Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sport betting. You can follow on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the 2025 Memorial Tournament, which gets underway Thursday in Ohio. Along with Kannon’s recommended plays, you’ll also see data from Chirp Golf, a mobile app that features both Free-To-Play and Daily Fantasy golf contests where you can win cash and prizes with each round and tournament.
From Hogan’s Alley to Jack’s Place.
Ben Griffin notched his second PGA Tour victory in five weeks, taking home top honors at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Griffin joins 71 other players this week at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, for the Memorial Tournament as the seventh of eight Signature Events on the 2025 PGA Tour schedule.
We noted in our column last week that Colonial can be a good indicator of possible U.S. Open success. I would say that Muirfield Village is another to pay attention to when formulating your handicap of the season’s third major championship, happening in two weeks. Nicklaus began building this property in 1974 and really hasn’t ever stopped. The last notable tweaks came in 2020 and in 2021. Muirfield Village is a par 72 that now stretches to nearly 7,600 yards. This season marks the 50th anniversary of the Memorial Tournament. It is always a marquee event and is one of the biggest stops on Tour outside of the four majors. There is a 36-hole cut this week. The top 50 players and ties make it to the weekend as well as anyone that is within 10 shots of the lead.
2025 Memorial Tournament odds: Scottie Scheffler huge favorite (again) in Ohio
The fairways are relatively generous in width but are tree-lined and bordered by very penal, thick, rough. The greens are heavily undulated, lightning-fast, bentgrass surfaces. Like a major championship, Muirfield will test all areas of a player’s game. I looked at Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach, and Strokes Gained: Tee to Green this week. Scrambling is a big piece of the puzzle here as is Bogey Avoidance. I looked at Par 5 Scoring on those measuring 550-600 yards and Par 4s from 450-500 yards. Finally, I looked at Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards and Strokes Gained: Putting (Bentgrass).
I believe the correlated courses this week can be tough to land on with a great deal of conviction. The Nicklaus-designed course, The Concession, looks to be a very good pointer. Although I don’t feel the layouts are especially similar, there must be something to the Nicklaus design factor at Valhalla, home to the 2024 PGA Championship, where that leaderboard is littered with players having had success and/or victories at Muirfield Village. I also looked at TPC Potomac (2022 Wells Fargo Championship), TPC Twin Cities (3M Open), TPC River Highlands (Travelers Championship), East Lake (Tour Championship), and Innisbrook, home to the Valspar Championship.
I have played each of the following selections for an outright win. I played the two shortest shots also for a top-10 finish and the rest for a top-20 finish.
Collin Morikawa (18-1)
It can be hard to hit “submit” in making this wager, considering Morikawa hasn’t tasted victory on U.S. soil since 2021. Coincidentally, that happened to be at The Concession, one of our correlated courses this week. Morikawa held off three former Memorial champions at that event, Viktor Hovland, Billy Horschel, and Scottie Scheffler. He’s won at Muirfield Village before, in 2020, when they played at Jack’s Place in consecutive weeks. He’s twice finished runner-up at the Memorial, most recently, last year. Morikawa was in the final pairing at Valhalla in 2024 and has finished runner-up at both TPC Twin Cities and at the Tour Championship at East Lake. Over the last 36 rounds, Morikawa ranks sixth in this field for SG: Tee to Green.
Justin Thomas (24-1)
We know Thomas has been playing very well as of late and it was he who Morikawa beat in a playoff at Muirfield Village back in 2020. Thomas has three runner-up finishes this season and two, as well as a win, in his last five starts. One of those runner-ups came at the Valspar Championship, a correlated course for us this week. Thomas has finished top 5 at East Lake five times, including runner-up twice and has been top 10 at TPC River Highlands three times. About the only thing not in his favor this week is his struggle with the putter on bentgrass greens. Thomas does however, rank 17th on Tour for SG: Putting.
Shane Lowry (40-1)
Lowry had a very high-profile win earlier in his career about two hours north of Muirfield Village at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. Lowry’s best finish here was sixth in 2021. He was also sixth at Valhalla last May at the PGA Championship. He’s finished top 10 at TPC River Highlands, East Lake, and at the Valspar Championship, where he just took eighth two months ago. Over the last 36 rounds, Lowry is fifth in this field for SG: Approach and in Bogey Avoidance. He ranks third for Scrambling and SG: Tee to Green.
Jordan Spieth (50-1)
It has been quite a while since I have landed on Spieth to win a golf tournament. In fact, Spieth hasn’t seen the winner’s circle since 2022 but of his 13 PGA Tour victories, one has come at the Travelers Championship, one at the Valspar Championship, and another at the Tour Championship at East Lake. Spieth has five top-20 finishes here at the Memorial as well as three top-7 finishes. He ranks second in this field on the 550-600 yard Par 5s over the last 36 rounds and 15th for SG: Tee to Green.
Robert MacIntyre (80-1)
“Bobby Mac” made a run last week in Texas at the Charles Schwab Challenge, finishing sixth, where he ranked ninth in the field for SG: Approach and fifth for Greens in Regulation. Over the last 36 rounds, he ranks ninth in this field for SG: Off the Tee. This is MacIntyre’s first time ever playing the Memorial but I believe he is a player that is at his best on difficult golf courses. He was eighth last year at the PGA Championship at Valhalla.
Bud Cauley (100-1)
I believe this is the second time this season that I have been on the former member of the golf team at Alabama. In his return to form, Cauley has been excellent in 2025, finishing top 6 four times, including a third-place finish last week at Colonial and a fourth two months ago at the Valspar Championship. He ranks top 17 or better in the field this week, for every statistic I considered over the last 36 rounds. He’s ninth in Scrambling, 11th for SG: Tee to Green, and is second in Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards.
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