THE NORTHERN TRUST: The FedEx Cup Playoffs kick off this week with The Northern Trust, an event that has moved around over the past few years and will now be held outside of the New York/New Jersey area for the first time, at TPC Boston, a venue that will be a familiar one to many in the field, having hosted the Deutsche Bank Championship (later the Dell Technologies Championship) from 2003 until that tournament was eliminated following the 2018 season.
The field this week is comprised of the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings, and only the top 70 at the conclusion of Sunday’s play will move on to next week’s BMW Championship at Olympia Fields, so the players who just squeezed in around that 125 mark will need a big week to advance. This is the intrinsic difficulty with a “playoff” concept in a sport like golf– if you made it a true Playoff Series, where everyone starts on equal footing with an equal chance to win, it would devalue the regular season and hurt the guys near the top of the standings. Conversely, a format like the current one puts so much weight on where you are in the standings entering the playoffs that it reduces or eliminates the “anything can happen/anyone can win” feel that most sports strive for in a postseason tournament. At any rate, we now have a couple more big events to keep us entertained, and I would think this current setup will be regarded as moderately successful as long as the top players keep showing up.
TPC Boston is an Arnold Palmer design that’s relatively new, opening just after the turn of the century before being renovated by Gil Hanse in 2007. It’s a par-71 that measures around 7,350 yards from all the way back, but Zach Johnson was quoted back in 2018 as saying that he approaches the greens with 8-iron or less on at least 11 holes, so there are scoring opportunities regardless of how far you hit the ball. That being said, bombers have fared really well in this event over the past few years, and looking at both past results and various player comments this week it seems clear that length off the tee provides a significant advantage at TPC Boston. The course can be unmanned if someone like Justin Thomas gets into a rhythm with the driver, and in Thomas’s 3-shot victory at the 2017 Dell Technologies Championship he became the 12th straight champion at TPC Boston to finish the week at 15-under or better. If you want to win this week, you’d better bring your birdies.
The top of BETDAQ’s Win Market includes the usual suspects, like Bryson DeChambeau (13.5), who won the Dell Technologies on this course in 2018; Rory McIlroy (16.0), a winner at TPC Boston in both 2012 and 2016; the aforementioned Thomas (16.5), and Jon Rahm (17.0), the top-ranked player in the world. But as is always the case with a field of this caliber, there are plenty of intriguing options and inflated prices a bit further down the board, and I really think we’re getting good value with these three selections:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Tony Finau (40.0)- Given the way he’s been playing lately, with three top-10s in his past four starts, including a 4th-place showing at the PGA Championship last time out, a price like 40.0 just feels too fat for Finau. Though he still only has one PGA Tour victory (seems impossible, but it’s true), he’s displayed a remarkable knack for playing his best golf on the biggest of stages, logging an astounding nine top-10s in just 16 career starts in major championships. He’s had success at TPC Boston, too, finishing 4th in the Dell Technologies back in 2018 after breaking 70 in all four rounds, and with his length off the tee and comfort with the driver, you just know he’s going to have wedges and short irons in his hand all week. This feels like a great spot for Finau– he should be backed enthusiastically at the current price.
Matthew Wolff (62.0)- Jokes about his unorthodox swing aside, Wolff is one of the fastest-rising young stars in the world, and while more attention has been given to the likes of Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland, Wolff is right there in their class and seems likely to break through with a big win in the near future. He won the 2019 3M Open in just his fourth career PGA Tour start, and since then he’s logged ten top-25s and a handful of top-10s, including a runner-up finish at the Rocket Mortgage Classic last month and a T4 at the PGA Championship two weeks ago. A ball-striking specialist, Wolff is particularly good off the tee, ranking 8th on Tour in driving distance and 11th in strokes gained off the tee, so he should be well-suited for TPC Boston. Also, Wolff has enjoyed his best results on bentgrass greens– both his 3M Open victory and his recent runner-up at the Rocket Mortgage were on bentgrass– so he should feel comfortable on the pristine bent putting surfaces that he’ll see this week. Mark my words– you won’t be able to get this guy at 60/1 in any tournament for too much longer. Now’s the time to board the train…
Shane Lowry (118.0)- Lowry squeaked into the field after a solid showing at the Wyndham Championship last week, with his T23 moving him to 122nd in the standings. It remains to be seen whether that will free him up and give him the “house money” feel this week, but TPC Boston is considered a quintessential ball-strikers course, so Lowry, who ranks 28th on Tour in strokes gained tee-to-green, should be well-positioned to succeed. He finished 6th at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude just three weeks ago, so he’s not too far off from top-level form, and he’s never been one to shy away from elite fields and big moments. As is often the case with Lowry, a lot will come down to whether or not the putts are dropping, but at a triple-digit price you’d be hard pressed to find better value. Don’t sleep on the Irishman this week.
