Fantasy Golf Predictions
Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, & Predictions – 2017 TOUR Championship
Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the TOUR Championship
2017 TOUR Championship Fantasy Preview
After nearly a year’s worth of toil, we now know the identities of the 30 men who will battle it out for the FedExCup at this year’s TOUR Championship, the PGA TOUR’s curtain call prior to the wraparound season.
We head to East Lake in high spirits after claiming the 1-2 punch at the BMW Championship. Our mid-tier picks Marc Leishman and Justin Rose duked it out at Conway Farms, although in truth Leishman was very rarely challenged and led from wire-to-wire. The Aussie gatecrashes the FedExCup top five, and now has a very real chance of claiming the top spot.
As for us, well, combined with our European Tour plays we have now picked out three winners and a pair of runners-up in the last four weeks. Let’s hope that form continues in Atlanta!
Rory McIlroy with the Fedex Cup Trophy and the Tour Championship…
Rory McIlroy with the Fedex Cup Trophy and the Tour Championship trophy after winning on the 4th playoff hole at the final round of the 2016 PGA Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta,… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
Last Week’s Fantasy Results from the BMW Championship
After successfully picking the one-two punch of Leishman/Rose last week, we’re feeling pretty darn good about the 30 man field at the TOUR Championship.
The tandem together finished with a total combined 263 fantasy points and our winning pick came in with the cheap fantasy price tag of just $6,900 last week!
Marc Leishman of Australia poses with the Wadley Cup and the BMW…
Marc Leishman of Australia poses with the Wadley Cup and the BMW Championship Trophy after winning the BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club on September 17, 2017 in Lake Forest, Illinois. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
In case you missed it, here’s what our team said about Leish last week:
The Aussie has never played Conway Farms before, but given the Links-style connotations he will surely enjoy this stretch.
Leishman arrives in Illinois in good form having finished third at the Dell Technologies Championship, and while that performance was indebted to a hot putter you don’t have to look far for inspiration with his irons: the Arnold Palmer Invitational winner ranked first for SG: Approach at the Northern Trust despite missing the cut!
He’s not the most stylish player around, but don’t let that fool you: most of his peers are aware of how good the 33-year-old is. Fourteen top-25 finishes from just 23 starts speaks volumes of his class and consistency.
Here’s a look at last week’s sample roster.
To sweeten our week even more we take a quick look across the pond where our Euro picks keep rocking and rolling!
Over the previous three weeks, we’ve picked two winners and one runner up and now with the KLM in the books, we have yet another 2nd place finisher to hang our hats on.
At $7,000, Austin Connelly added some much needed fire power to rosters with his impressive display of 67-66-66 over the final three days for a 2nd place finish.
TOUR Championship 2017 Field
The final field is set, and we have a bunch of 30 players heading to East Lake that does justice to any tournament finale. The cream has well and truly risen to the top!
Here are the 30 men who will battle it out for honours this week, in order of their FedExCup standing:
Jordan Spieth; 2. Justin Thomas; 3. Dustin Johnson; 4. Marc Leishman; 5. Jon Rahm; 6. Rickie Fowler; 7. Hideki Matsuyama; 8. Justin Rose; 9. Brooks Koepka; 10. Paul Casey; 11. Pat Perez; 12. Matt Kuchar; 13. Charley Hoffman; 14. Daniel Berger; 15. Jason Day; 16. Webb Simpson; 17. Jhonattan Vegas; 18. Kevin Kisner; 19. Kevin Chappell; 20. Brian Harman; 21. Adam Hadwin; 22. Kyle Stanley; 23. Patrick Reed; 24. Tony Finau; 25. Sergio Garcia; 26. Xander Schauffele; 27. Russell Henley; 28. Gary Woodland; 29. Patrick Cantlay; 30. Jason Dufner.
The most notable absentees after the BMW Championship are Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson, who just didn’t quite do enough throughout the season to book their place. But for the latter, improved form of late at least gives him confidence ahead of the upcoming President’s Cup.
Jordan Spieth of the United States and Dustin Johnson of the United…
Jordan Spieth of the United States and Dustin Johnson of the United States stand on the eighth green during the second round of the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills on June 16, 2017 in Hartford,… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
This Week’s Course Preview
East Lake has been the permanent home to the TOUR Championship since 2004, and it is hard to think of a more fitting venue for the main season’s finale.
Officially Atlanta’s oldest club, it was also home to Bobby Jones and much of the course features as a homage to the 13-time major winner.
As well as hosting a Ryder Cup in 1963 and a US Amateur Championship in 2001, East Lake has been the setting for some of the great and good of world golf to secure the TOUR Championship – and most probably the FedExCup – for over a decade. That prestigious double has been landed by each of the last five TOUR Championship victors.
Opened in 1904, it was actually a re-working from lauded course architect Donald Ross in 1913 that laid the foundations for the set-up that still exists to this day. Despite a touch-up in 1994 from Rees Jones, this is essentially the same design that Ross implemented more than a century ago!
East Lake plays at around 7,300 yards for its Par 70, with a quartet of Par 3s and a pair of Par 5s – the last of which is the eighteenth to add extra intrigue to the finale – plus twelve Par 4s making up the yardage.
A version of the TOUR Championship, the Nabisco Championship, was played annually in November, but a switch in the schedule to September meant some changes to the course were required, with a switch to Bermuda greens making life much tougher on what was once an easy-to-score layout. The last three winners here have just about crept into double figures under par: Rory McIlroy (-12) a year ago, Jordan Spieth (-9) in 2015, and Billy Horschel (-11) a year prior to that.
It is a tough course to master, with fairly unforgiving fairways widths made all the more difficult by this being a driver-heavy course, with 290 yards the average length off the tee 12 months ago. The rough was up in 2016 as well, which added an extra tariff of difficulty to proceedings.
That adds to lower GIR success rates, so Scrambling is key around here, and these faster Bermudagrass greens require a deft touch with the flat stick in hand.
Mere words don’t really do justice to East Lake, so point your browser at their website for a full video-led course tour.
Rory McIlroy watches his second shot on the first playoff hole during…
Rory McIlroy watches his second shot on the first playoff hole during the final round of the TOUR Championship, the final event of the FedExCup Playoffs, at East Lake Golf Club on September 25, 2016… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images
Weather Forecast for Atlanta, Georgia
It’s hot and humid in Atlanta this week, and while the odd stray thunderstorm may bring a short but heavy burst of rain, the overall picture for Thursday through Sunday is one of sunshine and cloud.
Temperatures are up – peaking at around 89 degrees – and wind gusts of up to 10 mph will keep the players on their toes without necessarily impacting too fiercely on proceedings.
All in all, the conditions look set to be perfect for a fantastic finale to the FedExCup for 2017.
Last Year’s Results from the TOUR Championship
It pays to go into the TOUR Championship hot, and Rory McIlroy proved that once again 12 months ago by winning at East Lake to claim his second title in the space of three weeks.
The Irishman needed four playoff holes to see off Ryan Moore and Kevin Chappell, with the former earning the consolation of a place in the Ryder Cup team and the latter starting the journey which has led to selection for the President’s Cup next week.
It’s not as if they had chances either, with Moore missing an eight-foot putt in normal play to win the tournament – a win which would have handed the FedExCup to Dustin Johnson.
McIlroy closed with a 64 – his best round of the week – to book his place in the playoff alongside Chappell, who had led from wire-to-wire, and the fast finishing Moore. DJ, who tied for the 54-hole lead, fluffed his way to a final 18 of 73 to fall out of the reckoning.
The Irishman had won the Deutsche Bank Championship just two weeks prior to taking down the big payday at East Lake, and once again proved that a hot hand leading into the season finale is key.
No Title
In the final round of the 2016 TOUR Championship, Rory McIlroy played exceptionally well coming down the stretch landing in a three-way playoff ultimately defeating Ryan Moore in the fourth playoff hole to capture the win. . SUBSCRIBE to PGA TOUR now: http://pgat.us/vBxcZSh Welcome to the official YouTube channel of the PGA TOUR.
Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the TOUR Championship this Week
The offerings from both DraftKings and FanDuel are rather more sparse this week, but that’s not to say there isn’t a whole heap of cash out there to be won. Here’s the pick of the bunch:
- PGA $333k Dogleg: The prize fund for this event has shrunk by half this week, but nevertheless there’s still $50k to be won by the top player and prizes of $1k plus for the first 20 home.
- PGA $250k Fore: If we really want to make our picks count then try this 20-max team contest, which features a buy-in of $4 and a top prize of $7,500.
This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the TOUR Championship
The key narrative this week is that if any of the top five in the FedExCup standings win the TOUR Championship then they win the FedExCup, and that’s the scenario which has played out every year since 2010. Quite frankly, we need one or more of Spieth, Thomas, Johnson, Rahm, or Leishman on the team!
We can surmise that hitting lots of greens is the central stat to consider this week – it rarely isn’t – but 12 months ago McIlroy and Chappell ranked 1-2 for GIR, so finding the dancefloor at any cost is paramount.
Most have done that with accurate driving as the foundation, with six of the last seven winners ranking top-10 for Driving Accuracy. Incidentally, only two of the last seven have ranked top-10 for Distance.
Do you remember how long the TOUR Championship has been played at East Lake? Well, only one winner in all that time has ranked outside the top-10 for GIR. Putting and Scrambling are factors, of course, but really we’re looking for guys to hit accurate tee shots and then follow up with laser-like precision with their irons.
There are numerous Donald Ross courses that have been used through the ages on the PGA TOUR, but of all the correlating venues it is actually a surprise entrant, Sedgefield Country Club, that takes top spot.
The home of the Wyndham Championship has delivered numerous correlating performances down the years, with Spieth being the most recent case study. He won the TOUR Championship in 2015 having been beaten in a play-off at the Wyndham, while guys like Justin Rose, Webb Simpson, Bill Haas, and Luke Donald all recording top-5s in both events.
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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the TOUR Championship
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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the TOUR Championship
Top Tier Pick #1:
Jordan Spieth (Odds: 6/1, FPPG: 69.3, GPFP: 100.72 Salary: $11,600)
By process of elimination, our top tier pick for the TOUR Championship is the player who, arguably, has been the best on the planet in 2017.
There are question marks against the other players in the ‘big five’ mentioned. Dustin Johnson has only recorded one top-10 in his last five starts, which is unusual for him based on his usual high standards. Form is key heading into this event, and DJ doesn’t really have it.
Jon Rahm is in excellent form, but he has never played at East Lake and we wonder if the difficult nature of the layout will mesh well with his occasional short-tempered play. Similarly, Marc Leishman hasn’t played East Lake since 2009, and we all know how hard it is to win two weeks in a row.
So that leaves Spieth and Justin Thomas, who clearly has a live chance. But his lack of forward motion at the BMW Championship – closing with 70-71-71 after opening with 67 – is cause for concern.
Hence the world number two as our top pick. Spieth played well enough at the BMW, bookending his effort with rounds of 65, and that means he’s finished in the top-10 of each of the other three FedExCup events.
His occasionally errant driving is a concern, but check out the Driving Accuracy stats of any of the big five – none can be classed as reliable off the tee! But Spieth has won and finished second at East Lake, and that’s a level of comfortability that can perhaps override concerns about his work with the driver. He gained +0.410 strokes off the tee at Conway Farms, which can allay some fears.
Is there a more likely winner in the field than Spieth? We can’t see one, and as a player who tends to raise his game for majors, we’re more than happy to have him on board.
Key Stats:
- SG: Approach-the-Green – 1st
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 2nd
- Greens in Regulation – 3rd
Top-Tier Pick #2:
Justin Rose (Odds: 16/1, FPPG: 70.1, GPFP: 72.90 Salary: $8,900)
Nobody in the field has course form quite like Justin Rose, whose last four trips to East Lake have yielded an outstanding 2-4-6-2. And the good news is that the Englishman is playing well enough to improve upon that record.
He heads into the TOUR Championship with three top-10s in the other FedExCup events, and those come after a slight swing change that has aided his bad back.
Rose ranks eighth in the FedExCup standings, but still has an excellent chance of winning the whole thing. If he wins the TOUR Championship, and the top three in the rankings finish below third at East Lake, then he takes the big prize. What further motivation could he need?
Key Stats:
- Par 4 Scoring Average – 7th
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 11th
- SG: Off-the-Tee – 15th
Mid-Tier Pick #1:
Matt Kuchar (Odds: 30/1, FPPG: 69.8, GPFP: 78.79 Salary: $7,700)
East Lake has a major feel to it in that it is a difficult course on which to shoot low numbers.
So we’re expecting a bit of a grind, with a winning mark of around -12, and that brings Matt Kuchar into the reckoning.
Kooch has got a decent enough record at this track, with four of his last five returns being of T15 or better, and it really is a layout that suits his point-and-shoot game down to a tee.
He’s very rarely out of form, but right now he’s certainly in a hot spell with three top-10s in his last four starts including T9 at the PGA Championship.
That means that Kooch has finished inside the top-10 of three majors this season alone – and that marks the man down as one of the best golfers on the planet.
Key Stats:
- SG: Around-the-Green – 8th
- Bogey Avoidance – 12th
- SG: Tee-to-Green – 25th
Mid-Tier Pick #2:
Webb Simpson (Odds: 50/1, FPPG: 70.2, GPFP: 78.22 Salary: $7,500)
It’s no surprise to learn that a tight track like East Lake plays into the hands of Webb Simpson, who despite an absence of two years delivers excellent course form of 23-4-5-22. He even tweeted this week that East Lake is ‘one of my favorite tracks on tour’, which bodes nicely.
As importantly, he is in good spirits at the moment, recording top-10s in three of his last four starts – two of which were high-quality FedExCup events.
Simpson’s lack of length off the tee is not an issue at East Lake, and instead his precision approach play from 50-125 yards is a key weapon in the arsenal.
Key Stats:
- Par 4 Scoring Average – 7th
- SG: Around the Green – 13th
- Driving Accuracy – 29th
Low-Tier Pick:
Russell Henley (Odds: 100/1, FPPG: 70.4, GPFP: 66.25 Salary: $6,600)
On paper, Russell Henley’s game is perfectly suited to East Lake, and so it is little wonder that his sole appearance at the venue yielded a T12 return in 2014.
He keeps it tight and on the money off the tee, ranking eleventh for Total Driving, and that naturally lends itself to Henley’s GIR rank of 30th.
The Houston Open winner ranks inside the top 40 on tour for Bogey Avoidance and Par 4 Birdie or Better Leaders, and so he is perhaps the ‘computer pick’ for success this week.
Key Stats:
- Total Driving – 11th
- Approaches from 100-125 Yards – 15th
- SG: Tee to Green – 54th
Sleeper Pick for the TOUR Championship
Tony Finau (Odds: 60/1, FPPG: 70.3, GPFP: 90.57 Salary: $7,100)
He goes hot and cold seemingly at will, does Finau, and right now he is steaming after opening with 65 and closing with 64 at the BMW Championship.
Finau ranks nicely for Total Driving (35th), SG: Tee-to-Green (7th), SG: Approach (36th), and Bogey Avoidance (21st), which marks a classy ball-striker who is one hot putter shy of winning a big tournament.
The 28-year-old has a habit of connecting good performances – that’s how he’s in the top 30 of the FedExCup standings after all – and despite never making the trip it wouldn’t be a surprise if East Lake tickles his fancy.
Key Stats:
- SG: Tee to Green – 7th
- Greens in Regulation – 16th
- SG: Approach the Green – 36th
Alternative Sleeper Pick for the TOUR Championship
Adam Hadwin (Odds: 125/1, FPPG: 70.7, GPFP: 61.79 Salary: $6,200)
Hadwin must have been buoyed by selection for the International team for the President’s Cup, because he has since delivered excellent performances at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational (T5) and the Dell Technologies (T13).
That follows a quality start to the campaign when the Canadian announced himself on the world stage, winning the Valspar Championship and finishing runner-up at the CareerBuilder Challenge.
Hadwin ranks 23rd for Bogey Avoidance and 52nd for Par 4 Scoring Average, which is a solid foundation on which to build, and the 29-year-old certainly possesses the game to cause a huge upset win this week.
Key Stats:
- Approaches from 50-125 Yards: 22nd
- SG: Approach: 60th
- SG: Tee to Green: 73rd
This Week’s Sample DraftKings Lineup
Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only. Be sure to mix-and-match players to best fit individual contests.
This Week’s Sample Lineup With Spieth
This Week’s Sample Lineup Without Spieth
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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2016-2017)
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