The tour heads to Columbus, Ohio and Jack’s Place for this week’s tour stop! Not only do we get a gem of a course in Muirfield Village, but also a signature level field with all of the world’s best players teeing it up. And with how difficult this course is, it’ll be a true heavyweight battle this weekend!
Here in this preview, we’ll get you ready for all things prop related, including a stat breakdown of the golf course, a weather report for Thursday, as well as our Round 1 prop play for tomorrow’s action. Let’s hop in!
Last week’s Prop recap:
Potgieter O 70 Strokes❌
Hughes O 3 BOB❌
Season-Long Hit rate: 24-18 year-to-date (57.1% hit rate)
Terrible run out on our props last week. Leans weren’t great but let’s get back at it this week and get back over a 60% hit rate
Tournament details:
Field size – 72 players
Cut – Top 50 and ties (and anyone within 10 shots of the lead)
Returning Champ – Scottie Scheffler (-8)
Past Champs – Hovland, Horschel, Cantlay, Rahm
Purse – $20 million
Course Details:
Muirfield Village Golf Club – Dublin, Ohio
Par – 72
Length – 7,569 yards
Green type – Bentgrass
Designer – Jack Nicklaus
# of Bunkers – 68
# of holes w/ water – 13
Rough – 4” Rye/Fescue
Stat Averages from the last 3 years at Muirfield Village GC:
To help establish a baseline at this course, here are some of the stat averages from the last 3 years at this track. It’s a tough course across the board so most categories are harder than the PGA tour average.
2024 Prop Based Averages:
If we focus in on last year in particular, and hone in on some of the specific prop categories, here’s what we get! These metrics will be the most helpful for our prop process.
Driving Bias:
You don’t always have to hit drivers around this track, and BTN only has 9 true “driver holes” and a bomber’s paradise metric of just 5.7/10. Power is always helpful on tour, but I wouldn’t go as far as calling this a long hitters track.
Approach distribution:
The approach profile at Muirfield Village is incredibly balanced, and some players have been quoted as saying that you “need every club in the bag around here”. The stats certainly back up that sort of narrative, but it’s also worth noting the incredibly high missed fairway penalty at this course.
How to model at the 2025 Memorial Tournament
Betthenumber’s model for this week has 6 main “key stats” incorporated to rank players and their fit for this week. Below is the top 5 in the BTN model as well as a description of the key stats they are using to find values this week.
Driving Accuracy
- Off the tee BTN is choosing to focus pretty heavily on driving accuracy which I think makes sense given the sort of leaderboard we’ve had here over the last 2-3 years. Tons of positional guys have outplayed the traditional bombers, which makes sense with the massive missed fairway penalty.
SG Approach
- Iron play is always important to look at heading into a PGA tour event, and this course is no different. Some have called it a “2nd shot golf course” which would put extra emphasis on this form
Approach 150-225 yards
- If you want to narrow down your iron form, the 150-225 range is utilized a bit more than usual and could be the spot to focus on.
SG Around the Green
- This is a tough track and even your best ball strikers will be missing plenty of greens, so making sure players have a reliable short game is something to consider, especially with bogey lines or strokes lines.
SG Putting
- Putting can’t be ignored, and with the Bentgrass greens focusing on a player’s baseline on the surface could prove fruitful.
Bogey Avoidance
- Because this track is strategic, taking players who actively avoid big numbers has led to results around Muirfield Village.
Round 1 Game Plan
Now that we’ve got the course and modeling down, let’s turn to the prop side and try to find some value for Round 1. First, let’s check the weather and see what sort of conditions players will be facing Thursday.
Thursday’s weather forecast: (HRRR model via windy.com)
On top of what seems to be a relatively calm forecast, the area has gotten some rain this week which could soften up the course a bit. But because the course has a subair system I’m not so sure the greens will be dart boards like the rest of the track will be. If I had to guess, the fairways and rough will be pretty damp and the course could play a bit longer, but the greens will likely still have some bounce to them. We saw a similar situation unfold at the PGA Championship early in the week, and scoring ended up pretty difficult compared to what many expected. Another factor to throw in would be the low temperatures early in the morning, which could also make a long course play even longer. Overall I think scoring will be pretty balanced across the day, even with the winds kicking up a bit as the higher temperatures and fairways drying out will allow players to get more out of their drives distance wise. A scoring average and BOB/bogey averages near last year is what I’m projecting for.
Round 1 Free Play
Our free play for tomorrow is going to be this 3x slip on Prize Picks!
Hideki Matsuyama Over 8.5 Fairways
- The fairways at Muirfield Village will be softer than the greens, so a fairway average over 9 (just like last year) wouldn’t surprise me at all. And given that Hideki has seemingly found the driver a bit over the last few weeks, I like this over quite a bit. For reference, he’s gained accuracy to the field in 4 of his last 5 world wide starts, with his biggest loss over that stretch being just 3% to the field at the PGA Championship (where he missed the cut). On Draftkings his 8.5 fairway like is juiced -135 for the over, so there’s a bit of line value attached to this spot as well with the added juice over. With the soft fairways he’ll have a better chance at holding the short stuff on marginal drives which I think is very helpful too. In his last 3 starts at Muirfield Village, he’s also covered this line in 10 of his 12 rounds which is an elite hit rate on this sort of prop.
J.J. Spaun Under 4 Birdies or Better
- J.J. is projected at 4 BOB on Prize Picks which is about an entire birdie over the field average from last year, which I think is a bit too optimistic for round 1. He brings plenty of push equity at 4 and would have to gain nearly 2 BOBs to last year’s average to cover, which is asking a lot for anyone, let alone someone who grades out as an average to slightly above average player in this strong field. He’s only played this course once before, and with an early AM tee time he would seemingly be getting a good tee time but remember that the temperatures will be low and the course will be playing super long with the rain they got this week. If the greens are firm like expected, the BOB average isn’t going to be too much higher than last year’s average. It’s not like he’s a terrible birdie maker at #60 on tour, but that’s about .25 BOB over the tour average.. And that’s against a regular PGA tour event, not a SIGNATURE field like we have here. I have him at about 3.5 for a projection, if not even slightly lower so I love the line value on this spot. He’s down at 3.5 on DK but juiced over, so even compared to books this is slight value with the 0.5 discrepancy but I think they have him priced way too optimistically.
That’s all for this week’s blog. Best of luck with all of your exposure, and let’s have a week!
On top of the free articles every week, make sure to tune into my YT channel – GSLUKEDFS, for all of the shows throughout the weekend! (Rounds 2-4)
