PGA Betting: Best Wagering Options for the Tour Championship
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The final stretch of the PGA Tour season has seen the game’s elite consistently rise to the top.
Cameron Smith won the Open, Tony Finau was victorious in two straight weeks, Will Zalatoris broke through with his first win during the first playoff event and Patrick Cantlay repeated as champion at the BMW Championship.
Looking back even further, Xander Schauffele won twice and there was Matt Fitzpatrick’s win at the U.S. Open and Rory McIlroy taking the RBC Canadian Open. It has not been a good stretch for the longshots.
Now the Tour’s season ends with the Top 30 taking part in the Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. It might be one of the marquee events of the year, but it’s one of the more difficult tournaments to find betting value in because of the staggered start.
Scottie Scheffler will start at –10, followed by Cantlay at –8 and Schauffele at –6. The staggered start means only a handful of players have a realistic shot at winning and the odds at the top for the leaders are not really anything to get excited about.
I expect Schauffele to be one of the most bet-on golfers for this event. He won the tournament in 2017 here and has second-place finishes in 2019 and 2020.
Last year he had the lowest score and wound up in a tie for fifth. He was +800 earlier in the week, but because Zalatoris withdrew, Schauffele is down to +550 on DraftKings Sportsbooks. That’s a little lower than I would like to get with him, so I will be looking to target other players this week.
Best Bet With Strokes: Rory McIlroy (-4) +900 DraftKings
Few are striking it better than McIlroy right now. He led the field last week in strokes gained: off-the-tee (+1.38) and shots gained: tee-to-green (+2.64).
The only problem was that he couldn’t putt. He was 56th out of 66 in strokes gained: putting (-1.14).
It was the second straight tournament he lost strokes to the field putting, but he has historically had success on the East Lake greens. In seven of his last eight trips to East Lake, McIlroy has gained strokes to the field in putting.
If there is a golfer who I would like to back with a chaser’s mindset early, it’s McIlroy and I like this number on DraftKings Sportsbook. He won this event in 2019 starting at –5 and wound up winning that year by four.
Also, it was just two weeks ago we saw Zalatoris recover from a nine-stroke deficit following the first round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, so making up this sort of deficit can still be done when a player is hot.
Best Bet Without Strokes: Viktor Hovland (-2) +3000
Some sportsbooks allow you to pick the golfer who will win the event without the staggered strokes handicap.
DraftKings is one of those and has Viktor Hovland at +3000, which is the best number I found on him in this category.
Hovland flashed some form on Sunday, shooting a 6-under par round that was aided by a lucky hole-in-one.
But similar to McIlroy, he’s one of those golfers who can go on an absolute run and is at a place this weekend where he’s had success before.
Last year here he shot a 5-under 65 to secure a top-five finish at the Tour Championship.
He led the field in shots gained: approach (+2.02) and shots gained: tee-to-green (+2.18). The eight-stroke deficit might be too much for him to overcome, but given his recent round and success last year, +3000 is a solid number to back Hovland to post the lowest score this weekend.
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