FedEx St. Jude Championship Key Fantasy Stats

FedEx St. Jude Championship

August 15th – 18th, 2024

TPC Southwind

Memphis, TN

Par: 70 / Yardage: 7,243

Purse: $20 million

with $3,600,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Lucas Glover

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most important stats for the TPC Southwind, data from last year’s FedEx St. Jude Invitational, and data from all the players in the field with stats from 2023.
TPC Southwind has been a fixture on the PGA Tour since 1989. Between then and 2018, it was the home of the FedEx St. Jude Classic. Between 2019 and 2021, it hosted the World Golf Championship FedEx St. Jude Invitational. Starting in 2022, it became the first event of the FedExCup playoffs, which three years ago was the Northern Trust played in the New York area.
The one surprising aspect of TPC Southwind was that many felt it would be a more challenging test. The last year that the FedEx St. Jude Classic was played at TPC Southwind was in 2018; the course played to a 70.52 scoring average and was ranked 11th on the PGA Tour. Since course stats were kept in 2003, the oddity of TPC Southwind was that it always played over par. So when the WGC-FedEx was moved to the course in 2019, it played to a 69.50 average. Many wondered what had happened to the course. The course played again under par with a 69.55 average in 2020 and was ranked 14th hardest. In 2021, the average went down to 69.05, ranking 33rd on the PGA Tour. In 2022, it was 69.16 and the 30th hardest course on tour; last year, it was 68.64 and the 39th hardest course. So why did it all of a sudden become such an easy course? There are a couple of reasons for the drop: first, with the event played at the end of July and August, it didn’t rain as much, so the rough wasn’t as high and lush as it was when the old FedEx St. Jude Classic, which was played in mid-June. Another reason for the lower scores is that the old FedEx St. Jude had fields of 156, while the field for the World Golf Championship and now the first leg of the playoffs is under 80. In 2022, there were 120 players in the field; last year, it went down to 70, and since they are the best players in golf, look for the scoring average to be in the 68.50 area.

Memphis has been pretty dry, hot, and muggy of late; since the start of July, they have only gotten 3 inches of rain, with 2 inches of it coming on July 19th and half an inch on July 27th, the last time it rained in Memphis. Now, they are supposed to get some rain on Wednesday at TPC Southwind, but that is it for the rest of the tournament week, and the Wednesday rain will not make the rough harder. So, with the lack of rain, the rough has yet to grow and become lush like it usually is in June.

In looking at our four categories, our first for TPC Southwind are strokes gained tee-to-green. Last year, the course ranked 28th in driving accuracy and 21st in greens in regulation, while winner Lucas Glover was T-12th in driving accuracy and T-37th in greens in regulation, so he was 4th in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. In 2022, the course ranked 20th in driving accuracy and 18th in greens in regulation, while winner Will Zalatoris was T-34th in driving accuracy and T-8th in greens in regulation, so he was 18th in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. In 2021, the course ranked 25th in driving accuracy and 20th in greens in regulation, while Abraham Ancer, who won the WGC-FedEx St. Jude in 2021, was T-10th in driving accuracy and T-5th in greens in regulation, so he was 4th in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. During the 2020 WGC-FedEx St. Jude, the course ranked 22nd in driving accuracy and 9th in greens in regulation, while winner Justin Thomas was T-12th in driving accuracy and T-7th in greens in regulation, so he was 1st in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. Over the years, this has been an essential stat for the champions. In 2019, Brooks Koepka won and was 6th. In 2018, Dustin Johnson won and was 1st in this category. The same with the winner, Daniel Berger, in 2017 and 2016; he was the first in both years. In 2015, champion Fabian Gomez ranked 1st, which is consistent and the reason that strokes gained tee-to-green is essential.

Our 2nd essential stat is one-putt percentage; TPC Southwind ranked 54th (That means there are more one-putts). Now, it was 49th last year and again ranked 49th in 2021. For some more years, the PGA Tour played at TPC Southwind. It was 36th in 2020, 47th in 2019, and 45th in 2018. This means many players had many one-putts, probably because the greens at TPC Southwind are large at 12,276 Square feet. Last year’s winner, Lucas Glover, was T-19th in this stat with 34 one-putts. In 2022, the course ranked 49th, while winner Will Zalatoris was T-10th in this stat with 35 one-putts. In the year before that, 2021, Ancer was T-18th in this stat with 34 one-putts. In 2020, Justin Thomas could have done better in this state; he ranked T-51st with only 29 one-putts. The previous year, Brooks Koepka was T-1st with 42 one-putts. In 2018, Johnson ranked T-30th; in 2016, he was T-52nd, while Gomez ranked T-2nd in 2015. Still, the norm is for the best players to have a lot of one-putt greens.

Our third important stat is scrambling; players will miss greens and get it up and down. The course ranked 50th last year, 38th in 2021, 34th in 2021, and 31st in 2020. In 2019, it ranked 37th and 31st in 2018. Last year’s winner, Glover, ranked 1st while the winner in 2022, Zalatoris, ranked 7th; in 2021, Ancer ranked 1st; Justin Thomas was 6th in 2020, while in the previous year, Koepka was 1st while Johnson was 4th in 2018; t-24th in 2016, and Gomez was 8th in 2015.

Our final category was birdie average; last year, it ranked T-36th, while in 2022, it ranked 30th. in 2021, it ranked T-32nd; in 2020, it ranked 16th; in 2019, it ranked T-24th. In 2018, it ranked 10th; in 2017, it ranked T-10th; it was 14th in 2016; and in 2015, it was 11th, which means it was hard to make birdies as the field average was 3.92 birdies per round last year while in 2022, it averaged 3.84 birdies per round. In 2021 it averaged 3.93 per round, 3.70 in 2020, 3.73 in 2019, 3.27 in 2018, 3.11 in 2017, 3.16 in 2016 and 3.15 in 2015. For Glover last year, he made 16 birdies and ranked T-26th. In 2022, Zalatoris made 21 birdies and ranked T-3rd. In 2021, Ancer made 20 birdies, which ranked T-6th. In 2020, Thomas made 19 birdies, ranking T-8th, while in 2019, Koepka averaged 5.25 birdies per round and was 3rd. Johnson also averaged 5.25 in 2018 and ranked 1st; in 2016, it was 5.00 and T-1st, while Gamez averaged 5.00 and was T-2nd in 2015.
So yes, TPC Southwind can be considered a shotmaker type, of course, and we will probably get a shotmaker winner. But the fact is, with hard fairways making the course play short, the course will see a lot of low scoring.

*Strokes Gained tee-to-green: A combination of hitting fairways and greens. So, finding a player that will do well in this stat is important.

*One-Putt Percentage: The figure that shows how many times a player one-putts a green.

*Scrambling: The percent of the time a player misses the green in regulation but still makes par or better.

*Birdie Average: Average number of birdies made over the course of a round

The 70 of the 70 players from this year’s FedEx St. Jude field with stats from 2024:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.