First in Weighted Proximity
- Third in GIR Percentage
Aberg has also proven to be especially proficient on Bermuda grass, recording the three best putting weeks of his entire career at Sea Island, Bay Hill, and Pinehurst and logging his best-ever tee-to-green performance at TPC Sawgrass last March.
There are certainly some recent trends Ludvig will need to kick (particularly on Sunday) if he wants to capture the biggest title of his professional career. But in a year that's seen Xander Schauffele go from "choke artist" to a two-time Major Champion, and 12 different players capture their first ever PGA Tour title, I'm willing to back one of the best prospects we've seen in the last decade to adapt and overcome.
Keep in mind that at just 24 years old and in just 13 months as a professional, Aberg has already captured two titles around the world, logged two points for Team Europe at last fall's Ryder Cup, and finished 2nd and 12th in two of his first three Major Championship starts. Every possible metric points to him as a player destined to become one of the preeminent players in the sport -- don't let the trap of a few bad Sundays turn you away from a dream course fit this week.
Tom Kim
ICYMI: Tom Kim shot an electric 62 yesterday‼️
He co-leads with Adam Hadwin and Lanto Griffin at 15-under
Does Kim defend his Shriner’s Open title?!@NUCLRGOLF
— NUCLR GOLF STATS (@NUCLRGOLFSTATS) October 15, 2023
He came up just short of a coveted medal in last month's Olympic Games, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a player with a more impressive statistical profile over those four days in Paris. Tom Kim gained 7.8 strokes on approach (Second in the field) and 9.76 strokes from tee-to-green (fifth) in an eighth-place finish around the treacherous Le Golf National -- proving once again that when he's well-suited for a layout, he's capable of mixing it up with the best players on the planet.
This week, Tom will get a similar test of precision driving and middle iron play; one he's already proven himself very well-equipped to handle over two appearances. Two years ago, he recorded the best ball-striking week of his young career in a 13th-place finish at Southwind (+8.0), and in 2023, Kim fired an opening-round 64 to thrust himself firmly in the mix for much of the week. A closing 72 did push him down nearly 20 spots on the leaderboard from the start of his final round, but I remain confident that we've seen enough life out of Kim here in Memphis to add it to his rotation of truly prolific course fits.
From Hamilton to River Highlands, TPC Summerlin, and Sedgefield, the 22-year-old has already carved out a distinct niche on the PGA Tour at shorter, positional venues that place a high premium on keeping the ball in the fairway. He's as reliable as you can find in the game from a driving accuracy perspective, and with the run of form he's currently on with his approach play (gained at least 3.5 shots on Approach on five separate occasions since the start of June), he's as primed as anyone in this field to give another go at his fourth PGA Tour title.
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