Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds & Predictions – 2016 TOUR Championship

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2016 TOUR Championship

2016 TOUR Championship Fantasy Preview

What a week it was at the BMW Championship for our fantasy picks and for our Premium Members!  Not only did we successfully pick the winner for the BMW, we also saw our mid-tier selection come in second for a solid 1-2 finish.  If you were lucky (read: smart) enough to be a Premium Member and utilize our picks for Crooked Stick, then your DraftKings account must look very healthy this week.  That is of course unless you blew it all on the NFL last weekend…

We’ll touch on last event’s triumph in a second, but first let’s prepare you for East Lake.

The Top Five this week at East Lake are Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Adam Scott, Jason Day, and Paul Casey.  This means that if any of those guys win this week, they take home the FedExCup.  That big FedEx check may serve as some serious motivation for this year’s top players but it’s not enough to build your entire fantasy team on.  Instead, our focus this week will be on the players who are best to win at East Lake, period.

 
You can’t rule out McIlroy and Spieth just because they fall outside of the Top 5.  Spieth rocked East Lake last year and he could easily do it again this year.  The points did reset after the BMW Championship, which allows every player to have a mathematical chance of winning the $10 million dollar prize.  Jason Day may be the only questionable pick this week, as his sore back forced him to withdraw halfway through the final round of the BMW Championship.  Something tells us he’ll push through and compete in the finale, however.  Even a little vertigo last season didn’t stop him from escalating to the No. 1 spot in the world.

This is another no-cut event this week, and for you non-DraftKings players, this could be a crucial week for you.  Some of our Premium Members have told us that they are sitting pretty in first place in their year-long leagues, and this is a crucial week for them to take home the entire prize.

Our strategy is simple this week: just like at the BMW, we’ll build rosters with a Horse Pick, Top and Mid Tier pick, two Low Tier Picks, and two Sleepers.

Last Week’s Fantasy Results

At the BMW our must have ‘horse pick,’ Dustin Johnson (the player we told you to take over any player in the field), not only WON the event, but he also put up an impressive 155.50 fantasy points in his dominating performance!  As mentioned earlier, not only did DJ end up on top, our mid-tier pick was Paul Casey, who finished 2nd with 125 points and the icing on the cake was our sleeper pick Ryan Palmer who finished T4 at Crooked Stick.  So get this: the total prize purse for the BMW was $8.5 million and our seven picks combined made up 37% of that ($3,146,767)!

 
So far this season we’ve successfully picked ten winners out of forty events, which means we’ve picked the winner on average every four weeks this season—those are some impressive numbers when you think of how wild a season it’s been with so many different PGA TOUR winners throughout the year.  Additionally, our Sleeper Report has one winner picked on the season (coming off of greater than 50/1 odds).  And, the Casey pick last week marked our ninth runner up picked out of forty events this season.

Here’s the round-up of our winners picked this season:

• Justin Thomas (CIMB Classic)
• Kevin Kisner (RSM Classic)
• Jordan Spieth (Hyundai TOC)
• Fabian Gomez (Sony Open)
• Jason Dufner (Career Builder Challenge)
• Bubba Watson (Northern Trust Open)
• Adam Scott (WGC Cadillac Championship)
• Charlie Hoffman (Valero Texas Open)
• Jhonnattan Vegas (RBC Canadian Open)
• Dustin Johnson (BMW Championship)

** Emiliano Grillo was our Sleeper Report pick for the Frys.com Open (Winner).

2016 TOUR Championship Field

This week’s small 30-player field will be headlined by the hottest player on the planet, FedExCup leader Dustin Johnson.  Coming off of his third win of the season at the BMW, DJ will take on the other 29 best players on TOUR for what will be an epic finale.  As we previewed,  No.1 OWGR ranked Jason Day is questionable with injury, but we think he’ll be in full gear come Thursday.

East Lake is a challenging track, and we saw Jordan Spieth dominate it last year, but is his game as strong this time around?  Rory is another popular pick this week, as the DB Championship winner still looks poised to play exceptionally well.  Pllus, veteran Phil Mickelson is set for his 18th TOUR Championship start, which breaks a tie with Jim Furyk for most in history.

On a side note, the USA team will have eight Ryder Cup team members at East Lake, while the European team only has one—Rory McIlroy.

Here is the full field of thirty this week and how they can win it all.

This Week’s Course Preview

East Lake Golf Club will measure about 7,385 yards and play as a par 70 this week.  This track has been around the block for a long time—not only did it host the final stop in the FedExCup Playoffs in 2004, but it played home to the 1950 U.S. Women’s Amateur and 1963 Ryder Cup.

The track sets up well for long ball hitters who are accurate.  Last year, Spieth (winner) ranked first in the field in Scrambling and Strokes Gained: Putting despite ranking 16th in Distance and T7 in Accuracy.  His ability to scramble and hit a ton of putts is what separated him from Henrik Stenson in the end.

Weather Forecast for Atlanta, GA

The weather experts are calling for rain early Thursday morning, so we may see a delayed start.  Rounds 2 and 4 are set to be dry while thunderstorms are predicted to move in on Saturday.  This is a non-cut event, so expect all players to play all week (unless there are unexpected WD’s).

Last Year’s Results from the TOUR Championship

What a way to cap off a career year for young Jordan Spieth.  The 22-year-old (at the time) finished a remarkable season with his fifth victory of the year here at East Lake.  Spieth put on a show around and on the putting greens during the final round to sail to victory with a four-stroke win.  Both Stenson and Spieth were tied with 12 holes to play before Spieth began a birdie train on three of the next four holes and closed it all up.

Here’s a recap of how it all played out at last year’s finale:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md3_01LIVzs[/embedyt]

This Week’s Broadcast Schedule

• Television Broadcasts
  • Thursday-Friday, 1-6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel)
  • Saturday, 10 a.m.-noon (GC), noon-3:30 p.m. (NBC)
  • Sunday, noon-1:30 p.m. (GC), 1:30-6 p.m. (NBC).
• Mobile Broadcasts (via PGA TOUR LIVE APP)
  • Thursday-Friday, 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. (featured groups), 1-6 p.m. (featured holes)
  • Saturday, 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. (featured holes)
  • Sunday, 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. (featured holes).
• RADIO:
  • Thursday-Friday, noon-6 p.m.
  • Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
  • Sunday, 1-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com).

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the TOUR Championship this Week

We’re sure you’re knee-deep in NFL fantasy games by now but remember that there’s still lots of fantasy golf action this week and there will continue to be contests as we move into the Fall “Wrap-Around” Season in a few weeks—and we’ll be here to cover every event!  That said, here are a few fantasy games we like this week:

• DraftKings PGA $500K Fore Championship [$100,000 to 1st]: This 147,058-player contest features $500,000 in total prizes and pays out to the top 31,300 finishing positions.  First place wins $100,000.

• DraftKings PGA $225K Dogleg [$25,000 to 1st]: This 7,882-player contest features $225,000 in total prizes and pays out to the top 2,125 finishing positions.  First place wins $25,000.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the TOUR Championship

As we mentioned in the course preview, Scrambling, Distance, and Accuracy are key here, but don’t forget about the putting.  The PGA TOUR picked East Lake and kept it as the finale all of these years because players need to bring their best.

Let’s look at the stats:  Since 2013, all three winners (Stenson, Billy Ho, and Spieth) all ranked in the Top 10 in both Scrambling and Strokes Gained: Putting.  We also know that keeping the ball in the fairway at East Lake will certainly help you inch closer to the winner’s circle.  So what does this mean for fantasy players?  Let’s take a look at the field to dig a bit deeper.

We have exceptional GIR players who lack accuracy, great putters with no distance, and excellent ball strikers who can’t scramble.  This is where our coveted Key Stats Tool can be very helpful.  Keep in mind the weather report; they’re calling for rain, so this course will be messy, wet, and if we had to bank on five key stats this week, they would be Accuracy, Distance (to shorten a long and wet track), Scrambling, Strokes Gained: Putting, and Greens in Regulation.  Both Stenson and Horschel ranked 1st in GIR en route to their TOUR Championship wins.

It’s been another great season and we THANK YOU for being Golficity Premium Members!  Stay with us as the fall series picks kick off (possibly with Tiger in the lineup), as you can bet DraftKings will be all over those events.  Our team is developing more and more useful and helpful features to always give you an edge, week in and week out.  Good luck this week!

Now on to our picks for East Lake…

Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the TOUR Championship

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Last Week’s Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the BMW Championship

• Dustin Johnson (Golficity Odds 8/1): WINNER ($1,530,000, 155.5 Fantasy Points)
• Patrick Reed (Golficity Odds 20/1): T13 ($159,375, 78.0 Fantasy Points)
• Paul Casey (Golficity Odds 35/1): 2nd ($918,000, 125.0 Fantasy Points)
• Russell Knox (Golficity Odds 50/1) T17 ($127,500, 74.5 Fantasy Points)
• Jhonattan Vegas (Golficity Odds 65/1) T24 ($65,768, 69.5 Fantasy Points)

Last Week’s Sleeper Pick/Odds to Win the BMW Championship

• Ryan Palmer (Golficity Odds 100/1): T4 ($323,850, NA Fantasy Points)

Last Week’s Salary Cap League Sleeper Pick/Odds to Win the BMW Championship

• Harris English (Golficity Odds 125/1): T47 ($22,274, NA Fantasy Points)

Fantasy Golf Predictions YTD (2015-2016)

Remember to visit our private Facebook group to discuss this week’s picks for the TOUR Championship with other Premium Members.

Cover Photo via Instagram.