Daily Fantasy Golf Picks Projections, Picks & Ownership for the Memorial

After a brief stop in Texas, the tour moves back to the Midwest for a stop at Muirfield Village. The venue hosted two events last season but will only host its mainstay event this year with The Memorial Tournament. Muirfield Village is a Jack Nicklaus design that has acted as host for the event since its inception in 1976. Muirfield plays as a longish par 72 that was designed, at least in spirit, to be somewhat similar to Augusta National. It features a short but tricky par 3 over water on the back nine, and its main scoring holes are the four par 5’s, which all offer good birdie opportunities. As always, we’ll be looking for the top-scoring players for our DFS golf lineups so analyzing all of the data is of utmost importance in making the best daily fantasy golf picks for DraftKings and FanDuel.

***Get a SNEAK PEEK with our free premium data, tools and content of the day, the Awesemo Premium PGA DFS Top Golfers Tool.***

Free Expert Tennis Projections With one of tennis' grand slam events ongoing, we've made Awesemo's expert Tennis DFS projections FREE for the entirety of the French Open. These Tennis DFS Projections are generated from 1,000 simulations and data points, using surface-based statistics for each player. Our projections will not only give you expected points for DraftKings, but a statistical projection breakdown that includes sets won, games won, aces and clean sets.

The venue was the second hardest on tour last season with the winner, Jon Rahm, reaching just 9 under par. The greens were allowed to bake out, though, and the rough has grown to big lengths, as the course was renovated directly after. Muirfield will play slightly different this year as a result, although solid iron play and sharpness around the green will still be the most critical aspects of play here. The top two finishers from the last edition of this tournament — Ryan Palmer and Rahm — finished first and second in strokes gained tee to green and bogey avoidance, and both gained over three strokes around the greens.

Muirfield Village Stats and Info

Course plays at 7,543 yards after renovations; greens were “reconstructed,” new tee boxes were introduced, and 140 trees were planted. The course is now 100 yards longer.
Approach and around the green play are likely the most important strokes gained to look at here; since 2018 only one top-five finisher lost strokes around the greens for the week.
Classic championship course that features easier-to-hit fairways (field averages close to 70% driving accuracy some seasons) but harder-to-hit greens, a la Augusta.

Putting Splits

The greens at Muirfield are bentgrass with poa tendencies. They likely won’t play anything close to last year when they became cement-like in the final round. Use caution with these in your fantasy golf picks; they aren’t the be-all, end-all, but they make for a nice tiebreaker.

Negative Bentgrass Putting Splits, Last 50 Rounds

1. Louis Oosthuizen: -1 strokes on bentgrass, +40 strokes on all other surfaces
2. Matthew Fitzpatrick: +7 on bentgrass, +40 on all other surfaces
3. Charley Hoffman: -8 on bentgrass, +19 on all other surfaces
*+ equals total strokes gained | – equals strokes lost

Positive Bentgrass Putting Splits, Last 50 Rounds

1. Jordan Spieth: +41 on bentgrass, +10 on all other surfaces
2. Patrick Cantlay: +31 on bentgrass, +1 on all other surfaces
3. Justin Thomas: +17 on bentgrass, -9 on all other surfaces

Latest PGA DFS Content

Daily Fantasy Golf Picks for DraftKings & FanDuel

Viktor Hovland — Grades: DraftKings A, FanDuel A; Values: DraftKings B, FanDuel A

Hovland has been all over leaderboards in 2021. He started his season off with a win in the fall swing at the Mayakoba Classic, and since then he has added five top-five finishes to his resume. Despite sometimes showing vulnerability around the greens, Hovland still ranks sixth in strokes gained tee to green over the last 50 rounds and has gained over two strokes off the tee and on approach in four of his last eight starts. From a fantasy production standpoint, he has also been one of the most consistent studs to pay up for, ranking fifth in actual DraftKings points gained over the last 50 rounds as well.

Hovland finished 48 at this event last season but finished solo third at the Workday (also played at Muirfield) in 2020. He has the third-best points projection in the Awesemo model this week and has the best value score of anyone $9,500 or more in their salary structure. Despite projecting as the chalk in the ownership projections, his price here is still too low, making him a fine daily fantasy golf pick for the core part of your DFS lineups this week.

The Stats:

Has gained over two strokes on his approaches in seven of his last nine starts; has gained over one stroke putting over that same timespan.
Ranks first in birdies gained and eighth in bogies avoided over the last 50 rounds; finished solo third in one of his two appearances at Muirfield Village (Workday) in 2020.

Projected PGA DFS ownership: DraftKings: 24.9%

Patrick Reed — Grades: DraftKings A, FanDuel A; Values: DraftKings B, FanDuel A

Reed enters this event flying a bit under the radar, as per usual. He missed the cut at Colonial last week — where he lost strokes putting for only the second time in his last 14 starts — but looked sharper at the PGA Championship, where he finished 17. Reed gained over three strokes on his approaches and around the greens at Kiawah, and if he shows up with that kind of this week, he could easily be a factor on what can be one of the tougher stops on tour. Despite having three missed cuts on his docket in 2021, Reed has also proven to be a great upside target when coming off a bad week, as he has produced a win (Farmers) and a sixth (Wells Fargo) after his two previous missed cuts.

In terms of his model status, he ranks ninth in points projections on DraftKings — despite being just the 13th-most expensive player — and carries the second-highest value score of anyone above $9,000 this week. Reed is a good mid-tier target with very palatable ownership projections. He has made the cut at the Memorial in each of his last five appearances at this event (10th in 2020) and is primed for a bounce back here.

The Stats:

Ranks eighth in DraftKings points gained over the last 50 rounds; has eight top-20 finishes on the PGA over his last 14 PGA Tour starts.
Ranks 10th in birdies or better gained over the last 50 rounds and is fifth in strokes gained putting on bentgrass over that same time period.

Projected PGA DFS ownership: DraftKings: 12.5%

Join AWESEMO+ today!

Use accurate data and advanced tools crafted by the #1 DFS player.

Low-Owned PGA DFS GPP Flier

Rickie Fowler

Despite a strong PGA Championship performance, Fowler still doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction with the DFS crowd. He is barely projecting for over 5% ownership this week on Awesemo but carries some of the best course history in the field. Despite missing the cut at this event last season (he was 22nd at the Workday) Fowler ranks eighth in this field in strokes gained at this event over the last five seasons. He finished runner-up here in 2017, an event he likely should have closed, and has three top-15 finishes in the last four years here.

Fowler’s biggest attraction, though, is the spike in play he showed at the PGA Championship where he gained 4.5 strokes on his approaches. The last time he gained more than that on approach at a PGA event was back in 2017 at the Quicken Loans. Despite a slump in performance, Fowler has remained steady around the greens, where he has gained strokes against the field in 11 of the last 12 events. He may not win but sets up as a good daily fantasy golf upside pivot here off what could be an immensely chalky Keegan Bradley — who is available at the same DraftKings price of $8,000.

Projected PGA DFS ownership: DraftKings: 5.1%

DraftKings Top Three Under Five

I am targeting three players here that I ultimately think will end up under (or close) to 5% ownership in bigger DraftKings GPPs. We are searching for boom/bust players here with an almost 100% focus on upside.

Talor Gooch ($7,100)

Gooch had a great week at Colonial, landing himself a 14th while gaining over four strokes on his approaches. He has made eight of his last nine cuts on tour and has gained strokes around the greens in three straight starts. While scrambling can be an issue for him, Gooch has had some good results at tough layouts like TPC Sawgrass this year and finished 17th at the Workday (played at Muirfield) in 2020. He is projecting for under 3% in Awesemo daily fantasy golf ownership projections.

Aaron Wise ($7,000)

Wise is coming in with little sentiment but did put in a strong effort at the PGA Championship when many others fell to the wayside. He finished 17th at Kiawah and gained over two strokes around the greens and on his approaches. With only one missed cut in seven starts, he is starting to flash upside more frequently and makes for a nice GPP target this week.

Charl Schwartzel ($7,400)

Schwartzel was a chalky bust at the PGA Championship, but popularity has yo-yoed back too far in the other direction here. He gained over six strokes on his approaches in the events leading up to the PGA and played well on some tough layouts like Copperhead and Quail Hollow coming in. He is projecting under 3% ownership and has three top-12 finishes at Muirfield in eight career appearances.

Thanks for reading to the end of this article! If you appreciate this free content and want to see more of it every day, you can help us out by sharing this article on social media!