The PGA Tour heads to Ohio for the seventh Signature Event of the season with the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village.
While Scottie Scheffler looks to three-peat, there are more ways to bet on the tournament than just who will emerge victorious on Sunday.
For more instant gratification, we turn to the first-round leader market to find value on who will sit atop the leaderboard when play comes to an end on Thursday.
Here are my favorite Memorial Tournament first-round leader picks and PGA Tour predictions for Thursday's opening round.
Memorial Tournament First-Round Leader Picks, Predictions
First-Round Leader Pick: Ludvig Aberg (+2700, DraftKings)
Driving is essential this week. The course is long with narrow fairways, and players must position themselves well off the tee to attack these difficult greens.
There is a greater-than-average penalty for missed fairways. As a result, each of the top three finishers here last year ranked inside the top four in the field in strokes gained: off the tee.
No other strokes-gained category showed a similar trend.
That profile makes Ludvig Aberg a strong option, as he is one of the hottest golfers in the world. He has finished inside the top eight in six of his past eight tournaments, with the lone exceptions being a T21 finish at the Masters and a T17 finish at the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Aberg continues to contend for his third PGA Tour victory at age 26 and has shown consistent improvement. Entering this week, he ranks in the 97th percentile on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: off the tee.
This course suits Aberg’s well-rounded skill set, as evidenced by his finishes of T16 here last year and T5 the year prior.
He is also a strong starter, ranking above the PGA Tour average in first-round scoring.
First-Round Leader Pick: Russell Henley (+3300, DraftKings)
Another golfer worth targeting in Thursday’s opening round is Russell Henley. Like Aberg, Henley fits this course well.
Entering this week, he ranks in the 84th percentile on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: off the tee. He is also a strong starter and enters in excellent form.
Henley ranks 25th on the PGA Tour in first-round scoring and is coming off a win at last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge.
Greens are difficult to hit at Muirfield Village, placing a premium on both driving accuracy and approach play. Mid-iron performance is particularly important, as 19.3% of approach shots last year came from the 150-175-yard range.
No other 25-yard grouping exceeded 15.1%.
On the PGA Tour, Henley ranks in the 91st percentile in strokes gained: approach from 150-200 yards. It is therefore not surprising that he has excelled at this venue, finishing inside the top seven in each of his past three appearances.
