Steve Palmer's Memorial Tournament third-round advice, tips, when to watch

Sky Sports Golf, Saturday 5.30pm

Troy Merritt and Kyoung-Hoon Lee, ante-post 250-1 outsiders, share the lead in the Memorial Tournament at the halfway stage with pre-tournament 175-1 chance Martin Kaymer.

The trio of Muirfield Village rags are still being given little chance of success by bookmakers despite their impressive opening 36 holes. That is because three high-class Americans are on their tail. Jordan Spieth is alone in fourth place, just one shot behind, while Patrick Cantlay and Rickie Fowler are tied in fifth spot.

And Justin Rose, the 2010 Memorial champion, produced an astonishing burst of scoring to put himself in the thick of things. He was four over par through four holes of round two, struggling to make the cut, but two eagles and six birdies followed to launch the Englishman to six under par, just three off the pace.

Tiger Woods is seven shots adrift, eased from 12-1 to 66-1, but the five-time Memorial champion at least still has some hope of success. Rory McIlroy missed the cut by a shot, while Matt Kuchar, Jason Day, Phil Mickelson, Tony Finau and Justin Thomas finished behind the misfiring Northern Irishman.

A heavy afternoon thunderstorm is forecast for Dublin, Ohio, which seems likely to cause problems for round three. Spieth, the new 6-1 tournament favourite, may find the going annoyingly soft for his final 36 holes.

Fowler seemed to have a lot of swing thoughts cluttering his mind in his post-second-round interview, and outright punters may be best to concentrate on Cantlay and Rose.

Cantlay is full of form and confidence, at a venue where he finished fourth last year, while Rose clicked into top gear in spectacular fashion with a Friday 63 and will approach the weekend in vibrant mood.

The 15-2 Cantlay and the 11-1 Rose are well worth considering, while third-round twoball punters are pointed towards Hideki Matsuyama, who should be shorter than 8-11 to win his battle of Asia against Haotong Li at 4.45pm. Li is still short of Stateside experience, while Matsuyama has won five US Tour title, the first of which came at Muirfield Village.

Recommendation
H Matsuyama
2pts 8-11 Coral, Ladbrokes

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