PGA Course Preview for the 2025 FedEx St. Jude Championship: Scouting the Routing

Ian McNeill's free comprehensive course preview of TPC Southwind for the 2025 FedEx St. Jude Championship. Ian examines the course, giving key metrics and trends to help make informed decisions on the PGA betting board.

After 40+ tournaments across six different countries, the 2025 PGA Tour season has finally reached its climax. Just 70 players remain in the race for the season-long title, and only 50 will finish this week with eligibility to move onto Caves Valley for the playoff semi-finals. One of these lucky players will stand on the 18th green at Eastlake with an $10,000,000 check and the title of FedEx Cup Champion, but without a solid run of form over the next two weeks, that path will remain nothing more than a distant dream.

FedEx Cup points will be quadrupled over the next two weeks as players jockey for position in Atlanta, which means it really is anyone's game from here on out. A win here in Memphis could catapult you into "favorite" status for the season-long title, but an untimely mistake around these treacherous confines could just as easily spell the end of your 2025 campaign. Strap in, boys and girls - the PGA Tour's biggest prize is up for grabs, and the stars are out in the Home of the Blues!

This piece will serve to break down every key trend and statistic I'm weighing to project a player's viability in the outright market and set our readers up to make the crucial decisions necessary on pre-week betting boards. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting report on TPC Southwind and the 2025 FedEx St. Jude Championship!

The Golf Course

TPC Southwind - Par 70; 7,243 yards

Past Champions

• 2024 - Hideki Matsuyama (-17) over V. Hovland & X. Schauffele
• 2023 - Lucas Glover (-15) over Patrick Cantlay (playoff)
• 2022 - Will Zalatoris (-15) over Sepp Straka (playoff)
• 2021 - Abraham Ancer (-16) over S. Burns & H. Matsuyama (playoff)
• 2020 -  Justin Thomas (-13) over P. Mickelson, T. Lewis, B. Koepka & D. Berger

Southwind by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):

• Average Fairway Width -- 29.2 yards; seventh narrowest on the PGA Tour
• Average Driving Distance -- 289.7 yards; 16th highest on Tour
• Driving Accuracy -- 56.3%; 12th lowest on Tour
• Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.43; fourth highest on Tour
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: (-0.003); 16th easiest on Tour

Looking purely at the course specs and part of the country, I’m sure many of you expect me to copy and paste the analysis I gave you last week at Sedgefield (Birdie Making, Wedge Play, Bermuda Putting, etc.). However, although TPC Southwind does seem to fit the mold of your traditional Southeastern Bermudagrass Par 70, I wouldn’t look too deeply into the correlations between the likes of Sedgefield, Sea Island, or Harbour Town.

It’s been twenty-one years since any touring professional has been able to reach the (-20) mark here at Southwind, and with just four holes on property that carry birdie rates over 20%, this is far from the O.K. Corral-esque shootout we’ve become accustomed to in recent months on Tour. What makes this week Memphis so much more perilous than its neighboring counterparts?

First and foremost, TPC Southwind presents these players with far more in the way of peril off-the-tee. Eleven holes on property are guarded by water hazards, and at 0.67 shots per round, only Muirfield Village, TPC Sawgrass, PGA West, PGA National, and TPC Twin Cities have produced more penalty shots since 2015.

Southwind also features the same penal Bermuda rough we saw in Greensboro, plus the seventh-narrowest fairways on the PGA Tour. With a missed fairway penalty of 0.43 shots (sixth highest on Tour), as well as some of the smallest green complexes on the schedule (4300 sq. feet), players who can't consistently find the fairway will be in for a Major Championship-esque grind of scrambling for pars.

Since 2016, over 80% of the Top 10 finishers have rated out above field average in Good Drive Percentage (any drive that hits the fairway or results in a GIR), and each of the last eight winners here has gained on the field in Fairways Hit. I'll absolutely be weighing accuracy over distance this week, and placing a greater emphasis still on players who can provide an elite Total Driving ceiling.

Southwind by the Numbers (Approach):

• Green in Regulation Rate -- 60.2%; 10th lowest on the PGA Tour
• Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: (-0.009); 13th toughest on Tour
• Key Proximity Ranges:
  • 150-175 yards (accounts for 25.5% of historical approach shots)
  • 175-200 yards (21.9%)
  • 125-150 yards (19.1%)

Another key differentiator Southwind holds to many of its Southeastern cousins is in the hole-by-hole yardages -- particularly on the par fours. Eight of the 12 two-shotters this week will measure over 440 yards (compared to just two at Sedgefield last week), and as such, players will not have nearly the same volume of wedge opportunities.

Instead, we’ll be looking primarily at middle iron play, as nearly half of all historical approach shots have come from 150-200 yards, and another 15% have come from 200+. Longer approach shots tend to favor better ball-strikers, and with a past Champions list like Will Zalatoris, Lucas Glover, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and Daniel Berger, it’s clear to me that not only is iron play the most correlative stat to success here at Southwind, but this layout does a very good job at allowing the cream to rise to the top.

Top 5 finishers at Southwind have gained an average of 4.98 shots to the field with their iron play, and since 2016, winners at TPC Southwind have ranked 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 11th, 3rd, 14th, 14th, 3rd, and 3rd in SG: Approach. Unlike last week, where GIR rates routinely sit in the high 60s-mid 70s for even the field's middling ball-strikers, players will have to string together multiple quality shots to generate birdie opportunities. I'll be looking heavily at players who excel from our key proximity range of 150-200 yards -- provided I believe they've got the prerequisite driving chops to put themselves in position to attack with their second shots.

Southwind by the Numbers (Putting):

• Average Green Size: 4,300 sq. feet
• Agronomy -- Champion Bermudagrass
• Stimpmeter: 12
• 3-Putt Percentage: 2.5% (0.5% below Tour Average)
• Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: (+0.007); sixth easiest on Tour

Moving onto the green complexes themselves, where Southwind begins to loosen its grip ever so slightly. We talked about Champion Bermuda in last week's preview, but the greens here in Memphis lack the same tricky Donald Ross character that can strike fear into the hearts of the best players on the planet. These are also some of the slower Bermuda Greens we tend to see all season, and the lack of severe undulation means that virtually any putt inside 15 feet has a green-light birdie look.

Since 2015, TPC Southwind has ranked as the sixth easiest course on Tour to gain strokes on the greens, so while there is a clear and obvious correlation between putting well and scoring well (as there is every week), I don’t view these greens as a huge separator in ability.

Not only have we seen “bad” putters like Paul Casey, Zalatoris, and Collin Morikawa routinely climb to the top of the Stroke Gained Leaderboard, but players like Thomas (Winner, 2020), Koepka (runner-up, 2020), and Hideki Matsuyama (runner-up, 2021), have proved that you can still contend at this tournament on the back of purely elite tee-to-green play -- losing 1.9, 2.7, and 1.0 shots respectively on the greens over the course of the week.

This is a ball-strikers week above all else, and my statistical formula is as cut and dry as you’ll ever see: 1) Can you keep the ball in play on one of the more treacherous driving courses we’ve seen all season? And 2) Do you possess the upside to lap a top-tier field with your iron play? If history is anything to go on, those two keystones will determine the champion in Memphis this week.

Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):

• Middle-iron play -- specifically looking from 150-200 yards
• General Approach stats (SG: APP, Green in Regulation %, Opportunities Gained)
• Heavy on Elite Total Drivers of the ball this week, but weighing accuracy stats like Good Drive % or Fairways Gained slightly ahead of Distance in the modeling
• Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green
• Recent Performances in difficult scoring conditions

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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

The Sunday Shortlist

Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are two to three names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.

Ludvig Åberg

Ludvig Åberg makes his third birdie in a row. #themasters pic.twitter.com/9PhCW000iA

— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 12, 2025

Much was expected out of the Swedish sophomore heading into the 2025 campaign -- particularly after capturing his biggest title to date at February's Genesis Invitational. And while he hasn't quite lived up to the lofty expectations placed on his 25-year-old shoulders, recent trends suggest there may be one more highlight in store for the Texas Tech alumni.

Follwing a flat post-Masters stretch (culminating with a missed cut at Quail Hollow's PGA Championship), Ludvig has quickly resumed the metronomic ball-striking he's become known for in the professional ranks. In six starts since, Aberg's gained an average of 5.1 strokes per tournament with his driving and approach play -- a mark only rivaled by Scottie Scheffler and Kurt Kitayama in that timeframe.

On the greens, Ludvig has shown a repeated affinity for Bermudagrass: logging the two best putting weeks of his season at Bay Hill and Quail Hollow, and four of the best seven weeks of his career on the Bermudagrass of Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. There's been more than enough recent life from the putter for me to believe Aberg can conquer the benign putting complexes of TPC Southwind, and at outright prices of 30-1, few possess his meteoric upside from tee-through-green.

Chris Kirk

With two to play ...

Chris Kirk sticks it to two feet for birdie and the lead @TheSentry. pic.twitter.com/SdvixsUVZV

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 8, 2024

It’s rare for a triple-digit longshot to check this many boxes in a loaded playoff field, but at 100-1, Chris Kirk looks like one of the most quietly ideal fits for TPC Southwind — arguably more so than several names priced at one-third the number.

When it comes to precision ball-striking, few players are more trustworthy than the Georgia Bulldog. Kirk has gained on the field in Driving Accuracy in nine of his last ten starts, and enters the week with elite iron form — gaining 5.4, 5.4, and 4.3 strokes on approach at the Rocket Mortgage, 3M Open, and Wyndham Championship.

Bermudagrass has always been Kirk’s surface of choice (four of his six PGA Tour wins have come on it), and his recent putting form suggests he’s rolling it as well as he has in years — gaining with the flat-stick in five of his last six starts. With four top-15 finishes since May — including a T14 at the U.S. Open — and strong course history in Memphis (T6, T16, and the solo 18-hole lead last year), 100-1 feels like an awfully generous price tag. Kirk already proved last season he can take down an elite-calibre field in a Signature Event. At 100-1, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him lurking on another marquee leaderboard.

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