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Pamela Maldonado
Multiple Authors
Muirfield Village is a genuine monster at 7,569 yards with elite-level difficulty on rating and slope with water everywhere. Approach play is everything here, and everything else is secondary.
Muirfield is essentially an iron-play contest dressed up as a full PGA event. And the fairway miss penalty being the highest on Tour creates a compounding problem: Miss the fairway and you’ll likely be hitting a long approach from an awkward lie into fast, undulated, tiny greens.
This week, I heavily weighed strokes gained approach plus tee-to-green to find my pool, then used around the green to trim the fat, and left everything else as noise. Because it’s a signature event, I’m still putting my trust in very few players.
Odds by DraftKings Sportsbook
(with ties) and subject to change.
Best bet
Ludvig Åberg Top 10 +136 (with ties): Got burned last week but I’m back to him again. Åberg’s irons were neutral at Colonial but he’s first in the field on approach, which means he had a down week. They happen. He’s also second in the field from tee-to-green. His course history is positive with good approach numbers in back-to-back years and he has consistently been in contention this season.
The one honest concern is around the green (27th). If he misses the greens at Muirfield he could leak more than the top players but his greens in regulation rate is strong enough that he’s not scrambling from trouble often. He has been shaky at best on Sunday, 43rd in fourth-round scoring average, but he shot 66 last year at this course, making it encouraging that he can make a Sunday run.
Top 5 -144 (with ties): This again? Yes. Why not? Each week we’re essentially asking, will Scheffler do what Scheffler does? I haven’t seen anything to give me pause. He has finished in the top five in 22 of his past 32 events, which is a 68.75% hit rate. He has finished in the top five in four of his past five events and was runner-up in three of those.
The analytical side to back it up, he won this tournament in back-to-back years two different ways. Last year he was elite with his irons, scrambling, and around the green. His putting was essentially neutral, which at Muirfield is perfectly fine. In 2024, Scheffler had one of the more absurd individual performance numbers you’ll see, gaining nearly 13 strokes on approach. His entire run was decided by iron play alone. His 2025 version was more complete.
This time, he’s top five in every weighted strokes gained metric, first in the field on long courses and top 15 in scrambling, a skill the course rewards heavily. The price is a premium for a chalk play but the data supports the price. The only counter is that -144 may not work with your bankroll, making it real money at risk on a golf bet where variance is high. But if you believe his base is the ceiling for most, this is a +EV bet.
Daily fantasy plays and fades
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Play
Cameron Young, $10,300: The form is elite right now with wins in the Players Championship and the Cadillac Championship, with the only red coming from lost strokes putting in two events as of late. He has a true Top 10 rate (+126) but the problem is the course history, T50 in 2024 losing on approach and T25 last year also weak on approach. The course hasn’t clicked for him despite his profile fighting it on paper. Playing him in fantasy over betting makes sense because his Muirfield history could suppress ownership and lower ownership on a live player is the edge.
Fade
Alex Smalley, $8,000: Smalley is on a heater, finishing top seven in four of his past five events, including as runner-up in the PGA Championship. He’s in the green with his strokes gained data across the board since early April with no real blips causing concern. So why fade? His $8,000 tag is telling. He missed the cut at Muirfield in 2022 and 2023, both times with deeply negative approach games. At other similar comp looks, three straight missed cuts at Riviera and even a more loose comp course, a missed cut at Bay Hill. Across multiple attempts at three relevant courses, he has performed terribly with large negative approach numbers. Could he be a better player now? Yes, the recent hot streak — T2 at Aronimink, T3 at Colonial and even T17 at Quail Hollow — are real, but those are different demand profiles entirely. His style may not translate to long-iron demands at Muirfield.
J.J. Spaun, $8,000: His approach numbers are legitimately good but Spaun has missed cuts at courses where it matters. He’s a hard player to trust at Muirfield without better comp performances. Plus, having lost major strokes in nearly every tournament he has played this season puts him in danger at a course where scrambling is already hard.
