And then there were 30.
Our staff of golf betting analysts have already made a pair of TOUR Championship picks for this weekend at East Lake Golf Course in Atlanta.
Let's get right into our staff's outright predictions.
2024 TOUR Championship Picks & Predictions
Tony Satori: Patrick Cantlay +3500 (Caesars)
I understand the concerns about how Match Play doesn't show well on television when we get into the final day (limited players on the course), but this is a gimmicky event that presents an equally troubling path to be excited about when we dive into any iteration of the outright market.
Want to bet with the starting strokes attached? Well, you get a venue that has been known to be difficult to make up ground because of the heightened par-five scoring output and difficulty elsewhere. Will that change this season after some restorations were done to East Lake? Perhaps. However, only Viktor Hovland has ever taken down this title since its change while delivering under 53% of the scoring total that week in par-five production.
Want to bet on this tournament without the starting strokes? You'll get a fictitious leaderboard, where nobody knows where they stand because of the confusing setup and difficult-to-track nature of the week.
In reality, the built-in juice would heavily push us toward wanting to bet this without starting strokes because of the high hold percentage we are getting upfront. Still, I did find Xander Schauffele interesting for a few main reasons at +250.
For starters, Scheffler's complaints of back problems at the BMW Championship could open up this door marginally when you consider he has finished 21st, 13th, 17th and 2nd when removing starting strokes from the equation. That is a questionable return against a golfer in Schauffele, who has landed 1st, 6th, 3rd, 1st, and 2nd over his last five attempts, which now starts to heighten the narrative of form, course history, and stats, all landing first overall in this field for the two-time major winner this season.
Add that to Schauffele not placing worse than second overall in any of the 10 categories that I tracked, and you get a golfer primed to end the season on a high note.
Spencer Aguiar: Xander Schauffele +250 (bet365)
As the odds indicate, this tournament is most likely to come down to Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele. While I believe the winner will be one of those two guys, I see little value in their betting odds pre-tournament.
But I do believe there are some numbers worth taking lower on the board, starting with Patrick Cantlay’s return of 35/1. Rory McIlroy won the 2022 Tour Championship after starting in the same T6 (-4) position, so it is certainly possible.
Furthermore, Cantlay typically thrives at East Lake. He won here in 2021, finished T7 in 2022 and fifth last season.
Cantlay’s putter has also been on fire, which should benefit him greatly this week as that is typically the only area of his game that has lagged behind at East Lake. On top of that, each of the top four finishers here last year ranked in the top seven among the field in Strokes Gained: Putting, the only statistic or metric in which such a trend occurred.
