The PGA Tour season comes to an end this week with the final leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs as the Top 30 golfers in the standings head to East Lake for the Tour Championship. Let’s close out the year with a double winner!
Course Breakdown
Par 71, 7500 yards, the course was lengthened a bit this year, Donald Ross designed course with Reese Jones redesign (1994), all three Par 5’s are reachable but if the prevailing winds shift (usually the wind is to the golfer’s back) but the 18th hole will be tougher to hit by shorter hitters, all four Par 3s are difficult with three of them being over 200 yards (the other is 193 yards), four of the Par 4s are over 450 yards and five of them are between 400-450 yards, fairly narrow tree lined fairways, Zoysia grass fairways that are a new type of Zoysia that plays a bit firmer than past years, large bunkers in play at the landing zones, rough is thick and penal (less than 50% of approach shots from the rough hit the green), toughest fairways to hit on tour (much harder than tour average, 55% vs. 62%), average driving distance longer than tour average (292 vs. 284), very fast Bermuda greens, firmness all depends on weather conditions, wide variety of large multi-tiered greens with a lot of slope and smaller greens with a lot of back to front slope, need to hit certain spots on greens for realistic birdie chances, the contours on some greens were changed on some holes, greenside bunkers in play on most holes with a majority of them guarding the very front of the greens, lot of prevailing winds here
Tournament Notes
- Final event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the PGA Tour season
- New format started five years ago with the starting strokes for the tournament based on FedEx Cup standings. Win this tournament, win the FedEx Cup and $25 Million
- Average winning score here is around -10, so that almost completely takes out anyone starting around -2 and E but golfers could catch up or drop pretty quickly
- Prior to last year, since the start of this format, a player that started at -2 finished T5, so players can climb the leaderboard (last year Xander started at -3 and finished 2nd)
- Every year since the start of this format, no player starting at -1 or even has finished T5
- The first place player coming into this event has not finished worst than T6 since this format started (Scottie was awful last year, but prior to that the worst finish for the starting leader was T3)
- Since 2012, the average finish of golfers that finish T3 here in the prior three playoff events is 26th (before last year when the format of the playoffs was changed from 125/70/30 to 70/50/30), so current form matters, almost 60% of which had 0 T5s in those three playoff events.
- Some non-elite players pop here
Key Stats
SG: Approach, GIR Gained, Par 4 Scoring
Corollary Courses
Sedgefield Country Club (Wyndham Championship) – Donald Ross design with some crossover success especially on players that aren’t long off the tee
Field
30 golfers – Top 30 in FedEx Cup standings
Defending Champion: Viktor Hovland (-27)
Runner Up Last Year: Xander Schauffele (-22)
Lowest score relative to Par last year: Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele (-19)
Players
Xander Schauffele (-8): 11000: +230 (with starting strokes)/+470 (without starting strokes) – By far the second best player on Tour this season after Scottie Scheffler, along with Finau he’s the only golfer in the field to make it to the Tour Championship for seven straight seasons, incredible course history here both with and without starting strokes, was lowest to par here last year in his second place finish (tying Hovland, who won), 2,4,5,3,2,2,7,1 finishes here with his win coming before the new format, two time major winner at the PGA and Open Championships this season with T10s in 73% of his events with 5,2,1,15,13,7,8,1,2,18,8,5,2,25,4,54,9,3,10 finishes this season, 3rd in Approach, 10th in SG: OTT, 18th in Fairways Gained, 2nd in Par 4 Scoring, 9th in Par 4 Scoring: 400-450 yards, 2nd in Par 4 Scoring: 450-500 yards, 4th in Par 3 Scoring: 200-225 yards, 16th in SG: ARG, 1st in Putting, 10th in Opportunities Gained, 2nd in GIRs Gained, 6th in Birdie+ Gained, 2nd in Bogie Avoidance
Tony Finau (-3): 7700: +12650 (with starting strokes)/+ODDS (without starting strokes) – I don’t think he can win from -3 but he’s absolutely in play for the 72 hole score and worth a couple bucks on the outright as well, playing incredible golf T2G and hasn’t been able to get a win, 13,16,12,MC,5,3,8,17,18,52,12,55,2,MC,45,13,19,47,6,25,38 finishes this season, along with Xander he’s the only golfer in the field to make it to the Tour Championship for seven straight seasons, 20,9,11,19,17,7,15,7 finishes here, 2nd in Approach, 26th in SG: OTT, 27th in Fairways Gained, 20th in Par 4 Scoring, 13th in Par 4 Scoring: 400-450 yards, 25th in Par 4 Scoring: 450-500 yards, 13th in Par 3 Scoring: 200-225 yards, 4th in SG: ARG, 17th in Putting, 3rd in Opportunities Gained, 10th in GIRs Gained, 4th in Birdie+ Gained, 16th in Bogie Avoidance
Aaron Rai (E): 6400: +57500 (with starting strokes)/+5000 (without starting strokes) – Zero percent chance he wins but I could see him having the low 72 hole score and climbing the leaderboard, first time playing this event, just won a couple weeks ago and cashed in for me at the Wyndham after I’ve rode him the entire second half of the season, playing great golf with 43,16,1,75,4,7,2,19,14,32,39,4,MC,58,7,MC,35,23,19 finishes in his last 19 events, 4th in Approach, 22nd in SG: OTT, 4th in Fairways Gained, 7th in Par 4 Scoring, 6th in Par 4 Scoring: 400-450 yards, 12th in Par 4 Scoring: 450-500 yards, 6th in Par 3 Scoring: 200-225 yards, 11th in SG: ARG, 3rd in Putting, 17th in Opportunities Gained, 3rd in GIRs Gained, 9th in Birdie+ Gained, 4th in Bogie Avoidance, third in my model this week, I’ll throw away $1 on his outright for the hell of it
Model
Approach (20%)
SG: OTT (10%)
Fairways Gained (5%)
Par 4 Scoring (10%)
Par 4 Scoring: 400-450 yards (5%)
Par 4 Scoring: 450-500 yards (5%)
Par 3 Scoring: 200-225 yards (5%)
SG: ARG (5%)
Putting (5%)
Opportunities Gained (10%)
GIRs Gained (10%)
Birdie+ Gained (5%)
Bogie Avoidance (5%)
Stats based on past 24 rounds
DraftKings/Betting Notes
- Starting position matters a lot in DK since the scoring is just standard but the pricing takes that into account
- With only 30 golfers in the field, there will be a ton of duplicate lineups in DFS, so you have to really differentiate your lineups leaving money on the table and doing contrarian stacks
- A lot books will offer regular odds on the tournament winner as well as alternate odds on who has the best score for the four days not taking into account starting strokes, so there’s different ways to look at it since the odds with starting strokes are essentially like live betting the tournament before it even starts
- I hit the double winner on this last year hitting Hovland, who won both with and without starting strokes
Bets
Outrights (with starting strokes)
4u Xander Schauffele (+230)
.1u Tony Finau (+12650)
.02u Aaron Rai (+57500)
Outrights (without starting strokes)
2u Xander Schauffele (+470)
.4u Tony Finau (+2900)
.2u Aaron Rai (+5000)
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A Town's Zone 