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.

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

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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2016-2017)

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