TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP: It’s on to Atlanta for the final event of the FedExCup Playoffs– the Tour Championship, which features only the top-30 players in the standings and is an absolute cash bonanza, with a cool $175,000 going to the last-place finisher and the overall winner of the FedExCup receiving a whopping $10 million. Of course, winning this tournament doesn’t guarantee you the $10 mil unless you’re Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson, Tony Finau, or Justin Thomas– the current top-5 in the standings. The rest of the guys will need a victory this week plus a little help, and the closer you are to 30th, the more help you’ll need.
Patton Kizzire, for instance, currently sits 30th in the standings, and for him to claim the FedExCup trophy he would need to win this week and have the following things occur: DeChambeau finishing T29 or worse; Rose finishing T9 or worse; Finau and Johnson finishing 3rd or worse, and Thomas, Keegan Bradley, and Brooks Koepka all finishing T2 or worse (Thomas would have to be in at least a 3-man tie for second). ALL of those things would have to happen for Kizzire to become the Tour’s newest $10 million dollar man, so he’s got about as much of a chance to win it as you or me. But it’s pretty rare for one of the lower-ranked guys to win this tournament anyway, as the eventual champion has also won the FedExCup in 4 of the past 5 years, with Xander Schauffele’s victory last year standing out as the lone exception (Justin Thomas, who finished second, won the FedExCup and the $10 million).
East Lake Golf Club will serve as the host venue for the 15th consecutive year; it’s a par-70 that measures nearly 7,350 yards and features narrow fairways, long and sticky bermuda rough, and fast, undulating greens. Opened in 1906 and turned into a modern course by Donald Ross in 1913, East Lake is perhaps most famous for being the place where Bobby Jones learned the game. It is said that Jones played his first and last rounds at East Lake, and he modeled his swing after Scotsman Stewart Maiden, who was the club’s head professional from 1908-1919. (*personal- I’ve always been something of a Jones aficionado, collecting old items and artifacts related to him, reading everything he ever wrote, and memorizing nearly every episode of his classic instructional series, “How I Play Golf”. A round at East Lake is a bucket-list item for me.)
Like most courses with punishing bermuda rough, the priority at East Lake is putting the ball in the fairway, and though the course isn’t severe in any way, it is, according to Ryan Moore, “a sneaky hard golf course”. The firmness and sloping nature of the greens– a Ross hallmark– makes it difficult to get close to the pins, and as Moore explains it, “You end up hitting good shots from 15 to 20 feet a lot”. It’s taken between 9-under and 12-under to win here in each of the past four years, so it won’t be a grind-for-pars type of week, but it won’t be a birdie-fest, either.
With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for the season’s final event:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Webb Simpson (30.0)- The big names dominate the top of the market, as expected, but I’d take Webb Simpson against anyone head-to-head this week. Two of Simpson’s last four starts have come on Donald Ross courses that share a lot of similarities with East Lake– Aronimink, where he tied for 6th in the BMW Championship two weeks ago, and Sedgefield, site of the Wyndham Championship and probably the closest comparison to what the players will see this week because of its bermuda greens. Simpson finished runner-up at the Wyndham, firing a 62 on Sunday, thus continuing his career-long pattern of playing his best golf on tree-lined, bermuda-covered courses. It should come as no surprise, then, that he has a very tidy record in this event, finding the top-5 twice in his last four appearances. Priced at nearly 30/1 to beat just 29 other guys, Simpson is a must-bet this week.
Billy Horschel (32.0)- Like Simpson, Horschel is a guy who generally plays his best golf on bermuda, and he’s a past champion of this event, with his win here in 2014 propelling him to the FedExCup trophy and ensuring that he’d never have to worry about money again. After a couple of down years he’s enjoyed somewhat of a resurgence this season, with four top-3 finishes and a victory at the Zurich Classic (a team event… but still), and he’s been playing his best golf over the past month, with a T11 at the Wyndham Championship and 3rd-place finishes in two of the playoff events– The Northern Trust and the BMW Championship. Throughout his career Horschel has been the type to ride when he’s hot, and he’s certainly hot now. At a course that suits him perfectly and is full of good memories, an in-form Horschel makes a lot of sense at a price like 32.0.
Cameron Smith (70.0)- A win here would easily be the biggest of Smith’s career, and that’s really the only explanation for a price like this– people just don’t believe he can best a field of this caliber. And maybe he can’t, but remember– we’re only talking about 29 other players here, and he very nearly bested the entire field in the first two Playoff events, finishing 3rd in both The Northern Trust and the Dell Technologies Championship. His biggest win came less than a year ago at the Australian PGA, and he tasted victory on the PGA Tour in the 2017 Zurich Classic, where he partnered with Jonas Blixt. Point is, Smith, still just 25, is going to win plenty, and he’s been playing the type of golf lately that makes you think his time is coming soon. Why not this week? He’s had success in Georgia, finishing 5th at the Masters back in April, and he’s another guy who feels most comfortable on bermuda, having grown up on the bermuda-covered courses of Brisbane. I feel very comfortable backing Smith as a 70/1 longshot.
