FedEx St Jude Championship 2024 Best Bets and Outrights
by Bill Christy | by Tyler Doty
FedEx Playoff Betting Tips
The FedEx Playoffs begin this weekend at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee. The Top 70 points leaders will be in the field that will begin play on Thursday afternoon. The Top 50 that remain after that will head to the BMW Championship for the 2nd leg of the playoffs. The defending champion, Lucas Glover, will not be one of those 70s. Viktor Hovland, last year’s FedEx Cup Champion, however, will be.
This course does not benefit the longest of hitters but more importantly, those that can consistently hit good approaches will be rewarded. TPC Southwind has some of the smallest greens on Tour and make it necessary for players to make the most of their scoring opportunities. Hovland is currently in 57th place and needs to make a move here to get his way into the Top 50 to be eligible for the BMW. Other players are already locked into advancing, most notably Scottie Scheffler. One has to wonder the motivation to play their top game or to cruise their way into the next round as a top 50-point getter. We have done our research and have found the following plays that we believe provide the most value and have the best chance of turning a profit this weekend.
Bet on the PGA Tour with BetMGMTournament Matchup Plays
Taylor Moore OVER Nick Taylor (-110 BetMGM)
Taylor Moore finished 5th last year at the St. Jude Championship. The year prior, in his debut at the event, he finished 31st. He had a 12th and 10th place finish over his last 5 tournaments as he came towards the end of this season this year. He faces Nick Taylor in this matchup and he has missed the cut in 3 of his last 6 and his best finish has been 30th which came in France for the Olympics. He also missed the cut here at TPC Southwind in 3 of his last 4 starts for the event. Taylor is 90th on Tour in driving accuracy which is not going to help him much here. On the other hand, Moore is 62nd in putting which he will need to continue to keep hot on these small greens.
Sungjae Im OVER Hideki Matsuyama (-110 BetMGM)
The bronze medal-winning Matsuyama had a nice Olympics after finishing 66th at the Open Championship and missing the cut at the Scottish Open. His biggest issue on the season has been with his flat stick, Matsuyama is 133rd on Tour in putting. It is unlikely that he will be turning that around any time soon. Sungjae has been much more consistent with his putter, he ranks 70th in total putting and 27th overall in total strokes gained. Over his last 5 starts, Im had finished no worse than 12th before his 41st place finish at the Wyndham Championship. We believe the consistency of Sungjae Im will be worth backing in this matchup.
Bet on the PGA Tour with BetMGMTop 20 Finish Plays
Collin Morikawa /Xander Schauffele Parlay (-130 DraftKings)
Collin has top 20 finishes in 10 of his last 12 starts. His 2 misses were a 24th and 23rd place finish. In 13 of the last 15 starts, Xander Schauffele has managed to find his way into the Top 20. Of those, he has made it 8 straight Top 20 finishes. If Scheffler was not having a career year, we would all be talking about Xander’s season and how impressive he has been. Neither of these pros should have an issue sliding into the Top 20 once again here.
Cam Davis (+230 DraftKings)
Cam Davis is certainly a value play at over two to one odds but we do have some statistical backing to this play as well. He has been successful at TPC Southwind. He was 13th in 2022 and grabbed a 6th place finish last season. He did miss the cut at the Wyndham but nabbed a top 20 at the 3M Open and won the Rocket Mortgage. He has been inconsistent but the value is too much to pass up here.
