With current champion Rory McIlroy ineligible to defend his title, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, and Justin Thomas are the top golf betting picks to win the 2017 Tour Championship, which is both the final event of the FedEx Cup playoff and the PGA Tour proper. Spieth has 5,421 projected FedEx Cup points, while Thomas is second with 5,081, and Johnson is third with 4,730. Marc Leishman leapfrogged, by virtue of his BMW Championship win, Jon Rahm and Rickie Fowler to reach fourth place while, conversely, Hideki Matsuyama dropped to seventh place. Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka and Paul Casey round out the projected Top Ten.
Gooood morning from #TOURChampionship week ☀️ pic.twitter.com/l095naVdJ5
— TOUR Championship (@playofffinale) September 18, 2017
- Location: Atlanta, Georgia
- Established: 1987, 30 years ago
- Course: East Lake Golf Club
- Par: 70 Length 7,385 yards (6,753 m)
- Tour: PGA Tour
- Format: Stroke play
- Prize fund: $8.75 million
Jordan Spieth
Spieth has three straight top 10 finishes, including runner-upping The Northern Trust and the Dell Technologies Championship, as well as tying for 7th in the BMW Championship. Additionally, Spieth will be, as the 2015 winner, the most recent past champion in the field.
Spieth also tied for second place with Steve Stricker in 2013. “Obviously the best position to be in for the best scenarios in order to win the FedExCup,” Spieth said per Golf Channel.com. “That was kind of my goal today, to maintain the No. 1 position, and we’ll go into East Lake really trying to win the golf tournament and trying not to focus on anything else.”
Justin Thomas
Thomas had a craptacular T47 finish at the BMW Championship, but had posted top 10s in his three previous starts – including winning the PGA Championship and the Dell Technologies Championship. Thomas’s best result in the Tour Championship has been a T6 in 2016. Thomas is the golf betting favourite to win Player of the Year, with five wins – one of them a major – in 23 starts. “I wish I had three majors right now,” Thomas said following his win at TPC Boston. “I’m obviously pleased with one, but I wish I had three.”
Dustin Johnson
DJ went, after winning The Northern Trust, back to averageness with T18 and T33 finishes at the, respectively, Dell Technologies Championship and BMW Championship. He remains, though, calm, cool, and collected. “For me, it’s still a game and we’re out here to put on a show for all the fans,” Johnson said via PGA.com. “And they don’t want to see you pitching a fit, that’s for sure.” Yeah, and people don’t watch NASCAR for the crashes. The World No. 1 has finished inside the top 10 in the Tour Championship since 2012.
Rickie Fowler
Fowler has not finished outside the top 25 in nine events after missing the cut at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, and tied for second place in the BMW Championship. Many golf betting fans may not know this, but Fowler has been in possession of the Wannamaker trophy. Not because he won the PGA Championship, which, of course, he hasn’t; rather, he temporarily kept in a safe at Justin Thomas’s behest while the latter fled hurricane Irma.