Review of the ISPS Handa Invitational and the FedEx St Jude Championship – August 11 to 14 2022.

Greetings,

an absolute gutting late Sunday evening down in Memphis for us with our 10/1 in play selection somehow not winning!

No video review this week as I am travelling in Suffolk for a few days and do not have a good location to make a video today.

As play was coming to a conclusion on Sunday in Memphis Will Zalatoris seemed to be bottling it again when leading. Our pick Sepp Strake caught Zalatoris but very narrowly missed some putts to get ahead and so win the tournament. And so we went to a play off. Both golfers did not play well in the play off apart from sinking some clutch putts. The balls were going out of bounds or in the water and Zalatoris fell over the line on the third extra hole with a 4 beating a 5 on a par 3!

Our in play selection of Straka at 10/1 was a good value selection. He was let down by his game in the play off that cost us a good win. We are regularly getting in to good positions on Sundays but not following through these past few weeks. That will turn as it did in 2021 and we will hit our profit target by Christmas.

On the week we lost 6 points on selections and lost 3.84 points in regard to top twenty selections. I have detailed how all of our selections fared below:

On the DP World Tour – Lee Slattery played Ok but could not score well enough and missed the cut. John Catlin collapsed in the final round with a 73 and finished tied thirteenth after being in second place going in to the final round. Catlin had won on this course in 2020 and looked set to challenge for the win. But he dropped two strokes early in the final round and went backwards from there. Our top twenty selection Johannes Veerman did not putt well on Saturday and missed contending the final round by just one stroke. There is no point being a talented golfer if you cannot sink putts.

Over in Memphis we had a part place finish with Tony Finau and a part top twenty finish with Sam Burns. Both missed short putts at the end of their final round to miss a full place finish! Both golfers missed out by one stroke. Our luck must change soon. As mentioned above Sepp Strake blew our 10/1 win bet in the play off but did place. Both Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, the pre tournament favourites, missed the cut!

Here are our reviews of both tournaments.

The ISPS Handa Invitational:

was won by the Scot Ewan Ferguson, who set up the win with an opening round of 61 on Thursday. A steady 69 on Sunday was enough to get his second tour win in 2022 by three strokes. As stated in the in play selection post I did say that he was a steady golfer when leading and that only Catlin could possibly catch him. And that was the case. Perennial runner up and placer Connor Syme finished joint second. And so a good week for the scots. The unknown Borja Virto from Spain finished joint second, going off at 350/1.

Behind them we had another top ten finish from Richard Mansell. Every other week he seems to make a top twenty finish at least. We need to start following him I think. Jordan Smith, the non winning golfer who usually goes off at short odds, also made the top ten this week. Our old friend Wilco Nienaber got off to a good start on Thursday with a 66. However he did not do much else all week and finished tied 23rd. Johannes Veerman’s putter let him down again and he could only muster a tied 39th finish. Richard Bland is a bit off at present. He opened with a 65 which was very good but things regressed with a 71 and then a 77 and Blandy missed the cut at the final stage. I do not see why Liv Golf need him back? Sergio Tarrio was tipped up in various spots this week and he too got off to a good start with a 66. However a 74 and a 79 meant that he would be eliminated at the final cut. To win you need to string four good rounds together.

The FedEx St Jude Championship:

we know how this one finished! As we suspected this week was one for the straighter hitters and the ball strikers, excluding the play off. This meant that the diminutive Brian Harman could be competitive and finish joint third. Two opening 66’s helped. In third place with him was the tidy Lucas Glover, who opened with a 65 and finished with a 66. Jon Rahm showed signs of real life this week with a run over the weekend to finish tied fifth, four strokes off the winner. One to watch next week. Also in the tie for 5th place were, among others, Collin Morikawa, Matt Fitzpatrick, Cam Smith (after a two stroke penalty in round three) and Tony Finau. Morikawa may be trending? Finau looked tired over the weekend.

Further down the top twenty board were Sungjae Im and Justin Thomas. Im got back in to it on Saturday with a 63 but could only manage a 69 on Sunday. JT messed up his scorecard with a 71 on Saturday. Cam Davis managed another top twenty as did Saheeth Theegala, who is playing more consistently lately. Cam Young had a 66 to close but could only make a tie for 31st place. Not a course for the big hitters.

Further down the board were Max Homa and See Woo Kim in tied 42nd, Shane Lowry in tied 46th; Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele in tied 57th. Not a good week for those guys. But they made the cut unlike Rory and Scottie.

Initial selections for this weeks tournaments will be out Tuesday PM.

Good luck Martin