Rory McIlroy vs. Sam Burns

Rory McIlroy's week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship was as rough as it gets: four rounds in the 70s, a tie for 66th out of 68 players, and a swing he admitted felt lost by the weekend. He hadn't competed since The Open Championship in mid-July, and afterward he pointed to a lack of practice reps rather than anything mechanically broken. Sam Burns had the opposite week, running to a share of third at eight under with a bogey-free 62 in the mix, and he arrives at Bellerive playing about as well as anyone in the field not named Scheffler. McIlroy's own explanation matters here: rust from three weeks off is a different problem than a swing that's actually broken, and it's the kind of thing four more days of range time tends to fix. He also said he started finding it late in Memphis, five birdies over his final ten holes. Bellerive is a much tougher, longer test than the Southwind layout he just struggled through, stretching to 7,448 yards with only two par-5s and a real premium on total driving distance, which plays directly to McIlroy's biggest strength. A past BMW Championship winner getting plus money while giving 1.5 shots is a number shaped more by last week's disaster than by this week's actual matchup. Burns earned his form, but McIlroy is the mispriced side here. Back McIlroy to win by two strokes or more.