2026 The Memorial Tournament
Took the holiday weekend off and the following weekend (Charles Schwab) I was invited on an impromptu golf trip…but I’m back this week for a trip to Jack’s place. One of the few stops on Tour where the PGA course management team doesn’t have final say on setup.
The Memorial Tournament Bets
0.5u - Cam Young 18/1
0.5u - Matt Fitzpatrick 22/1
0.5u - Si Woo Kim 22/1
0.15u - Alex Smalley 58/1
Sometimes I pause when the numbers are spitting out mostly “favorites” but this is the type of venue that tends to produce high quality winners…
This leads to a tough scoring environment at Muirfield Village, where Nicklaus likes to keep the fairways a bit wide, but the rough is thick, coupled with the length, leads to less than 60% of GIR…a rare accomplishment these days. Often this tournament provides the most demanding of non-major venues and has proven to separate the best from the rest each time it’s played. If a golfer isn’t playing well there is no hiding or scraping by…Muirfield will eat them up.
Another attribute unique to the current game is the lack of emphasis distance has shown to be over the years. It is a lot less important this week and the focus should be playing out of the fairway. “But Axis, aren’t golfers always trying to play out of the fairway? What a silly thing to say!” Yes — but they take on more errant shots chasing distance because many courses do not penalize wayward drives as severely. This week it will lead to issues.
My final thoughts on Murifield Village; it’s a tricky one. While approach shows to be more important overall here than the average course, Muirfield allows more strokes to be gained elsewhere than the average course. Approach is important but a golfer will have to gain more strokes than usual through the short game. An all around game is generally needed to excel at difficult courses, so this fits.
Cam Young has historically been heavily reliant on his superior driving to gain strokes, but that has been changing in 2026. He’s improved across the line and even though he is long, he’s quite accurate as well. His short game has been vastly improved and there is where it will be needed to shine. He’s won twice this season so lets see the hat-trick.
I would think Matt Fitzpatrick’s skill profile would allow him to flourish here but it’s been a mixed bag. Good news is he has two T5s here; bad news is, he’s finished worse than 25th 5 of 8 trips. Like I said when I bet him at the PGA Championship, he’s probably never been playing better so I’m not deterred, and he’s a true proven winner at this point in his career.
Like Fitzpatrick, I would expect Si Woo Kim to play well at Murifield Village and his results are a similar mixed bag. I guess when I think about it further, it makes sense due to the complexities of the course/event. It’s a difficult place to play if your game is not on point and it’s a deep field. The cherry on top for Si Woo at least, is that he’s played better at Muirfield than his baseline skill rating. All in all, while not as great of a match as Fitzpatrick’s, Si Woo’s skill set is similar and the form has been top notch — just missing a victory. It’s harder to swallow at 22/1 with his lack of closing out wins but while the years have changed…I haven’t. I’ll bet all these non-closers if the numbers suggest it.
It surely wasn’t on my bingo card to start the year that Alex Smalley would be working his way into the top 10-15 golfers in the world. While in golf terms his surge is short, it can not be ignored. The mans game took a drastic turn for the better in 2026 and the weakest part of his game, the driver, should be less of a factor this week. Perhaps he’s built up some scar tissue with these close calls and can finally get his first PGA win.
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Public Results (as of 6.2.26)
2026 | -2.2u
2025 | -6.46 (I stopped writing in 02/25)
2024 | +70.62 (69.5% ROI)
2023 | -23.71u (-10.49% ROI)
2022 | +80.7u (22.9% ROI)
2021 | +57.46 (8.7% ROI)