The PGA Tour regular season has finally come to a close, and it’s officially a sprint to the finish with the FedEx Cup Playoffs set to begin. We get 70 of the top players on tour looking to tackle St. Jude and move into the second leg of competition. With this being a non-cut, everyone will have 72 holes to make a move, and we should see a ton of drama with so many moving parts come Sunday. From a betting standpoint, the field is loaded and resembles the format of the WGCs of years past. The small field brings the numbers down, while the elite competition brings them back up, making this an interesting board to try and find value on. With that in mind, let’s dive into the PGA best bets for the 2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship.
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FedEx St. Jude Championship Odds, Picks & PGA Best Bets for 2024
FedEx St. Jude Championship Odds & Tournament Preview
Golfer | Odds |
---|---|
Scottie Scheffler | +350 |
Xander Schauffele | +700 |
Rory McIlroy | +850 |
Collin Morikawa | +1200 |
Ludvig Aberg | +2000 |
Patrick Cantlay | +2200 |
Tommy Fleetwood | +2500 |
Hideki Matsuyama | +2800 |
Tom Kim | +3000 |
Russell Henley | +3500 |
TPC Southwind in Memphis gets the nod here as it has previously the last few years to get the FedEx Cup Playoffs started. Before that, it still was a regular stop on tour, so the players should all have plenty of reps on this layout. It is a par 70 that measures out around 7,200 yards, so distance isn’t the big defense, but hazards and water certainly are. Multiple holes have real danger of going in the drink, and that means blowup scores are lurking around every corner.
Bermuda greens and the ability to putt on them helps, but overall this is just a pretty fair test of golf. With it being the FedEx Cup, all the big names are in the field, which gives us a ton of experience and proven winners to choose from.
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FedEx St. Jude Championship PGA Best Bet: Rory McIlroy
I rarely take an outright inside 10-1 because winning a golf tournament is very hard (Unless you’re Scottie Scheffler). However, with a small field and this setup, I find myself going to Rory McIlroy, who has done everything he could possibly do except win tournaments in recent months. After a victory at Wells Fargo, McIlroy had a brutal meltdown at the US Open and then a complete implosion at the Open Championship. He played well in Paris during the Olympics, but a late water ball ended all hope of a medal.
As is the case with a lot of this field, McIlroy has years of experience on this layout, including a third place in 2023. He still was able to gain a ton off the tee despite this not being a solely driver-heavy course, and that is a huge recipe for success. He should once again have a ton of wedges into these holes, and with the proper iron game, the birdie looks should be abundant. Stringing it all together and grabbing a win would set him up for a late-season charge at winning this whole thing. At +850 and playing quality golf coming into a course he likes, McIlroy gives us some upside even with the diminished odds. Let’s play McIlroy to take Leg 1 of the FedEx cup this week and possibly get hot at the right time to close his season.
FedEx St. Jude Championship Pick: Rory McIlroy (17-2 at FanDuel)
FedEx St. Jude Championship PGA Best Bet: Sungjae Im
Everyone in the world seemed to be on Im last week, and for good reason when you looked at that Wyndham field. The result was an uneventful made cut without ever threatening, but now it is a completely different situation: Im sits at 40-1 at a course that suits his game.
The last two years, he finished sixth and 12th, and that was without any notable putting performances. He should thrive with this type of course layout, and there are some comps to the PGA National setup, which was the site of Im’s first career win on tour.
If he is going to get in the hunt, then Im needs to sync up the irons and putter at the right time. It’s been a strange year for him, with some incredibly disappoint showings in majors but also some hope on the horizon. He finished seventh at the Open Championship and has five top-10 finishes in his last eight events. This number is more than generous for a guy who has proven he can contend even among the best fields on tour, which is what the FedEx Cup Playoffs offer.
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FedEx St. Jude Championship Pick: Sungjae Im (40-1 at FanDuel)
FedEx St. Jude Championship PGA Best Bet: Christiaan Bezuidenhout
Hopefully people stopped reading after Im, but if you made it this far, then you know it’s time to talk about the guy whose always on the list. Bezuidenhout still is looking for a breakthrough on tour. A big name will most likely win a FedEx Cup event; however, if you are going down the board, Bezuidenhout works again in this spot.
Despite not winning, Bezuidenhout is playing quality golf, with a 22nd-place finish last week after a poor final round. More important than the finish was the strokes gained, as he gained over five with the irons. He simply could not convert enough putts for a noted putting specialist, and that was the difference in truly contending. Now he needs to be better off the tee, and this course could present challenges in that area. If he can avoid the water and keep it out of the thick stuff, Bezuidenhout’s irons and short game are worth riding any day of the week. He is the best down-the-board play, and it’s eventually going to happen with Bezuidenhout.
FedEx St. Jude Championship Pick: Christiaan Bezuidenhout (75-1 at FanDuel)
In addition to these FedEx St. Jude Championship bets, OddsShopper’s model consistently generates positive expected value (+EV) with our market-based betting model picks.
Our strikeout bets are consistently among the best value and best performing in the market. We’re leaning into that here, with Alex Cobb under 4.5 strikeouts projecting for a reasonable 2.7% expected value and an OS Rating of 2. The reason for the solid value scores is the true odds — which is how we calculate bet profitability breakeven points — are -125, whereas at FanDuel they are -118.
Any time a bet has longer sportsbook odds than true odds, it is +EV. In this case, Fanatics and FanDuel are the only +EV options since every other book is -129 or shorter.
In 2024, our strikeout bets with OS Ratings of 2 have won 56.7% of the time and are returning 10.4% on investment. If you tailed all of these bets this year, you would be up over $62,000!
You can check for yourself how our wagers are doing from an EV standpoint at our EV Results page.
Remember, though: EV results are about long-term profitability, not individual wins and losses. That means take everything from a big-picture perspective and don’t get too high on hits and too low on misses.