Look, predicting a pre-tournament Sportsbook in golf isn’t easy. While it’s true sports bettors can find fantastic value, it’s incredibly frustrating when one of your picks doesn’t even make the cut. That’s why I’m here to help.
Every week I’ll highlight three golfers who have a good chance to win the hardware for the upcoming weekend. This week it’s the third FedExCup playoffs event: the Tour Championship.
For a full breakdown of the tournament, check out my betting preview.
Odds courtesy of Sportsbook
My Favorite Pick: Webb Simpson +2200
Simpson is starting six shots back of the leader Justin Thomas, but he has three top-fives at East Lake and is swinging an extremely hot golf club of late. The 34-year-old is winless in 2019 but ended the regular season with consecutive solo seconds at the WGC in Memphis and the Wyndham Championship.
Simpson has a habit of showing up in big events, and the Tour Championship certainly qualifies in that regard. The Wake Forest product ranks 13th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained on putting and 11th in strokes gained on approach, which will bode well for his chances to build off a T-7 at last year’s Tour Championship. With a scoring average of 69.3 (third on the tour), I’m comfortable backing him at +2200.
My Second Favorite Pick: Xander Schauffele +2800
Schauffele has his work cut out for him since he’ll be starting six shots off the lead, but I don’t think that’s enough to deter the American from posting some excellent numbers at East Lake. Schauffele, the 2017 Tour Championship Sportsbook, carded rounds of 69-66-65-68 to edge Thomas by a single stroke to cap off a Rookie of the Year season.
Schauffele notched a T-7 here last year and is a combined 17 under in 144 holes at this golf course, so considering you can get him at his pre-tournament +2800 price, the time to jump on the X-Man’s odds is now.
My third favorite pick: Tony Finau +3300
Finau has an outside chance of winning the FedExCup thanks to a fourth-place finish at the BMW Championship last week and has collected four straight top-30s ahead of the playoff finale. This is Finau’s third trip to Atlanta, going T-7 at the venue in 2017 and T-15 in 2018.
Finau is winless this season but has been in the mix on many occasions throughout the campaign and is due for a breakout performance. It’s going to be tough for him to come back from his -3 starting spot, but if he can record some solid scores on the first few days, he should have a chance to contend on the weekend.
