The Read · FedEx St. Jude Championship · TPC Southwind · Aug. 13–16
The Read: FedEx St. Jude Championship
The FedExCup Playoffs open in Memphis with a clear favorite, a tightly packed chase group, and four days of heat in the TPC Southwind forecast.
Pre-event win, top-finish, and make-cut estimates.
The setup
The FedEx St. Jude Championship opens the FedExCup Playoffs at TPC Southwind in Memphis. The field is down to 69 players, so the pre-event board is compact enough to make every tier visible before scores begin to move.
That board has one unmistakable headline and several close races behind it. The useful starting point is not a generic playoff label; it is the exact distance between the names at the top, the challengers clustered beneath them, and the conditions the 69-player field is forecast to face from Thursday through Sunday.
The week and weather
The course forecast comes from liveslip.ai’s licensed hyperlocal weather feed for TPC Southwind, retrieved Wednesday, August 12 at 6:20 PM CDT. Forecasts can change; these are the four round-day snapshots captured before play.
Thursday, Aug 13: partly cloudy, with a forecast high of 97°F and low of 78°F, maximum precipitation probability of 3%, southwest winds up to 12 mph, and gusts up to 26 mph.
Friday, Aug 14: partly cloudy, with a forecast high of 103°F and low of 78°F, maximum precipitation probability of 1%, southwest winds up to 11 mph, and gusts up to 24 mph.
Saturday, Aug 15: overcast, with a forecast high of 104°F and low of 77°F, maximum precipitation probability of 1%, southwest winds up to 7 mph, and gusts up to 17 mph.
Sunday, Aug 16: drizzle, with a forecast high of 106°F and low of 78°F, maximum precipitation probability of 1%, southwest winds up to 9 mph, and gusts up to 28 mph.
What’s at stake
Scottie Scheffler starts with daylight behind him. His 13.2% win line is more than twice Rory McIlroy’s 6.3%, and Scheffler is the only player above 50% to finish in the top 10 at 53.8%. The week begins with the rest of the field trying to close a real numerical gap.
McIlroy owns the clear second line: 6.3% to win, 22.7% for a top five, and 57.0% for a top 20. He is the only player besides Scheffler above 6% to win, which makes the first chase story just as distinct as the favorite.
Cameron Young and Xander Schauffele form the next pairing. Young is third on the win board at 5.0%, with Schauffele fourth at 4.4%; both sit above 30% for a top 10 and above 50% for a top 20. Their separation is small enough for one round to reorder the chase immediately.
The next tier is even tighter. Ludvig Aberg (3.2%), Tommy Fleetwood (3.0%), Justin Thomas (3.0%), and Sam Burns (3.0%) are separated by less than a quarter of a percentage point on the win board. Fleetwood’s 27.1% top-10 line leads that four-player group, giving the middle of the board its own Thursday-to-Sunday contest.
The exact pre-event snapshot contains 69 complete player rows. Scheffler and McIlroy account for 19.5% of the board’s win probability before the first tee; the other 67 players share the rest, which is why the compressed tiers beneath them matter.
The board — win-probability before the first tee
Below is the 69-row pre-tournament board: win, top five, top 10, top 20, and make-cut estimates captured at the same source timestamp. These are not picks or promises. They are the fixed starting line for watching the numbers move once play begins.
| Player | Win | Top 5 | Top 10 | Top 20 | Make cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scottie Scheffler | 13% | 38% | 54% | 73% | 100% |
| Rory McIlroy | 6% | 23% | 37% | 57% | 100% |
| Cameron Young | 5% | 19% | 32% | 52% | 100% |
| Xander Schauffele | 4% | 18% | 31% | 51% | 100% |
| Ludvig Aberg | 3% | 14% | 26% | 45% | 100% |
| Tommy Fleetwood | 3% | 15% | 27% | 47% | 100% |
| Justin Thomas | 3% | 13% | 24% | 44% | 100% |
| Sam Burns | 3% | 13% | 25% | 44% | 100% |
| Chris Gotterup | 3% | 13% | 23% | 42% | 100% |
| Matt Fitzpatrick | 3% | 13% | 25% | 45% | 100% |
| Patrick Cantlay | 2% | 11% | 22% | 41% | 100% |
| Si Woo Kim | 2% | 11% | 22% | 42% | 100% |
| Collin Morikawa | 2% | 11% | 21% | 39% | 100% |
| Jackson Koivun | 2% | 10% | 20% | 37% | 100% |
| Viktor Hovland | 2% | 10% | 20% | 38% | 100% |
| Min Woo Lee | 2% | 10% | 19% | 36% | 100% |
| Hideki Matsuyama | 2% | 10% | 20% | 39% | 100% |
| Ryan Gerard | 2% | 10% | 19% | 37% | 100% |
| Michael Thorbjornsen | 2% | 9% | 18% | 35% | 100% |
| Maverick McNealy | 2% | 9% | 18% | 35% | 100% |
| Ben Griffin | 1% | 8% | 18% | 36% | 100% |
| Tom Kim | 1% | 8% | 17% | 34% | 100% |
| Wyndham Clark | 1% | 8% | 16% | 32% | 100% |
| Russell Henley | 1% | 8% | 17% | 34% | 100% |
| Robert MacIntyre | 1% | 8% | 16% | 33% | 100% |
| Michael Brennan | 1% | 7% | 15% | 31% | 100% |
| Alex Fitzpatrick | 1% | 7% | 15% | 31% | 100% |
| Kurt Kitayama | 1% | 6% | 14% | 29% | 100% |
| J.J. Spaun | 1% | 7% | 14% | 30% | 100% |
| Alex Smalley | 1% | 6% | 14% | 29% | 100% |
| Kristoffer Reitan | 0.9% | 5% | 12% | 26% | 100% |
| Nicolai Hojgaard | 0.9% | 5% | 12% | 26% | 100% |
| Jake Knapp | 0.9% | 5% | 12% | 25% | 100% |
| Sungjae Im | 0.9% | 5% | 12% | 27% | 100% |
| Justin Rose | 0.9% | 5% | 11% | 25% | 100% |
| Rickie Fowler | 0.8% | 5% | 12% | 26% | 100% |
| Shane Lowry | 0.8% | 5% | 12% | 27% | 100% |
| Bud Cauley | 0.8% | 5% | 12% | 26% | 100% |
| Jordan Smith | 0.8% | 5% | 12% | 26% | 100% |
| Keith Mitchell | 0.8% | 5% | 11% | 25% | 100% |
| Jordan Spieth | 0.8% | 5% | 10% | 24% | 100% |
| Corey Conners | 0.8% | 5% | 11% | 25% | 100% |
| Aaron Rai | 0.7% | 5% | 12% | 26% | 100% |
| Eric Cole | 0.7% | 4% | 10% | 23% | 100% |
| Akshay Bhatia | 0.7% | 5% | 11% | 25% | 100% |
| Alex Noren | 0.7% | 5% | 11% | 24% | 100% |
| Jacob Bridgeman | 0.6% | 5% | 11% | 24% | 100% |
| Ryo Hisatsune | 0.6% | 4% | 9% | 22% | 100% |
| Adam Scott | 0.6% | 4% | 9% | 21% | 100% |
| Harris English | 0.6% | 4% | 10% | 23% | 100% |
| Michael Kim | 0.5% | 4% | 9% | 21% | 100% |
| Harry Hall | 0.5% | 4% | 9% | 21% | 100% |
| Sahith Theegala | 0.5% | 3% | 8% | 19% | 100% |
| J.T. Poston | 0.5% | 3% | 8% | 20% | 100% |
| Brian Harman | 0.5% | 3% | 8% | 20% | 100% |
| Ricky Castillo | 0.4% | 3% | 8% | 19% | 100% |
| Ryan Fox | 0.4% | 3% | 8% | 19% | 100% |
| Gary Woodland | 0.4% | 3% | 7% | 17% | 100% |
| Nico Echavarria | 0.4% | 3% | 7% | 17% | 100% |
| Matt McCarty | 0.3% | 2% | 6% | 16% | 100% |
| Max Homa | 0.3% | 2% | 6% | 14% | 100% |
| Sepp Straka | 0.3% | 2% | 5% | 14% | 100% |
| Nick Taylor | 0.3% | 2% | 6% | 16% | 100% |
| Sudarshan Yellamaraju | 0.2% | 2% | 5% | 14% | 100% |
| Sam Stevens | 0.2% | 2% | 6% | 16% | 100% |
| Matti Schmid | 0.2% | 2% | 5% | 13% | 100% |
| Pierceson Coody | 0.2% | 2% | 5% | 13% | 100% |
| Aldrich Potgieter | 0.2% | 1% | 4% | 10% | 100% |
| Patrick Rodgers | 0.1% | 0.6% | 2% | 6% | 100% |
Swipe the table to reach top 20 and make cut.
Pre-event estimates shown in board order.
What we’ll be sweating
Start with the gaps the board gives us: Scheffler against the field, McIlroy alone in second, Young and Schauffele side by side, then the four-player cluster around 3%. Follow how those tiers break apart as the heat, wind, and four rounds accumulate. One early swing does not settle a four-day event.
Event identity, date, venue, field size, and all player values come from the current event-bound schedule and pre-tournament board. The TPC Southwind forecast was retrieved Wednesday, August 12 at 6:20 PM CDT from the licensed course-specific weather feed. Probabilities and weather are informational pre-event estimates, not betting advice.
liveslip.ai is for adults 21+ and provides informational tracking, not betting advice. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER.