I love this place!

Entrants ranked on history in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The value reflects the player’s success and number of years competed within the last eight years, weighted in favor of more recent seasons. A value of 1.000 would mean the player appeared every year and won every time. A value of about .715 puts the player in the top 1 percent of all players who have played the event at least once in the last eight seasons, a value of .335 puts a player in the top 10 percent.

Player	History
Brooks Koepka	0.664
Billy Horschel	0.643
Daniel Berger	0.624
Chez Reavie	0.567
Justin Thomas	0.515
Jordan Spieth	0.472
Abraham Ancer	0.470
Hideki Matsuyama	0.462

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Top of the heap

The top eight players (per the Hawley Ratings) among this event’s entries.

Player	Rank	Rating
Patrick Cantlay	1	1776.1
Rory McIlroy	2	1650.9
Xander Schauffele	3	1624.6
Jon Rahm	4	1525.8
Cameron Smith	5	1520.0
Scottie Scheffler	6	1466.7
Justin Thomas	7	1380.2
Cameron Young	8	1372.6

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Sorry, can’t make it

The top four players (per the Hawley Ratings) who are not playing this event.

Player	Rank	Rating
Dustin Johnson	12	1240.2
Paul Casey	20	1065.1
Louis Oosthuizen	36	891.9
Bryson DeChambeau	42	827.2

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Ooh, that’s hot

Players are ranked by performance in their last four appearances in comparison with their current Hawley Rating.

Player	Upward change
Xander Schauffele	1657.1
Scott Stallings	1622.9
Rory McIlroy	1592.0
Patrick Cantlay	1558.8
Matthew Fitzpatrick	1462.2
Tony Finau	1324.6
Brandon Wu	1236.7
Tommy Fleetwood	1031.3

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Brr, that’s cold

Players are ranked by performance in their last four appearances in comparison with their current Hawley Rating.

Player	Downward change
Mito Pereira	-889.6
Keegan Bradley	-880.7
Sam Burns	-754.6
Justin Thomas	-717.5
Davis Riley	-599.6
Collin Morikawa	-595.5
Justin Rose	-563.7
Viktor Hovland	-542.0

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Certain skills required

Among a set of 10 PGA Tour and DP World Tour statistics that reflect physical characteristics of the TPC Southwind course, this table shows the four that have the highest unique correlation with player performance. Events on this course within the last eight years are considered, and the minimum is 80 player appearances. In mathematical terms, the number shown is the partial correlation coefficient.

Stat value	Statistic
0.19	Shots gained in approach
0.19	Shots gained around the green
0.19	Driving distance
0.12	Driving accuracy

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Location, location, location

Event entrants ranked by predicted score per 18 holes based solely on “course fit” — i.e. based on the player’s current percentile standing in each of the four statistics shown above.

Course fit	Player
Scottie Scheffler	68.61
Talor Gooch	68.67
Rory McIlroy	68.70
Matthew Fitzpatrick	68.74
Russell Henley	68.76
Justin Thomas	68.81
Xander Schauffele	68.82
Sungjae Im	68.93

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Anyplace but here

Event entrants ranked by worst predicted score per 18 holes based solely on “course fit” — i.e. the player’s current percentile standing in each of the four statistics shown above.

Course fit	Player
Nick Watney	71.1
Brandon Wu	71.0
Danny Lee	71.0
Lucas Herbert	70.9
Chesson Hadley	70.9
Carlos Ortiz	70.9
Adam Schenk	70.8
Vincent Whaley	70.8

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Staying close to home

Exempt entrants ranked by miles between their listed residence as of January 2022 and Memphis TN, the event host city.

Player	Residence	Distance
Lee Hodges	Athens AL	175
Trey Mullinax	Gardendale Al	200
Chad Ramey	Fulton MS	225
Davis Riley	Hattiesburg MS	275
Stephan Jaeger	Chattanooga TN	275
Adam Schenk	Vincennes IN	275
Sam Burns	Shreveport LA	275
Peter Malnati	Knoxville Ten	350
Scott Stallings	Knoxville Ten	350

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Mathematically speaking

The following table shows the correlations between player ranking in the above tables and their actual finish positions. In other words, to what extent does the ordering of players in the table correspond to the order of finish.

Statistic	Correlation to results
Top of the heap	0.334
I love this place	0.152
Ooh, that’s hot	0.137
Location, location, location	0.017