Tag: TOUR Championship

2020 Tour Championship odds, predictions, picks and PGA Tour best bets

Here are golf betting odds for the PGA Tour’s season finale, the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club.

The winner of the 2019-20 FedEx Cup will be decided with this week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia.

Starting strokes are assigned based on the season-long FEC standings; Dustin Johnson begins the tournament at 10-under par and holds an opening two-shot lead over BMW Championship winner Jon Rahm. As such, they’re commanding betting favorites for the outright win.

Below, we look at the betting odds to win the 2020 Tour Championship and FedEx Cup and make our PGA Tour picks and best bets.

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2020 Tour Championship Betting Picks – Tier 1

Webb Simpson is presented with the trophy and the sport coat after winning the RBC Heritage. (Photo Credit: Brian Spurlock – USA TODAY Sports)

Odds provided by BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Monday at 5:30 p.m. ET.

Tournament winner (bonus strokes not applied): Webb Simpson (+1100)

Simpson is the only member of the field who sat out last week’s BMW Championship, citing rest for the Tour Championship and 2020 US Open in two weeks. He remains fourth in the FedEx Cup Standings and will start Thursday’s round at 6-under par.

A two-time winner this season with eight top 10s, he can certainly make up a four-shot deficit. He’s first on Tour this season in Birdie or Better Percentage and second in Stroke Differential Field Average.

His odds drop to +1000 with starting strokes factored in, so get the added value while he’s trailing Johnson at the outset.

Looking to place a bet on the 2020 Tour Championship? Get some action on it at BetMGM. Bet Now!

2020 Tour Championship Betting Picks – Tier 2

Daniel Berger hits his tee shot on the 16th hole during the first round of the BMW Championship. (Photo Credit: Brian Spurlock – USA TODAY Sports)

Winner: Daniel Berger (+2800)

One of the best players since the Tour returned to play, Berger has moved up to fifth in the Golfweek/Sagarin world rankings and sits sixth in the FEC standings. He’ll begin the tournament 4-under par but is fully capable of making up the six-stroke deficit.

His T-25 finish last week was his second-worst result in seven events. He has a win and three other top 10s in that span. He has gained an average of 1.51 strokes per round across 12 career rounds at East Lake, according to Data Golf.

2020 Tour Championship Betting Picks – Long shots

Marc Leishman lines up a putt on the green of the 6th hole during the first round of the 2020 PGA Championship. (Photo Credit: Kyle Terada – USA TODAY Sports)

Winner (bonus strokes not applied): Marc Leishman (+15000)

Leishman had a week to forget last week in Illinois, finishing dead last at plus-30. The worst part of his game for the week was his putter, as he lost 2.67 strokes per round on the greens.

He’s still a five-time PGA Tour winner, including this year’s Farmers Insurance Open and has played 16 career rounds at East Lake. Take a shot on the longest bet on the board in the 30-man field.

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Despite No. 13 ranking, Tour Championship berth Daniel Berger won’t play at Masters

Daniel Berger is the 13th ranked golfer in the world and made it to the Tour Championship, but he’s not in the field for the Masters.

Lately, Daniel Berger has been a threat to win every time he tees it up.

The Jupiter, Florida, resident has finished no worse than third in four of the seven PGA Tour events he has played since the re-start, including a playoff victory over eventual PGA champion Collin Morikawa at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Berger was 13th at the PGA and 25th at last week’s BMW Championship.

But here’s a tournament – the biggest tournament of them all – that Berger currently has no chance at winning. The Masters. That’s because Berger isn’t in the field for the rescheduled Masters in mid-November at Augusta National.

That seems ridiculous considering Berger is ranked 13th in the world.

Thirteenth!

He also is sixth in the FedEx Cup standings heading into this week’s Tour Championship that starts Friday at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

Still, no ride down Magnolia Lane for Berger.

Daniel Berger after winning the 2020 Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club. (Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports)

“I’m not sure what else I have to do at this point to get into Augusta,” Berger said at the recent Northern Trust, where he finished third. “I’m a little baffled that I haven’t had more opportunity to at least hear from some of the guys over there.”

Don’t expect a response from those “guys over there,” — the folks who run the Masters. It’s their tournament and they run it however darn well they want.

Masters officials view the Masters in 2½ months the same way as if it were held the second weekend in April. The 96 players who qualified for the season’s first major remain qualified for what the coronavirus pandemic made the season’s final major.

It doesn’t matter if you’re perhaps the hottest player in golf with the exception of Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm or Morikawa. You’re not getting a chance to play in the major most players want to win.

Berger was ranked 106th in the world when he tied for fourth at the Honda Classic at PGA National in March. That sub-par ranking was because he battled a wrist injury for almost a year.

Berger would have had a chance to improve his ranking with strong performances at the Players Championship and the WGC-Match Play Championship, but both marquee events were canceled because of COVID-19.

Bad breaks are a big part of professional golf – they call it the rub of the green – but this one seems excessive.

“I don’t know if I could say I deserve a spot, but I feel like I’m playing well enough to earn a spot into the Masters,” Berger said. He has finished 10th, 27th and 32nd in his three trips to Augusta National.

Daniel Berger and Rory McIlroy on the seventh fairway during the final round of the 2016 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. (Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)

The Masters has long desired to keep its field below 100 players because it enables them to avoid a two-tee start – imagine starting your round on the tenacious par-4 10th – and allows for weather delays.

But with this year’s championship ending on Nov. 15, when the sun sets in Augusta at 5:25 p.m., there’s little chance Masters officials will want to add to the field size by offering the 27-year-old Berger a special invitation.

Berger shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for a late invitation. And he hasn’t.

“Daniel is pretty good at not worrying about things that are out of his control,” said his father, Jay, a former top-10-ranked tennis player who is the Director of Instruction at the Club at Ibis in West Palm Beach.

“He has a lot of respect for Augusta National and the way they do things. The way he’s been playing, I don’t think it’s bothering him.”

Berger could win the FedEx Cup on Monday in Atlanta, but that’s likely as close as he’ll get to Augusta this year.

Can you imagine an American in the top 15 in the world rankings not being invited to the Masters?

These are strange times.

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The 30 golfers who advanced to the 2020 Tour Championship

The BMW Championship is in the books, the FedEx Cup points have been calculated and we now know the 30 golfers who will be moving on.

The BMW Championship is in the books, the FedEx Cup points have been calculated and we now know the 30 golfers who will be moving on to the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

After the conclusion of the BMW Championship, the golfer ranked No. 1 on the FedEx Cup point list will start the Tour Championship with a score of -10, a reward for accumulating the most points throughout the season.

That golfer will be Dustin Johnson. Jon Rahm, winner of the BMW Championship, will start in the second position.

On the other end of the top 30 is Billy Horschel, the 2014 FedEx Cup winner. He is advancing in the final spot thanks in part to a double-bogey, three-putt by Corey Conners on the 18th hole on Sunday.

“You never want to see something like that happen to anybody,” Horschel said after hs round. “If it turns out that was how I made it to Tour Championship, I’ll probably give him a nice bottle of wine or a good dinner or something.”

Mackenzie Hughes was the lone golfer who jumped from outside the top 30 to inside this week, vaulting from 36th to 28th after posting scores of 69-73-69-71 at Olympia Fields. Hughes had to hole a 5-foot par putt on the last hole or else he was out and drained the right-to-left breaker.

“That was some of the most pressure I’ve felt in a long time,” said Hughes, who raised his arms to the sky in celebration. “You know, I’ve contended to win some tournaments this summer, and that kind of felt like the same kind of intensity on that putt. I really woke up today with a pretty bad neck and really struggled tee to green. Didn’t have my good stuff at all, and somehow found a way to grind it out. I made it pretty hard there down the stretch, but just really thankful and relieved to get it done.”
Finishing in the top 30 not only earned players a trip to East Lake week; it also makes them exempt for all four majors in the 2020-21 season, the WGCs and the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.

Based on how the points-list finish, all 30 golfers will start between two and 10 shots behind the leader:

Rank Player Starting position
1 Dustin Johnson 10 under
2 Jon Rahm 8 under
3 Justin Thomas 7 under
4 Webb Simpson 6 under
5 Collin Morikawa 5 under
6 Daniel Berger 4 under
7 Harris English 4 under
8 Bryson DeChambeau 4 under
9 Sungjae Im 4 under
10 Hideki Matsuyama 4 under
11 Brendon Todd 3 under
12 Rory McIlroy 3 under
13 Patrick Reed 3 under
14 Xander Schauffele 3 under
15 Sebastian Munoz 3 under
16 Lanto Griffin 2 under
17 Scottie Scheffler 2 under
18 Joaquin Niemann 2 under
19 Tyrrell Hatton 2 under
20 Tony Finau 2 under
21 Kevin Kisner 1 under
22 Abraham Ancer 1 under
23 Ryan Palmer 1 under
24 Kevin Na 1 under
25 Marc Leishman 1 under
26 Cameron Smith Even
27 Viktor Hovland Even
28 Mackenzie Hughes Even
29 Cameron Champ Even
30 Billy Horschel Even

Now that the top 30 players have been assigned their starting scores for the Tour Championship, FedEx Cup points become meaningless.

Whoever wins the Tour Championship will also win the FedEx Cup and the $15 million prize.

Last season, Justin Thomas entered the Tour Championship ranked No. 1 and started at -10. Still, Rory McIlroy, who started the week fifth on the point list, wound up winning the tournament and the FedEx Cup even though he began the week five shots behind Thomas.

Among those not advancing

Adam Long was No. 27 in the points before the BMW but dropped four spots this week after posting scores of 72-77-72-71. He is the first one out, coming in at No. 31. Kevin Streelman’s disappointing week dropped him four spots to the 32nd spot. Byeong Hun An (34) and Patrick Cantlay (35) also fell short. Matthew Fitzpatrick climbed 24 spots but could only get to No. 36.

Tiger Woods, meanwhile, shot 73-75-72-71 this week to finish 11 over for the tournament and 63rd in the points race. He didn’t break par in any of the four rounds, the first time that happened since the 2010 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

Because of all the shuffling due to the COVID pandemic, the final event on the 2019-20 schedule was pushed back a week from its original dates. The season finale will start Friday and conclude on Labor Day Monday, a slight change to the original PGA Tour schedule.

Golfweek’s David Dusek contributed to this article.

Justin Thomas on the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields: ‘You’re not going to be seeing any 59s and 60s’

Ahead of the BMW Championship, Justin Thomas talked what makes Olympia Fields so difficult and playing with a lead at the Tour Championship.

In the second round of the Northern Trust, Scottie Scheffler shot a 59 and tournament winner Dustin Johnson carded a 60.

Olympia Fields Country Club won’t be as generous with the low scores.

Ahead of the BMW Championship, the second of three FedEx Cup playoff events, Justin Thomas said Olympia Fields was “an unbelievable test” with its long holes, narrow fairways, thick rough and the firmest greens the Tour players have seen in a while.

When pressed to find a comparison to Olympia Fields, the best course the 2017 FedEx Cup champion could compare it to was a former PGA Championship and U.S. Open site.

BMW Championship: Tee times | Odds | Tiger’s new venture

“I guess a little bit of a Bethpage (Black) like,” Thomas said. “It’s tough. It’s right in front of you. There’s nothing about it that’s tricked up. It’s just a difficult golf course that you have to go out and execute well. In that aspect, it reminds me of a place like that to where visually it does look a little difficult and it is difficult when you’re playing it, but if you’re able to hit the fairways, if you’re playing well, have control of your golf ball, you can make some birdies and still shoot a good round of however many under par that is.

“But you’re not going to be seeing any 59s and 60s on the same day here.”

Thomas said he played the course once before as a freshman at Alabama, but since then, he’s only played nine holes of the 7,366-yard, par-70 course outside of Chicago. He planned to play the other nine Wednesday after speaking with media.

While playing his first nine on Tuesday, Thomas said he got a feel for how challenging Olympia Fields would be and perhaps a key to surviving.

“I hit a pretty good amount of mid-irons and that’s something I don’t do very often,” he said. “It’s a really, really good tough finishing stretch. Fifteen, even a par-5 is not an easy par-5 by any means. It’s little things like that. But it’s going to be pivotal to hit the fairways to where you’re able to control your ball coming into the green.”

justin thomas
Justin Thomas reacts to making a birdie putt on the 18th hole to win the 2019 BMW Championship at Medinah Country Club – No. 3. (Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports)

Thomas, the reigning BMW Championship winner, is fresh off his worst finish since missing the cut at the Travelers Championship. The 27-year-old finished the Northern Trust T-49 at 7 under after consecutive 71s in the third and final rounds.

While the finish dropped him to No. 2 on the FedEx Cup points list behind Johnson, the 13-time winner on Tour is still on a steady path to entering the Tour Championship with a lead. Thomas said ahead of the Northern Trust he was “not trying to peak” at the first of four important events within five weeks. He learned about pacing himself last year when he won the BMW Championship at Medinah Country Club by three shots over Patrick Cantlay to sit at No. 1 in FedEx Cup points and earn a two-shot lead to start the Tour Championship under the new playoff rules.

While Thomas said the lead didn’t exactly weigh on him, it was undeniably harder to play like he normally would with that lead.

“I’m not surprised that it felt weird because no one has ever been there before,” Thomas said of his lead. “It was very similar to I felt like Q-school when I played. I remember I shot 67 the first round and I was in fifth, and I got home that night and I was like, ‘I’ve got five more rounds to go. I have to maintain good golf for five more rounds. Like I don’t know what to do.’ Usually you have three more rounds, and then I had an entire another four-day tournament and another day to go.”

Thomas finished the Tour Championship T-3 at 13 under.

Regardless of his finish at the Northern Trust, Thomas has some momentum going. Last year, the Tour’s season finale followed Thomas’ only win of the season. This year, his resume and trophy shelf look a little different after winning a season-high three PGA Tour events: the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, Sentry Tournament of Champions and the CJ Cup at Nine Bridges.

Justin Thomas after winning the 2020 WGC – FedEx St. Jude Invitational at TPC Southwind. (Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports)

Thomas had his most successful year on Tour in 2016-17 when he earned five PGA Tour wins, including his only major, the 2017 PGA Championship. That season, he had 12 top-10 finishes in 25 events.

In the 16 events this season, Thomas as nine top 10s.

Thomas also has a leg up on the competition as the only Tour player who knows what it’s like to handle a lead headed into an event under the new FedEx Cup rules.

When asked what he would do differently with a lead at the Tour Championship this time around, Thomas smirked.

“I mean, not to sound bad,” he said, “but I’m not going to say what I’m going to do differently because I might be in that position next week and I’ll let (everyone else) figure it out themselves.”

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‘Tiger Slam,’ recounting Woods’ four-straight major wins, premieres May 24

Golf Channel announced details of its new film Tiger Slam, the story of Tiger Woods’ four major championships over a 10-month stretch.

Golf Channel announced Wednesday its new film Tiger Slam, the story of Tiger Woods winning all four major championships over a 10-month stretch, will premiere May 24 at 8 p.m. ET.

Created by Golf Channel’s Emmy-nominated GOLF Films, Tiger Slam features interviews with those closest to Woods as he won a historic four major titles from June 2000 to April 2001. Participants include journalists like Rick Reilly and Scott Van Pelt and former competitors like Jack Nicklaus and David Duval.

In addition to insight from those involved in Woods’ four-major run, the film details Woods’ four-straight major victories along with memorable highlights and footage.

The film will be presented by CDW and US Bank with limited commercial interruption.

The film will be released after the final two installments of the 10-part series The Last Dance, chronicling the final year of NBA star Michael Jordan’s career with the Chicago Bulls, are broadcast on ESPN on Sunday.

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Sentry Tournament of Champions likely to include non-champions in 2021

The PGA Tour has canceled or postponed 13 events in 2020 and that likely leaves the Sentry event likely short of an all-champion field.

The winners-only Sentry Tournament of Champions in Maui in January – annually the first PGA Tour event after the turn of the calendar each year – might not have a full field of champions in 2021.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has turned the pro golf schedules upside down. The PGA Tour has canceled or postponed 13 events so far this season.

So that likely leaves the Sentry event likely short of an all-champion field and could also likely mean a smaller-than-normal field. There were 34 golfers in the 2019 field.

Winners of tournaments in 2020 earn an invitation and will be joined in 2021 by players who qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship, which is reserved for the top 30 in the FedEx Cup points race. Make The Tour Championship without winning, you’re going to Maui.

Justin Thomas won the event earlier this year in a playoff. Thomas holed a 3-footer for birdie in approaching darkness, edging Patrick Reed and Xander Schauffele, both past champions of the event. Schauffele held the 54-hole lead, but dropped out after a par on the first playoff hole.

Currently, the PGA Tour is scheduled to return June 11 with the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. If the schedule holds, a FedEx Cup champion will be crowned at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta in September. If the PGA Tour does resume in June, FedEx Cup points will be awarded.

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