2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship: Picks and Predictions for Memphis

The FedEx St. Jude Championship is set to host the first leg of this year’s FedEx Cup playoffs for the very first time.

The road to the Tour Championship begins in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2022 as the FedEx St. Jude Championship hosts the first leg of the 2022 FedEx Cup playoffs.

TPC Southwind, host of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, has been hosting PGA Tour events every year since 1989.

The tournament, formerly known as the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, and St. Jude Classic before that, will play host to a FedEx Cup playoff event for the very first time in 2022. The FedEx St. Jude Championship will replace the Northern Trust as the first leg of the three-event FedEx Cup series.

122 players will compete in Memphis this week for the right to advance to the BMW Championship next week, the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings at the end of this week will survive and advance.

Surprisingly, despite the fact that every player inside of the top 10 in the OWGR will be teeing it up this week, the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship only rates out as the 13th strongest field of the year, per the OWGR strength of field metric.

The PGA Tour has been making trips to Memphis every year since 1958 and TPC Southwind has certainly played its part in making the FedEx St. Jude one of the most anticipated events on the Tour’s schedule every year.

The Par 70, 7,244 yard, Ron Prichard and Co-design provides a true tee-to-green test for the field each year. TPC Southwind features copious amounts of water hazards throughout and the course will truly reward accurate and elite ball-strikers this week.

Here is how the top 10 favorites in this week’s elite FedEx St. Jude Championship field shake out over on WynnBet.

2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship Top 10 Favorites

(All odds courtesy of WynnBet)

• Rory McIlroy  (+1100)
• Scottie Scheffler  (+1400)
• Cameron Smith  (+1800)
• Patrick Cantlay  (+1800)
• Xander Schauffele  (+1800)
• Jon Rahm  (+2000)
• Justin Thomas  (+2000)
• Matt Fitzpatrick  (+2200)
• Tony Finau  (+2200)
• Will Zalatoris  (+2500)

Top 20 Pick: Billy Horschel  (+180)

Billy Horschel had an impressive regular season and now the 2014 FedEx Cup champion will be looking to carry that momentum into the playoffs.

The 2022 Memorial tournament winner notched five top 10 finishes this season, this included a run of impressive showings in some of the season’s biggest events. Outside of his win at Muirfield Village, Horschel posted finishes of 6th in Phoenix, 9th at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match play, and 2nd at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Now he returns to TPC Southwind, a place he has finished outside of the top 20 just three times in his last nine appearances.

Billy returned to action for the first time since The 150th Open at last week’s Wyndham Championship where he posted a respectable 27th place finish. He had the driver and the ever-reliable putter both firing.

Horschel has gained strokes on the greens at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in all but one of his last nine starts and he looks primed for another big week in Memphis. If he can get dialed in with his irons he may win this week, let alone finish inside of the top 20 like I expect him to do.

Top 10 Pick: Will Zalatoris  (+280)

Will Zalatoris has been solid without producing anything spectacular ever since yet another heart-wrenching runner-up finish in a major back at the U.S. Open.

Since that 2nd place finish at Brookline, Zalatoris has a missed cut and three top 28 finishes or better in his last four starts.

Now he gets to return to a course that seems perfectly tailored for his skillset. Will demonstrated just how comfortable he was at TPC Southwind last year as he recorded an 8th place finish during last year’s event in Memphis.

The talented 25-year-old has proven already that no stage is too big after the majority of his best results have come in the strongest of fields. Zalatoris leads the PGA Tour this season in strokes gained approach, and on a course like TPC Southwind that demands elite ball-striking, Will is well positioned for another big week.

Pick to Win: Xander Schauffele  (+1800)

Outside of Tony Finau, there is an argument to be made that nobody is playing better than Xander Schauffele at the moment, and yet with all of the big names in the field this week there is a real possibility that the X-man comes into this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship a bit under the radar.

Just like Finau, Xander won in back-to-back starts when he won the Travelers Championship and then the Genesis Scottish Open.

Expectations were always going to be high for Schauffele going into the 150th Open Championship, and while he was never in contention, a 15th place finish is certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

The seven-time PGA Tour winner has finished no worse than 18th in any start since the Masters in April. He has mixed results at TPC Southwind in recent trips, but he did record a 6th place finish here in 2020.

Schauffele ranks inside of the top 10 this season in both strokes gained tee to green and approach, and he seemingly has the perfect game for TPC Southwind.

Par 4 performance will be vitally important this week with twelve of TPC Southwind’s eighteen holes fitting that description.

In addition to ranking inside the top 10 in the two aforementioned statistical categories, Schauffele also thrives in Par 4 scoring as he ranks 2nd in that area on Tour this season. There is very little not to like about Xander this week and I for one won’t be overlooking him.