Noonan’s 2026 FedEx St. Jude Championship Outright Betting Picks

FedEx St. Jude Championship Outright Betting Picks – The PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs begin this week just outside Memphis, Tennessee, at TPC Southwind. The Tour has played here annually since 1989, but this is just the fifth year that it’s been in the lead-off spot for the playoffs. The playoff format shifted in 2023, moving this event from the top 125 to the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings. With Daniel Berger skipping this week, we’re looking at just 69 players in this week’s field, with no cut.

After this week’s event, the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings advance to next week’s BMW Championship at Bellerive CC, just outside of St. Louis, with the top 30 advancing to the Tour Championship at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club.

No one loves the current format for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and it’s going to look different in the coming years. The good news is that the staggered scoring format for the Tour Championship has been abolished, and we get (most of) the Tour’s best competing against each other for a few weeks in a row, so it’s better than nothing.

The event’s winner has had a finishing score in the teens the past few years, but TPC Southwind can play harder than those results indicate. Multiple doglegs make the 7,243-yard par-70 track play longer, but we’re seeing these strong fields take a more aggressive, driver-heavy approach than we’ve seen here historically.

Back in 2020, for instance, this event served as the PGA Championship tune-up event and featured a loaded field, and the driver usage that week was 69.1%, nearly in line with the PGA Tour average of 68.8%. In 2024, driver usage spiked to 81.5% and has averaged 78.2% over the past five stops. The field is clearly finding ways to attack this course differently.

The course features zoysia grass fairways, which is a unique twist, and a surface players typically rave about. We’re also looking at Bermudagrass rough and Championship Bermudagrass greens, all native to Southeastern United States golf. As a result, scoring chances are few and far between if you don’t find the fairway off the tee. At last year’s event, the GIR% from the rough was just 33.5%, compared to the Tour average mark of 51.6%.

The formula for a successful week at TPC Southwind is pretty straightforward, and my outright card reflects that. I’m looking for elite ball-strikers, and I need you to be able to hit fairways at an elite clip.

For more course details, check out Ron’s course preview. It’s the best in the business, bar none. Also, don’t forget to check out our research tools, the TPC Southwind course stats, along with the Tournament Cheat Sheet.

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Key Rabbit Hole Stats This Week:

There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game. My goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting in the outright market this week. Remember to check out the Rabbit Hole, our customizable stat database. It can help you pare down your player pool each week.

Utilize our Discord for up-to-the-minute lines and betting advice. My full card and live in-tournament bets will be posted there. Reach out if you need help getting started.

For outrights, I typically allot 1.5 to 2 units, sometimes more for bigger events, but I mostly stayed within that range. Overall, though, this strategy prevents me from chasing, knowing that I’m positioned to profit if I can hit 5-6 outrights a season. Anything beyond that is gravy. It also helps me stake bets to a flat “to win” amount regardless of their outright price.

*Betting lines are accurate at the time of publication in Discord.

Noonan’s FedEx St. Jude Championship Outright Betting Picks

Si Woo Kim

Of all the players in the field this week without a win in 2026, only Tommy Fleetwood (1.43) has gained more strokes per round on average this season than Si Woo Kim (1.32). Si Woo has set new career-highs in T-5 and T-10 finishes this season, and his 1.32 strokes gained per round average is more than a half-stroke better than his next best season on Tour.

He’s had too good a season not to win, and this place suits his skill set very well. Si Woo putted poorly last time out in Detroit, but his typical tee-to-green chops were on display. Si Woo has the second-best Par 4 birdie rate in this field, which is key this week with the par 70 layout here at Southwind.

Russell Henley

If you’ve ever read or listened to my work, you probably expected to open this article and find Russell Henley here on my card. I’m glad I didn’t disappoint you. Again, the recipe to success at TPC Southwind is pretty clear, and there’s no clearer player avatar for it than Russell Henley.

Henley keeps the ball in play, keeps bogeys off the scorecard, and is equipped to handle these bermudagrass green complexes. I’m surprised he’s never won here, though he does have multiple top-10 finishes. The gap between #2 and #9 in my model is pretty minimal, but Henley is right there in the middle at #6.

Viktor Hovland

We haven’t seen Viktor Hovland since The Open, but I’m not particularly concerned with that. He likes this venue, his game fits what works here, and he’s been far more consistent this summer than in years past. Hovland’s ball-striking numbers this summer have returned to the elite tier after tinkering forced him into the wilderness for a while.

Hovland is also a great putter on bermudagrass. It’s his best surface over the past 12 months (+0.35 strokes per round), and that rate holds over a 50+ round 3-year sample. He finished T-2 here back in 2024, nearly chasing down Hideki Matsuyama on the weekend.

Jackson Koivun

The fact that Jackson Koivun even qualified for the FedEx Cup playoffs is pretty wild, and he’s in rarefied air in doing so, having made just five starts as a professional. Over his past 16 rounds, Koivun has gained 1 or more strokes tee-to-green in 75% of his rounds, which is the best rate in this field. He’s an elite driver of the golf ball, gaining through distance and accuracy, and poor off-the-tee play is a non-starter this week.

Koivun finished 10th in total driving last week at Sedgefield. That’s six straight starts dating back to Shinnecock Hills, where Koivun finished inside the top 10 in total driving on the week. Koivun has made 15 starts on the PGA Tour, including his amateur days, and he’s never been worse than 12th. Think about that. I’m going to keep ringing the bell on him in this price range because it’s only a matter of time until he’s 20/1 or below every single week.