The 2022 FedEx Cup Playoffs begin on Thursday with a trip to TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee, for the St. Jude Championship.
The top 125 players in the PGA TOUR are in town for St. Jude, giving us one of the most challenging fields we’ve seen this year outside of the major championships.
Finding a long shot winner in a field with this much star power is undoubtedly difficult, but any player on TOUR can get hot for a single round to cash a first-round leader (FRL) ticket.
Here are three players to target in the FRL market:
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PGA Tour first-round leader golf picks and predictions at St. Jude’s
Trey Mullinax (+12500, BetMGM)
It isn’t very often that Trey Mullinax is trendy, but he’s getting some buzz as a sleeper in both betting markets and DFS this week. After a stretch of seven missed cuts over 11 starts from March to early July, Mullinax has sprung into great form over the dog days of summer. He won at The Barbasol Championship, which earned him a ticket into the Open Championship, where he finished T21. Following that, Mullinax posted a T37 at the Rocket Mortgage, where he finished 10-under par. Mullinax has shot in the 60s in eight of his last 12 rounds.
In addition to his current purple patch, Mullinax has a decent course history with a T18 (2017) and a T6 (2018) in his only two stops at TPC Southwind.
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Kyoung-hoon Lee (+12500, BetMGM)
There’s something about K.H. Lee at TPC courses. Not only have both of his PGA TOUR victories come at TPC Craig Ranch, but he’s also finished runner-up and was the first-round leader at TPC Scottsdale, and has a top-20 finish at TPC River Highlands, where he was the first-round leader back in 2019. In this field, it’s unlikely that Lee’s game will hold up over four days, but there’s no reason to scoff at this price on him waking up with the lead on Friday.
Mackenzie Hughes (+15000, BetMGM)
Things aren’t going well for Mackenzie Hughes right now, but there was a sign of hope among his four missed cuts on the spin. In his last outing at the Wyndham Championship, the Canadian posted a 67 in Round 1 before falling apart with a 78 on Friday. We know that Hughes has the ability to get hot — he finished T37 or better in four straight tournaments before his recent swoon — and his short game always makes him dangerous. Hughes ranks 16th in Strokes Gained: Putting and 20th in SG: Around the green, so he’s always a threat go get white hot if the other parts of his game start to cooperate.