
St Jude Championship Tips: Back Jon Rahm in Memphis

After a stunning 90/1 winner last week along with a place at 75/1, our man Jamie Broadhurst returns with his best bets for the St Jude Championship.
What a week we have had at the Wyndham Championship! A 90/1 winner for last week’s preview with Lucas Glover and a tied 7th place finish for 75/1 tip Brendan Todd. 10 pts staked as always last week, and it returned a huge 105pts – 95pts profit in total.
A great week to finish the 22/23 PGA Tour season after a somewhat frustrating one in terms of the winner’s column for sure.
Let’s hope for more of the same this week at the first of the playoff events!
FedEx St. Jude Championship
Replacing The Northern Trust last season on the PGA Tour schedule, the St. Jude Champs now becomes the first FedEx cup play-off event. Up until this year on Tour, the top 125 guys in the FedEx cup standings went through to this first event of the playoffs, however, this year it has been changed to the top 70 in the standings.
What is the aim for the guys this week? Contend for the win obviously. Whilst also securing their place in the top 50 in the FedEx in order to get their place into the BMW Championship next week which marks the second of three playoff events. This means again we are on the watch for guys in and around the 50th position in the rankings. They are as follows;
46th Tom Hoge
47th Mackenzie Hughes
48th Cameron Young
49th Lucas Glover
50th Nick Hardy
51st Alex Smalley
52nd Thomas Detry
53rd Taylor Montgomery
54th Davis Riley
Just 129 FedEx points splits the difference between 46th and 54th which could be the equivalent of a single position on this week’s leaderboard or a crucial birdie or eagle at the right time. But we will see how it pans out!
TPC Southwind
- Par 70, 7240 yards approx.
- Bermuda Greens, Bermuda rough
- Ron Prichard design
- four x Par 3s – ranging from 162-196 yards
- 12 x Par 4s – ranging from 395-505 yards, eight of these over 450 yards
- two x Par 5s – 530 and 579 yards
- Water in play on 11/12 holes
- Narrow, tricky to navigate Zoysia grass fairways
- Thick/penal Bermuda Rough
- Lightening quick Bermuda grass greens to contend with on smaller than average greens
Something different this week, let’s have a look into the course, how it will set up for the guys this week and finally, what stats we will take into consideration this week when building our card.
A mid length course on the eye, that will probably produce a winning score of between -15 and -20, however, miss the course in the wrong areas and Southwind is a brute to conquer.
Off the tee, firstly players often will be presented with large water complexes to avoid fairways, so the likelihood of a ball rolling off the short grass into the water remains high. Avoiding these and hitting the fairways in the right players to bounce and run on in the formidable heat/dry conditions is critical for the players this week. – Strokes Gained: Off the Tee
Tying in with the above, missing the thick Bermuda Rough more times than not will be crucial in terms of gaining birdie opportunities. – Driving Accuracy
Holding these greens in regulation will be a test for the players, especially as the week goes on and the course dries up. As I said above – the course will still yield a shed of birdies this week so maximizing that chance will be key – Greens in Regulation/Strokes Gained: Approach
It has been said the Bermuda greens run true to their line and do not ‘bobble’ as such, meaning that the most average of putters have the best chance of catching fire on these greens, prime example was Abe Ancer here in 2021. However, I have a different theory. Looking into how the players perform generally on Bermuda greens is going to be factored in this week by myself. Currently, on Tour we only see Champion Bermuda greens three or four times, getting a guy that has done well on them here in the past or elsewhere on Tour will be critical. – Strokes Gained: Putting (Bermuda)/Course History
And finally, just like last week, the Par fours take up two thirds of the course and are clearly one of the main defenses to this course, with eight of them measuring over 450 yards. Finding a guy that knows how to navigate these longer Par 4s will be a key stat once again this week. – Par four scoring/efficiency over 450 yards.
Past 5 winners of the St. Jude Championship/Northern Trust
2022 – Will Zalatoris -15 (TPC Southwind)
2021 – Tony Finau (Liberty National)
2020 – Dustin Johnson -30 (TPC Boston)
2019 – Patrick Reed -16 (Liberty National)
2018 – Bryson DeChambeau (Ridgewood)
There have also been three renewals of the WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational here at Southwind in 2021, 2020 and 2019, winners are listed below;
2021 – Abe Ancer -16
2020 – Justin Thomas -13
2019 – Brooks Koepka -16
As you can see, the St. Jude Championship (or The Northern Trust as it was known as before 2022), only came to TPC Southwind from last year and prior to that the course held a World Golf Championship for three years.
The stats below are the average stats for all of the above eight winners combined;
Strokes Gained: Off the Tee - 8th
Driving Accuracy - 16th
Strokes Gained: Tee2Green – 4th
Strokes Gained: Approach - 8th
Proximity to the Hole - 17th
Scrambling - 8th
Strokes Gained: Putting – 25th
This week’s Field / Odds
World Number One and FedEx Cup Number Two Scottie Scheffler is the market favourite at 15/2. Scottie broke a streak at the Open Championship of going seven tournaments in a row where he finished in the top-five each time, a tied 23rd finish at the Open however is nothing to be ashamed of. A hell of a consistent year for Scottie which has included two big wins at the Phoenix Open and The PLAYERS Championship. He would have easily won a few more times within the last two months, as he has been streets clear of the fields with his Tee2Green and Approach play. However his putter has been cold for ages, but if it warms up for these playoffs, the others are certainly in trouble.
World Number two and FedEx Cup Number three Rory McIlroy comes next in the market at 17/2. Apart from his victory at The CJ Cup on his first start of the season on the PGA Tour in October last year, it was a lackluster season for McIlroy which included the first Major of the year up until the end of May. Since the PGA Championship, he has not finished outside the top-10 in all seven starts on the PGA Tour, including a win at the Scottish Open. His game has been firing on all cylinders and wouldn’t surprise me if he put a good shift in again here this week at a course, where he has had six starts at - only missing the cut once at.
The third and final player at single digits in the market this week is World Number Three and FedEx Cup leader Jon Rahm at 9/1. He had a blistering start to the PGA season where he won three times in seven starts. Since then he has seemed to go off the boil somewhat for his standards, until he showed up at The Open Championship last month and finished in a tie for second, looking like the old Jon for sure. His Strokes Gained stats for the season are stunning, with his Greens in Regulation and Approach play being the highlights where he lies 3rd for both areas. He would be the pick of the three at the top end of the market this week for me.
Due to the strength and depth of the field, we then have eleven players between Jon Rahm and the 30/1 mark in the market. Rickie Fowler at 25/1 for me just scrapes it out of this group, a winner recently at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and his wedges have been incredible this season, I will be very interested in Rickie come the end of the article that’s for sure!
What comes with a strong field is value and we certainly have some this week for sure outside the top 15 in the market, I like J.T Poston 45/1, Sepp Straka at 60/1, Cam Davis at 70/1 and Brandon Wu at a massive 225/1.
St Jude Championship Tips
Jon Rahm 19/2 (Enhanced Win market) – 4pts
Recent Form – 2-MC-10-16-50
Course Form – 5-52-7
No real introduction for this one needed for the World Number 3 and the current leader of the FedEx Cup. Jon is a beast on the course when his confidence is high, and he will be full of it coming off his 2nd place finish at The Open Championship and a 10th place finish at the U.S Open before that. He is first for Proximity from the fairway, 3rd for Strokes Gained: Tee2Green this season and 3rd for Approach makes great reading for Southwind combined with 10th for Total Driving this year which averages together Driving Distance and Accuracy. A couple of solid top-10s here at Southwind also make great reading, I think this is a great price for Jon this week.
Sam Burns 40/1 – 1pt e/w
Recent Form – 14-MC-19-32-16
Course Form – 20-2-MC
The winner of the WGC Match Play comes next on the card. Sam has had an up and down year fluttered with missed cuts but also some very good finishes, so his form has been hard to predict. However, that's why you are getting such a good price on Sam this week. He has seemed to have found some form of late, with 14th last week at the Wyndham. A missed cut on the number at The Open before then, but then was 19th at The Scottish Open the week prior. This isn’t bad reading to go alongside two or three decent finishes here at the course in the past. He is the 5th best putter in the field this week for Strokes Gained and ranks 29th for Strokes Gained total this season. Chance your luck on Mr. Burns this week.
J.T Poston 45/1 – 1pt e/w
Recent Form – 7-2-41-6-6
Course Form – 20-30-18-MC
Not too many statistics to back this selection as his season was dire up until five weeks ago at the John Deere Classic where he finished in a tie for 6th place. Since then he has had four made cuts in a row and three top seven finishes. The Glover pick from last week which won for us was based on recent form so why not chance it again with one of the form horses in the field.
Sepp Straka 60/1 – 1pt e/w
Recent Form - MC-2-1-64-38
Course Form – 2
The final pick for this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship is the recent winning Austrian. 22nd for Driving Accuracy and 15th for Strokes Gained: Approach is solid to go with his runner up finish here last year where he gained strokes in every department, so good vibes only for Sepp coming here this week and especially after winning three starts ago and finishing runner up two starts back.

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