2020 Tour Championship Picks

The Format

In a format started last year, the Tour Championship is set up so that the winner is also the FedEx Cup Champion.  The top 30 players remain, but they start at different scores based on their seeds: #1 overall seed starts at -10; #2 starts at -8; #3 at -7; #4 at -6; #5 at -5; #6-#10 at -4; #11-#15 at -3; #16-#20 at -2; #21-#25 at -1; and #26-#30 at even par.  Starting positions will look like this:

  1. Dustin Johnson -10 (+200)
  2. Jon Rahm -8 (+300)
  3. Justin Thomas -7 (+600)
  4. Webb Simpson -6 (+1200)
  5. Collin Morikawa -5 (+2000)
  6. Daniel Berger, Harris English, Bryson DeChambeau, Sungjae Im, Hideki Matsuyama -4
  7. Brendon Todd, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Reed, Xander Schauffele, Sebastian Munoz -3
  8. Lanto Griffin, Scottie Scheffler, Joaquin Niemann, Tyrrell Hatton, Tony Finau -2
  9. Kevin Kisner, Abraham Ancer, Ryan Palmer, Kevin Na, Marc Leishman -1
  10. Cameron Smith, Viktor Hovland, Mackenzie Hughes, Cameron Champ, Billy Horschel EVEN

The Course

East Lake Golf Club | Atlanta, GA

Par 70 | 7,346

Par 3’s: 197, 235, 214, 211

Par 4’s: 469, 391, 479, 442, 481, 455, 424, 389, 440, 520, 454, 430

Par 5’s: 525, 590

This course is pretty spread out across the board, with an even number of short, medium and long par 4’s so I don’t think you’ll find much leverage beyond Par 4 Scoring in general.  The three longer par 3’s will play over par so definitely important to be able to score in the 200+ par 3 range.

As always, shots gained tee to green will be the biggest factor with an emphasis on shots gained on approach.  Past years have seen the most approach shots from 200-225 yards followed by 125-150 and 150-175 yards.  Driving distance will always come into play on these longer course and in order to make a run up the leaderboard, birdie or better % will be something to look at as well.

Betting Strategies

This is a strange tournament with everyone starting at a different score, so be sure you know what you’re betting on as books will have wagers that include starting scores and wagers that exclude starting scores (although the guys playing aren’t going to know where they stand outright, so not sure how much stock to put into those bets).  All of these guys are good as they’re the 30 best on the season so you’re probably focusing more on odds than ever as someone like DJ is just +200 to win.

As far as draft kings, not sure what to make of that and will probably play way fewer lineups this week.  Seems like somewhere that max entry players can generate a lot of the possible combos so not looking to compete with their computers.

Odds we like:

Winner

Webb Simpson +1200

Collin Morikawa +2000

Bryson DeChambeau +2200