FedEx St. Jude Championship: Golf One and Done Picks Strategy (2026)

The FedEx playoffs are here, which means the close of One and Done season for many, and there is plenty to be decided with the picks at this week's St. Jude.

by Jason Lisk - Aug 10, 2026

Tommy Fleetwood agonizes over who to pick on his One and Done entry for the St. Jude.

The FedEx Cup Playoffs begin this week at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee — and for your One and Done pool, the stakes have never been higher. You are down to your final two or three picks in most pools. The field is 69 players. There is no cut. Every golfer finishes four rounds. And the $20,000,000 purse, with $3,600,000 going to the winner, makes this a key final moving opportunity, before getting to the final pick.

Deploy wisely. The decisions you make this week and next could decide if you finish in the money.

Here’s what you need to know for your Golf One and Done picks this week.

FedEx St. Jude Championship One and Done Picks: Purse Info

The FedEx St. Jude Championship carries a $20,000,000 purse, with $3,600,000 going to the winner. The entire purse is distributed across the 69-player field with no cut — meaning every golfer in the field earns FedEx Cup points and prize money regardless of score. This is a world-class field, with the Top 70 in FedEx points entering the week eligible to play. Twenty-seven of our Top 30 golfers in ranking are playing this week.

If you want to see where this tournament’s purse ranks in your specific PGA One and Done pool, you can set up your pool entry in our Golf One and Done Picks product.

FedEx St. Jude Championship Overview for One and Done Pools

This analysis is a complement to the data in our product, which provides customized weekly pick grades that account for factors like:

• The total number of picks you need to make this season.
• The specific tournaments included in your pool.
• The golfers you’ve already used so far.

Here are a few notable highlights for the 2026 FedEx St. Jude Championship field:

• 69 players, no cut. Daniel Berger qualified but is not playing and will not be advancing to next week’s BMW Championship. The Top 50 golfers at the end of this week in FedEx points standings will go through to play again, and will also be eligible to play in every Signature Event in 2027.
• Justin Rose is the defending champion. Rose won here last year in a playoff over J.J. Spaun. Both are in this week’s field — Rose as one of the more compelling course history plays despite his modest odds and recent form, and Spaun carrying runner-up experience at TPC Southwind.
• Most of the top nine in odds have not played since The Open Championship — nearly a month ago. Only Scottie Scheffler (3M Open), Xander Schauffele (Rocket Classic), and Cameron Young (Wyndham and Rocket Classic) have played recently among the elite tier. Fleetwood, McIlroy, Fitzpatrick, Aberg, Morikawa, and Burns have all been resting since Royal Birkdale. Whether rust becomes a factor after a month away is an open question, but Scheffler, Schauffele, and Young arrive with more competitive sharpness than their peers.
• Youth has been dominant to close the regular season. Four of the last five PGA Tour events were won by players 24 or younger. Jackson Koivun (21) won the 3M Open in just his third professional start. Michael Thorbjornsen (24) got his first career PGA win at the Rocket Classic. Michael Brennan (24) won the Wyndham Championship. Tom Kim (24) won the Scottish Open. The youngest players on Tour have been playing the best golf heading into the playoffs — and all four are in the field, having played their way in with their recent performances.
• Hideki Matsuyama has played four consecutive weeks and is peaking at the right time. After a quiet early season, Matsuyama has posted three top-10 finishes over his last four starts and moved up to 11th in the odds. He also has strong course history at TPC Southwind, including a win here in 2024. If you still have him available, this is a week to consider deploying him.
• Scottie Scheffler leads the FedEx Cup standings at 4,123 points — without a win since January. He has built that lead through relentless consistency, accumulating top finishes across every major event on the calendar. Whether he can hold the points lead through the playoffs without winning remains to be seen, but his overall play this season has been remarkable regardless of the win column.
• TPC Southwind rewards precision. The course is a tight, tree-lined layout in the Memphis heat that demands accurate driving and elite iron play. Course history here is meaningful — the same names appear near the top of the leaderboard year over year. Cantlay (9th, 12th, 2nd), Fleetwood (3rd, 22nd, 3rd), Morikawa (22nd, 22nd, 13th), Matsuyama (17th, 1st, 16th), and Burns (28th, 5th, 52nd) all have strong track records at this venue.
• Availability shapes this week’s popularity more than any other factor. With two or three events remaining in most pools, entries are deploying their final options. Most of the top players have been used up. Scottie Scheffler is likely only available to a single-digit percentage of entries in most pools, and many of the top 10 on the odds board are at 20% or lower availability.

FedEx St. Jude Championship One and Done Picks: Video

Jason Lisk will break down the FedEx St. Jude Championship in this week’s episode, which will post Tuesday afternoon on YouTube.

Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the PoolGenius YouTube Channel so you don’t miss when each Golf One and Done Picks video is released.

You can also listen to these episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

FedEx St. Jude Championship One and Done Picks: Advice

Below, we’ll break down the top FedEx St. Jude Championship One and Done picks by looking at tournament odds, future value rankings, pick popularity, and the strategy behind when to use each golfer.

Top 15 in Win Odds

Here are the top 15 in win odds for the FedEx St. Jude Championship as of Tuesday, August 12: