6 Longshots to Target at the FedEx St. Jude Championship

By the time you’re reading these words, I’ll be packing for a quick trip to Memphis, where I’ll speak with some of the PGA Tour’s top players for a few days in advance of this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship.

If you’ve never been to Memphis in the middle of August, a few words of advice: Don’t forget to pack some Gold Bond and try the hot chicken.

At last year’s edition of this event, I swear I lost five pounds walking around TPC Southwind each day, only to gain it back at Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken each night.

Anyway, I’m hoping to do less losing and more winning this time, and a lot of that has to do with choosing the right longshots.

Last year, Lucas Glover won from 60/1 pre-tournament after having triumphed the previous week, so let’s start our six-pack of longshots at that price and beyond for this one.

6 Longshots to Target at the FedEx St. Jude Championship

Sepp Straka (+6600)

I suppose there was a personal theme in my main preview this week of chasing the proverbial jilted bridesmaids from past years. While my preferred conservative play of Patrick Cantlay lost in a playoff at the most recent edition of this tournament, it was Straka who suffered that fate two years ago, losing a wild three-hole affair to Will Zalatoris.

Frankly, though, it’s less about Straka’s course history and more about his current form that puts him in my plan. Notably, his iron play has been tremendous for a while now, gaining strokes on approach shots in 11 of his last 12 starts, many of them near the top of the field. At this point of the year, I like targeting those who have played well enough to win, but haven’t done so yet, and Straka fits the profile.

Alex Noren (+8000)

Also in that main preview, I listed Noren as a first-round leader play, considering his R1 scoring average is a full stroke lower than his overall baseline, ranking him fourth on the PGA Tour in that category. I don’t mind a four-round play, though, as he’s playing some of the best golf of his career this year. On a course where you’ve got to keep it in play off the tee and hit plenty of greens, he makes a ton of sense here.

Max Greyserman (+8000)

Not long after Greyserman went OB with a four-shot lead on the 14th hole in the Wyndham Championship’s final round and four-putted the 16th, eventually finishing runner-up, one Twitter user replied to one of my tweets about his plight with the name Kyle Stanley, which could be very prescient.

For the uninitiated, Stanley made a snowman on the final hole at Torrey Pines a dozen years ago, only to bounce back and win in Phoenix the very next week. Greyserman is obviously playing some great golf lately; if he can avoid the mental and emotional anguish, he can certainly contend again.

Max Homa (+8000)

Sometimes a number just looks way too big. Look, I get that Homa hasn’t been playing his best golf, finishing outside the top-20 in each of his last seven starts, but he’s still a top-20 player with a half-dozen career wins who finished T-6 at this event last year. At half this price, he’s probably not even on my radar, but at this number, he’s close to a must-play.

Denny McCarthy (+9000)

For those who don’t believe in the Golf Gods or karma, you might want to skip past this one. McCarthy is a buddy of Greyserman who was there to console the rookie and give him a little pep talk after a shocking end to the Wyndham that saw him parlay a late four-shot lead into a two-shot loss.

That isn’t the only reason to like him, of course. In the final round, McCarthy enjoyed/endured the personal anomaly of ranking third in tee-to-green ball-striking but lost strokes with his putter. I love the idea of banking on one of the game’s best rock-rollers to find the bottom of the cup more often in Memphis.

Tom Hoge (+10000)

There’s been a theme amongst the winners over the first two years that the FedEx St. Jude Championship has been a FedEx Cup playoff event. Will Zalatoris and Lucas Glover each had a reputation as guys who hit it like Ben Hogan and putted like Hulk Hogan. In each of those situations, though, something about these greens appealed to them and they turned it around with the flatstick. 

Hoge fits the same profile, but as we saw during his third-place finish at the Travelers Championship two months ago, his putter only needs to get a bit tepid for him to contend.