2024 Tour Championship Betting Picks, Odds, Course Preview and Prediction
2024 Tour Championship Betting Picks, Odds, Course Preview and Prediction
We’ve made it to the final event of the 2024 FedEx Cup season, the Tour Championship, where the top-30 players on the PGA Tour this year will compete the season’s end prize of $25 million dollars. The event has undergone a number of structural changes over the years, so let’s run through the format. Beginning in 2019, the tournament adopted a new format to ensure that the winner of the tournament would also be the FedEx Cup champion. The player with the most FedEx Cup points heading into the week will start at 10-under par. The player with the second most points starts at eight under par. The third starts at seven under par, and so on all the way down to fifth at five under par. Players ranked six through 10 begin at four under. 11 through 15 at three-under, and so oval the way down to numbers 26-30, who begin at even par. In two of the five years under this format, the player starting at 10-under par has won, and we have never seen a player start from worse than four under battle back to victory.
2024 Tour Championship DATE, START TIME, AND WHERE TO WATCH
- Date: August 29-September 1, 2024
- Where: East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta, Georgia
- Where to Watch: Golf Channel, NBC, Peacock
2024 Tour Championship ODDS
- Winner: Scottie Scheffler (+110), Xander Schauffele (+230), Hideki Matsuyama (+1200)
Click here for the latest Tour Championship odds
Tour Championship: Course Preview
East Lake
Just like the format of this tournament, East Lake has undergone a number of changes throughout the years. The Donald Ross original received a Rees Jones renovation in 2008 that included a change from Bent-grass to Bermuda. In 2016, Rees returned to East Lake and added another 78 yards to the course. The nines were reversed, with the course now finishing with a 590 yard par five rather than the former par three closer. Yet over the past couple of years, tournament organizers and East Lake members realized that Jones’ changes fell completely flat, and another makeover was in order.
Cue Andrew Green, who recently completed the successful restoration of another championship course ruined by Rees Jones in Congressional, as well as another Donald Ross design in Oak Hill. Green transformed Congressional and Oak Hill from a character-less championship execution test with artificial water hazards to one of the most architecturally intriguing championship golf courses in America. The magic of Andrew Green is that he finds a way to make the golf course more interesting without compromising the challenge, and I’m hopeful that will be the case at East Lake too. Amongst the most notable changes, the fairways have been converted from Meyer Zoysia to Zorro Zoysia, which plays firmer and will lead to increased roll, allowing the topography to play a greater role in the strategy of each hole. All greens have been converted from Mini-Verde Bermuda to TifEagle Bermuda, which will provide putting surfaces that have improved speed, consistency, and overall playability. The size, shape, contouring, and surrounding runoff areas of each green complex have been enhanced to create a distinct style and variability to the course. Water was also a particular focus of the restoration, as Green’s team reclaimed a stream between the sixth and seventh hole. Minimal changes were made to the yardage of the course. It was lengthened by less than 100 yards, and it will now play as a par 71 at 7,455 yards. The 14th hole has been converted from a long par four to a short, risk/reward par five.
Ultimately, I do not believe that the restoration will dramatically change the player profile that we are looking for this week. In the past, East Lake has played as one of the more challenging courses on Tour, yet over the last three years, it has ranked outside the top-15 in difficulty. The course may not play harder from a standpoint of players under par, in fact, it might play easier, simply because the hardest hole on the course has been converted from a long par four into a short par five, but there is certainly more strategic nuance and intrigue. There is far more character on and around these greens. Historically East Lake has ranked towards the bottom on the PGA Tour in around the green and putting difficulty, and I certainly expect that to change this year. I think there’s also a strong case that it will get more challenging from tee to green. Yes, the fairways are wider and the greens are larger, but the Bermuda rough is the same, more water hazards are in play, the fairway bunkers are better positioned and more challenging, and the penalty for missing approach shots will also be far more severe. Not to mention the fact that these greens are brand new and will play incredibly firm, placing an increased emphasis on precision approach play. Just like we saw at Colonial, it is nearly impossible to stop the ball on brand new greens coming out of sticky Bermuda rough. East Lake is longer and harder than Colonial on paper with more narrow fairways. I’m expecting a stern test, even with the additional par five. I would place an even further emphasis on driving accuracy and approach play. East Lake was already an accuracy over distance golf course, but the challenge of controlling your ball out of Bermuda rough becomes even more cumbersome with brand new greens. Precision off the tee and distance control on approach will be crucial, and East Lake now becomes just a more exaggerated and longer version of what we saw at Colonial this year. This is a ball-striker’s course through and through where I will have an incredibly heavy weight on driving accuracy/total driving, overall approach play, and scoring from Bermuda rough.
Tour Championship Key Stats
- Driving Accuracy
- Strokes Gained Approach
- Overall Proximity: Bermuda-Grass Rough
Tour Championship: Outright Picks
Viktor Hovland (Low Gross) +1600 Click here to see which sportsbook has the best odds
While I’m dubious that Viktor Hovland can overcome an eight shot deficit to Scottie Scheffler and repeat at the Tour Championship, I do expect the young Norwegian to contend for the low gross title. Hovland shot the lowest score at East Lake last year, and while he is not quite the form that he was in 2023, I continue to believe that the 26-year-old is far closer than his results would suggest. While on the surface, Hovland’s 26th-place finish at the BMW Championship was certainly disappointing, there were many encouraging takeaways from the. Hovland gained over five strokes on approach for the second time in three starts, and he also gained strokes around the green for the first time since the PGA Championship. The new look East Lake is a ball-striker’s course through and through, and Hovland remains one of the premier total drivers and approach players in this field. I expect him to come out firing in Atlanta.
GOLF ODDS
Article Author
Andy Lack is a PGA Tour writer and podcaster from Manhattan, New York. Andy came to OddsChecker in January 2022 after previously writing for Golf Digest, GolfWRX, Rotoballer, and the Score. Andy is also the host of a golf betting and daily fantasy podcast, Inside Golf Podcast, as well as "The Scramble” with Rick Gehman, and a recurring guest on the Pat Mayo Experience. In his free time, Andy is still grinding away at his lifelong dream of qualifying for the U.S. Amateur, and if not writing, can likely be found somewhere on a golf course.