PGA Tour 2024 - FedEx St. Jude Championship

[Splatt]

G’day Golfers,

Here we are, we’re into the last few events of the 2024 PGA main season, The FedEx Cup Playoffs!!
This is the week where is you’re not in the top-70 on the FedEx Cup standings then your season is done until mid-September.

The first event of the FedEx Cup Play-offs is the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, after that the top-50 on the FedEx Cup standings head to the BMW Championship next week, before the top-30 head to Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Course.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves, let’s get stuck in to this weeks event.

The FedEx St. Jude Championship is held at TPC Southwind, a par-70, 7,243-yard course of Ron Prichard design.
The course features plenty of water including shots where it runs along the fairway and shots where the players will have to hit over water.
Among the most notable holes at TPC Southwind are the 165-yard, par-3 11th hole, considered to be a smaller version of the famous 17th Island Green at TPC Sawgrass, forcing a short iron over water to a small island green.

Last year, Lucas Glover won the FedEx St. Jude Championship putting together back-to-back wins after winning the Wyndham Championship the week prior.
Glover started the day with a 1 shot lead over Taylor Moore, Cantlay was 5 shots behind Glover at the start of the day but fired a 64 on Sunday (the round of the day) to tie with Glover and force a play-off.
The play-off last one hole with Cantlay putting his tee shot into the water incurring a penalty shot. Glover tapped in a one foot putt for par and Cantlay had a tap in for bogey.
Unfortunately, Glover won’t get a chance to defend his crown here as he finished 78th on the FedEx Cup standings this year.

Field Highlights

·         Scottie Scheffler – The current world number 1, by a wide margin, and also ranked number 1 on the FedEx Cup standing, by a wide margin.
Scotties season has been incredible with 6 PGA Tour wins, including a win at The Masters, and more recently a Paris Olympic Games Gold Medal. Scotties season has been so good that people trying to criticise have got to say outlandish things like ‘he only won one major’.
He hasn’t missed a cut this year and his recent form is win, 7th place, win, T-41 (his only finish outside the top-25 this season) and win.
Scottie will take some beating, just like any other week this season.
 

·         Xander Schauffele – Number 2 on the FedEx Cup standings is none other than Xander Shauffele. You might be thinking number 2 seems high considering he’s only had 2 wins on Tour and Rory McIlroy who is 3rd has also had 2 wins, so what gives?
Both of Xanders win this year have been at major championships, one at the PGA Championship, and one the The Open.
That’s a pretty baller move, right there! No, guys, I only win the important ones!
The rest of his season has been pretty consistent with no missed cuts, 17 finishes in the top-25 in 18 events and 2 runner-up finishes along side his 2 wins.
If there’s anyone who can bring it to Scottie Scheffler, it’s Xander Schauffele.
 

·         Rory McIlroy – 3rd on the FedEx Cup standing is Rory Mcilroy. Rory has had 2 wins this year on tour and came agonisingly close to adding another major to his tally with a solo-2nd at The US Open Championship back in June.
The runner up finish I’m sure will still be playing through his head as he fell one stroke short of forcing a play-off with Bryson DeChambeau which including missing 2 putts in 3 holes that were under 4 foot.
Rory’s season has been pretty consistent though. He’s only missed 1 cut and he’s had 6 top-10 finishes in 16 outings.
 

·         Collin Morikawa – The 4th spot on the FedEx Cup standings is home to Collin Morikawa, despite no wins in 2024, Collin is 4th thanks to some consistent golf and high finishes.
Morikawa’s highest finish of the season came at The Memorial Tournament where he finished solo-2nd, this came at the end of a bit of run of form for him where he’d finished 4th in both previous weeks.
Morikawa’s iron striking has been on show this season, in fact his solo-2nd week he co-led the field in par-3 scoring averages with a 2.88.
Irons are very important around TPC Southwind so lets see if he can better his T-13 finish from last year.
 

·         Wyndham Clark – 5th on the FedEx Cup standing is Wyndham Clark. Wyndham has actually won an event on the PGA Tour this season yet he is still behind Collin Morikawa. That shows you the difference placing well at Signature Events & Majors makes.
Wyndham won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this year after a 3rd round 60! The 4th round wasn’t played due to inclement weather.
Since then his season has been a bit of a mixed bag; he missed the cut in 3 out of 4 majors (the major he placed in he came T-56), he had back-to-back runner-up finishes at the Arnold Palmer and The Players, 6 top-10’s and 5 missed cuts.
Who knows which Wyndham is going to show up this week.
 

The rest of the field can be found here.

Guys, that’s it from me.

Should be an exciting week with the best players on the PGA Tour going head to head, I’ll be back next week for the BMW Championship.

SPLATT

[Huse343]

Stoked to have a field full of the top golfers in the world again. Feels like it’s been forever since we’ve had a field like this. Can’t wait to see how the tournament shakes out. I’m pulling for Scottie and Ludvig, but feel Scottie will pull it out. Xander has been playing consistently well, but I don’t think it’s his year for the FedEx cup!

Either way, this will be a great tournament to watch!

[Patrick Dawes]

I am beating with my heart this week and put a 2 dollar parley on draft kings on Finau and Tom Kim to both finish in the top ten pays $25 buck if it hits though,  I just rewatched the netflix show and those two seemed so nice I just want them to win

[Off Map Oscar]

I'm watching thr gold channel coverage. Anyone else audio have a weird hum?

[jasonbarker94]

With round one in the books of course Scottie and X are up on the leaderboard. To me the most exciting thing about this week and next is watching the cut line for the next week. Seems like there could be a huge swing anywhere from 40 to 70 on where those players end up. All about surviving at this point!

[KC Golf]

Hideki for the win!  
 

 

[Hook DeLoft]

On 8/16/2024 at 6:44 AM, jasonbarker94 said:

With round one in the books of course Scottie and X are up on the leaderboard. To me the most exciting thing about this week and next is watching the cut line for the next week. Seems like there could be a huge swing anywhere from 40 to 70 on where those players end up. All about surviving at this point!

I agree.  Unfortunately, we don't get much coverage of those players other than putts.

[KC Golf]

After stumbling for being questioned about a possible rules violation, Hideki goes on to birdie birdie 17 and 18.  What a recovery!  All while using an alternate caddy!  Crazy times.  Probably the most animated post interview of his career.  Well at least by Hideki standards!