FedEx St Jude Championship betting tips as Rory McIlroy and Cameron Smith bid for glory at TPC Southwind
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Published 10/08/2022 at 10:40 GMT
Big money is up for grabs this week and the next two, as the top 125 players on the PGA Tour bid for FedEx Cup glory. The top 15 players in the world are teeing it up at TPC Southwind for the FedEx St Jude Championship. Rory McIlroy is the bookmakers' favourite following his near miss in the Open Championship. The winner at St Andrews, Cameron Smith is also in action.
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The 2022 PGA Tour season is entering the home straight with the start of the FedEx Cup play-offs.
As you’d expect with huge money on offer, the big names are out in force with all of the top 15 in the world teeing it up at TPC Southwind.
Whether some of them return in 12 months’ time is up for debate, with the likes of Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman strongly linked with moves to LIV Golf.
Smith said at a press conference that he wants his golf to do the talking, and it will be his first appearance since winning the Open at St Andrews last month.
The Australian will arrive in Memphis with thoughts of settling a score. He led the field after 71 holes in 2021, but ended up in fifth place after hitting a tree with his second shot and seeing his ball find its way into someone’s garden.
Smith was 25/1 to win the Open, but he is around half that price to triumph this week. Given the price and the doubts surrounding Smith due to inactivity and the speculation surrounding his future, we will look elsewhere on this occasion.
Another player we will swerve, extremely reluctantly, is Rory McIlroy. Like Smith, the Irishman has been absent since St Andrews. While Smith has been waking up each day to the sight of the Claret Jug, McIlroy has likely been waking up in cold sweats wondering how another major slipped through his grasp.
McIlroy is the only multiple winner of the FedEx Cup and it would come as no surprise were he to make it a hat-trick of wins at East Lake later in the month. But at 10/1 he is too short a price to tempt us this week.
Smith may have a score to settle with TPC Southwind, and a similar comment applies to Sam Burns.
Burns was beaten in a play-off by Abraham Ancer last time around, and has since gone on to win twice on the PGA Tour at the Valspar Championship and the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Southwind is the sort of course where a score is made through accuracy from fairway to small greens.
Burns is one of the better players on Tour in greens in regulation and at 30/1 he makes decent appeal.
We regularly bang the drum about horses for courses being a decent policy, and that rings true once again.
Only two players in this week’s field have won at Southwind: Harris English and Justin Thomas.
It is Thomas who makes a lot of appeal. He is a serial winner, and has a major title to his name this year after lifting the US PGA Championship.
Thomas romped to victory by three strokes in 2020, and back on home turf he could spark into life after struggling on the Scottish Links.
On Bermuda greens, Thomas can get extremely hot with the putter and everything looks in place for him to spark into life - and at 20/1 he catches the eye.
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