Our expert likes Xander Schauffele's chances this week.
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Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sport betting. You can follow on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the Tour Championship, which gets underway Thursday in Atlanta, Ga. Along with Kannon’s recommended plays, you’ll also see data from Chirp Golf, a mobile app that features both Free-To-Play and Daily Fantasy golf contests where you can win cash and prizes with each round and tournament.
If winning the FedEx Cup is indicative of who the PGA Tour season-long champion is, then this tournament ought to be a two-person field featuring the two best players in the world: Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele. It’s hard to swallow Keegan Bradley somehow catching them and winning this week when he’s had one win on the season and prior to last week, hadn’t finished in the top 20 in three months.
Yes, the system is flawed, and I believe everyone is well aware of this. The tough part is fixing it and I’m not here to grandstand about how to do it, because I don’t have an answer either. I love the first two weeks of the FedEx Cup playoffs. The drama, the jockeying for position, trying to sneak inside the top 50 and eventually, the top 30. I thought last week’s golf course, at elevation, provided some wonderful, new, twists and turns. And East Lake is great — now a newly-renovated, beast of a par-71 — but the drama has been sucked out of what is supposed to be the grand finale. The Tour Championship is anticlimactic to say the least. Of the 30 players in the field, I believe only the top-10 in starting strokes have a chance.
Speaking of starting strokes, they are awarded according to where one sits in the FedEx Cup points standings coming into this week. Scheffler is No. 1 and begins the tournament at 10-under par on Thursday. Schauffele is second and starts at 8-under. Matsuyama is third and begins at 7-under. This pattern continues on down the board. The final five players in the field, Nos. 26-30, start their week at Even par, 10 shots off the lead, basically playing only for pride and to capture as much cash as they can. This tournament can be very entertaining for just a handful of players at the top. It loses quite a bit of luster after that and I don’t feel it is very receptive to betting either.
Andrew Green was brought in to bring some of the original Donald Ross characteristics back into play at East Lake Golf Club. He has reshaped greens, bunkers, and fairways. He has added and repositioned bunkers. He has changed some of the run-off areas around the greens – and he’s changed the turf on both the fairways and greens to different strains of Zoysia grass and Bermuda grass, respectively. Over 100 yards was added to the golf course and it will now play as a par 71, measuring just under 7,500 yards.
Many of the approach shots at East Lake will come from 200-yards or more. Each of the four par-3 holes are longer than 200 yards. The majority of the 11 par-4s fall pretty closely into the 400-450 yard window. Scrambling is key. Driving Accuracy is probably more important than Driving Distance. The gnarly Bermuda grass rough is to be avoided both around the greens and off the fairways. Avoiding bogeys, I believe, is more important than making birdies and of course, approach play and hitting greens in regulation will go a long way toward that silver cup and the $25 million that comes along with it.
I believe the list of correlated courses is somewhat extensive this week. TPC Potomac and TPC River Highlands make a lot of sense to me. Sedgefield is another Ross design that has crossover I believe. Royal Troon, home to the recent Open Championship, has similarities. Muirfield Village (the Memorial) is another, with its emphasis on second shots, driving accuracy, and scrambling. TPC Southwind certainly has some differences but does have the same combination of Zoysia grass fairways and Bermuda grass greens. And finally, Innisbrook, the Copperhead Course where they play the Valspar Championship.
All of that being said, I’m right back to where I began. I believe this is simply a two-person race.
Brady’s best bets at East Lake
Before we get too deep here, there are markets out there in which one can bet who will have the lowest 72-hole score (like a traditional golf tournament), meaning without the starting strokes. Outside of the “Big Two,” I feel like Aaron Rai has a shot in this market at around 50-1. Hideki Matsuyama makes some sense at around 18-1 but you have to wonder about his health after withdrawing from the BMW Championship last week. Former FedEx Cup champs, Viktor Hovland (15-1), and Billy Horschel (35-1) are excellent choices, I believe. And finally, for a long bomb, Christiaan Bezuidenhout would be my choice for a flyer at around 70-1.
However, I’m playing the with the strokes market and have been saying for a month now that I believe Xander Schauffele (+225) is the best bet to win the FedEx Cup. He has been the best horse for this course for several years. He won here in 2017 and has finished runner-up three times. He was again the low 72-hole scorer in 2020 and in 2023. In seven trips to East Lake, he’s never finished worse than seventh.
He’s won at TPC River Highlands and Royal Troon. He’s finished top-15 at the Memorial three times and took eighth there earlier this season. Schauffele is about dead-even with Scheffler in the stats this week. They are pretty much 1-2 or 2-1 however you look at it. But he has been the better player at this golf course and he comes at twice the price.
I believe Scheffler will be voted Player of the Year on the PGA Tour and he definitely deserves it, but I’m betting on Schauffele adding one more notch in his belt at East Lake this week.
Who Chirp Golf players are picking this week
Top 3 Chirp Golf player picks for the Tour Championship.Chirp
