TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP: The PGA Tour season comes to an end this week with the finale of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, the Tour Championship, an event that employs a hokey format to achieve an end result that not many will remember other than the guys getting paid.
For instance, if, say, 9th-seeded Sam Burns were to win this week and be named FedEx Cup champion… would anyone remember 2024 as the year of Sam Burns? No, of course not — the year would still be remembered for Scottie Scheffler’s sustained brilliance and Xander Schauffele’s two majors. No matter what you call this tournament — Tour Championship, World Open, Milky Way Classic — it will never be what the PGA Tour apparently wishes it to be, a tournament that dwarfs all others in importance because it crowns a “world champion” in the same way that many team sports do. There’s nothing wrong with having the top 30 guys on Tour play a big-money event to end the season, and for that event not to be the most important on the schedule or the biggest thing happening in the sports world at the time. It could simply be an exciting limited-field event consisting of the Tour’s best, much like this tournament was for the first 20 years of its existence.
Instead, they’ve created this bastardization of a pro golf tournament — a handicapped event in which the players all start at different scores relative to par. For the uninitiated, 1-seed Scheffler will begin the week at 10-under, 2-seen Schauffele at 8-under, 3-seed Hideki Matsuyama at 7-under, and so on, with the last five players in the rankings starting at even par. It’s weird, I know, and it’s a format that has drawn criticism from all angles, most prominently from the World No. 1 himself, but apparently that powers that be in Ponte Vedra see something they like.
Enough with the negative, though — we get another opportunity to watch the Tour’s best compete and maybe even make a little money while we’re at it, as we did a couple of weeks ago when Hideki came through for us in Memphis. The star of the show this week will be the golf course: East Lake in Atlanta is one of America’s great classic courses, the place where Bobby Jones himself learned the game. It’s played host to this event since 2004, and we’ve seen over the years that it can be just about as difficult as the Tour wants it to be. A par-70 that tips out at 7,346 yards, it’s plenty long, and if they played it all the way back and grew the Bermuda rough high, we would see U.S. Open-like scoring. The Tour knows the fans want birdies, though, so they’ll move the tee boxes around a bit, and if the last few years are any indication the rough, while still penal, will be playable. The greens are also Bermuda, which will be a change from what the players saw at Castle Pines last week and should definitely be taken into account when handicapping this field.
Viktor Hovland started the week at 8-under last year and finished it holding the trophy, but it won’t be easy to repeat from a 2-under start, which is why he’s currently trading at a whopping 86.0 on the BETDAQ exchange. It’s a funny week in that regard. Giving Scheffler (2.36) the lead to start seems almost unfair, but he’s not playing quite as well as he was a few weeks ago, so I expect someone to jump up from the pack and challenge him, at least. With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Ludvig Aberg (19.5)- With Scheffler easing off the gas pedal these past couple of weeks it feels like a handful of others have a chance here, and near the top of the list of “others” is Aberg, who will begin the week at 5-under, with only four players in front of him. Remarkably, Aberg has yet to find the winner’s circle this season despite notching three runners-up, five top-5s, and eight top-10s across 18 starts, so a victory this week would certainly be a memorable way to cap off what has otherwise been a good year. He answered any questions about his form with a runner-up at the BMW last week, a result powered by a second-round 63, and though he has yet to play East Lake in competition, the demanding tee-to-green nature of the course should suit Aberg nicely. Nobody this side of Scottie Scheffler hits the ball better than this guy — he ranks 2nd on Tour in total driving, 13th in strokes gained on approach and 10th in strokes gained tee-to-green. There are no weaknesses. At nearly 20/1, he’s my favorite bet on the board this week.
Keegan Bradley (40.0)- This seems like a big price for Bradley, doesn’t it? I mean, he starts the week at 6-under, behind just three guys, and even before his victory at Castle Pines last week his game had been on the upswing, with only one missed cut in his previous 12 starts and some close calls, like a runner-up at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Everyone knows that Bradley has been named captain of the next U.S. Ryder Cup team, and that news seems to have sharpened his game and his focus — at the press conference on Sunday he spoke openly about his desire to be the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in the 60s. He played well in this tournament last year, finishing at 10-under after starting the week at minus-3, which was good enough for a T9. He’s got a chance to make some serious noise this time around, especially if Scheffler falters, and at a price like 40.0 he’s tough to pass up.
Sungjae Im (100.0)- Im starts the week at 3-under, and as of yet we haven’t seen someone come from that far behind to win this tournament. If they keep this format, however, it will happen eventually, and when it does it will surely be some guy who goes on a birdie binge and posts 30-under for the week or something. Well, there may be no one better suited for a run like that than Im, who ranks 5th on the PGA Tour in total birdies and has never met a pin he won’t attack. He’s been on a roll these past few months, racking up nine top-15 finishes in his last 13 starts, including a T7 at the Open and a T11 at Castle Pines last week. Take this man anywhere in the world, from Scotland to Colorado to steamy Georgia, and he’ll make you some birdies. He’ll be back at it this week, to be sure, and I’m happy to take a chance on him at a triple-digit price.
