Golf
The Memorial Tournament preview: Schauffele and Young can tame Muirfield Village
A star-studded field head to Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio for the prestigious Memorial Tournament this week on the PGA Tour. Hosted by the legendary Jack Nicklaus, the par-72 puts a real test on a player’s all-round ability, where every facet of the game is tested.
Recent winners include Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay (twice) and Bryson DeChambeau, while Collin Morikawa won the Workday Charity Open in 2020, which was also hosted at Muirfield Village, so the cream often rises to the top at ‘Jack’s place’.
Here’s our preview, where a couple of consistent Americans are fancied to go well.
Schauffele looks ready to win again
It’s rare the winner of this highly-esteemed event isn’t one of the world’s best players and many will fancy Rahm, particularly after his withdrawal last year when looking virtually certain to win. He certainly has unfinished business as a result, but bar a win in a weak field event in Mexico, his form this year hasn’t been anything to write home about and others are preferred. The Spaniard’s withdrawal left the door open for Cantlay to win last year and form figures of 4-1-7-32-1 catch the eye, but he was really out of sorts at the PGA and needs to bounce back here.
It was only a few starts ago that Rahm won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Xander Schauffele and his partner in that event looks well worth siding with here.
As we all know, the 28-year-old is one of the game’s most consistent players and incredibly has finished inside the top 25 in nearly 60 percent of the 131 tournaments he’s played on the PGA Tour. If there is one criticism of Xander it’s that he doesn’t win quite as much as he should and while five wins is impressive, he’ll be somewhat annoyed he’s finished runner-up on 10 other occasions. He won the 2021 Olympic Gold medal, but prior to that he hadn’t won since the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions. And it was a barren spell that was clearly leaving a mark, so to get that win alongside Cantlay in New Orleans would have done wonders to his confidence.
Since that win he’s finished in a tie for fifth at the Byron Nelson, where he shot a Sunday 61, while he finished in a tie for 13th at the PGA. He probably would have finished a bit closer to Justin Thomas there too had he chipped and putted a bit better. He ranked 21st on approach, 10 off-the-tee and 17th tee-to-green, though, and those attributes should stand him in really good stead around Muirfield Village.
This is a second-shot golf course as shown by the fact the last 10 winners have ranked 9th in approach, so the fact Schauffele ranks 16th in that category is an encouraging sign, as is the fact he is ninth in Strokes Gained: tee-to-green. Ball striking is crucial around here, so it’s unsurprising that the last 10 winners ranked just fourth tee-to-green en route to victory.
After missing the cut on debut in 2018, the American has gradually improved his results here as form figures of 14-13-11 show. He looks sure to build on that this week and looks very solid at 22/1.
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Old head on Young shoulders
With recent form figures of 3-2-3, it’s pretty hard to get away from Cameron Young this week at 33/1.
While still a PGA Tour maiden, alongside Davis Riley, Young is probably the brightest rookie on the tour at the moment and that breakthrough could easily come at Muirfield Village. Despite this being his first season on the main tour, Young has continually mixed it with the big boys at the big tournaments and was a real factor at The Genesis Invitational (tied 2nd), Wells Fargo (tied 2nd) and the PGA (tied 3rd), where a costly late double-bogey dropped him out of a place in the play-off.
This is a player who’s game clearly travels well wherever he plays, but it’s notable that he seems to play particularly well where good ball striking is imperative, as his recent tee-to-green stats demonstrate. He was 2nd in Strokes Gained: tee-to-green at the PGA, 1st at the Wells Fargo and 2nd at the RBC Heritage, so he’s hitting the ball arguably better than anyone at the moment.
At both the Wells Fargo and RBC Heritage, he incredibly lost strokes to the field putting, so if he can put more like he did at Southern Hills, he’s got to a big player here.
