The Tour Championship returns to Atlanta for the conclusion of the 2024 FedEx Cup Playoffs at East Lake Golf Club. Scottie Scheffler is the No. 1 seed entering the Tour Championship for the third consecutive year and will start the tournament at 10-under.
Scheffler has yet to close the deal and capture a FedEx Cup title. East Lake Golf Club, and its greens in particular, have caused him a lot of problems. Xander Schauffele is the second seed and will be starting at 8-under. Schauffele has an excellent course history here, winning the tournament in 2017 and finishing tied with Viktor Hovland in total shots last year while firing a 62 in the final round.
Rory McIlroy will be seeking his fourth FedEx Cup title and will be starting at 4-under, which is the same number that he was sitting at when he had the largest comeback in FedEx Cup history. The starting score of 4-under is just about the furthest we can look when it comes to betting on a winner of the FedEx Cup. Giving Scheffler a six-stroke head start isn’t an ideal situation for anyone, even if he doesn’t love this golf course.
East Lake Golf Club underwent a large-scale renovation prior to this tournament. With all of the changes to the course, there is some optimism for Scheffler, as well as some doubt for golfers who have dominated here over the years.
For this week’s projections, I’m bumping up the percentage for strokes gained on approach and using a smaller sample of the last 24 rounds while throwing out the BMW Championship. The water ball situation at Castle Pines Golf Club threw the statistics completely out of balance. Scheffler and Schauffele both ended up losing strokes on approach, thanks to the altitude and the unfamiliarity of the golf course. No one suffered from this bias more than Akshay Bhatia, who lost over 11 strokes on approach last week. The addition of another Par 5 has me factoring in Par 5 scoring as well as birdie or better a little more this week. Keegan Bradley jumped up into fourth place in the FedEx Cup Playoffs from 50th with his win on Sunday, and yet I don’t see a scenario where he won’t fall at least a few places when the week is over.
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Course information
Course: East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta
Designer: Tom Bendelow (1908), redesign by Donald Ross in 1913, redesign by Rees Jones in 1993, redesign by Andrew Green in 2023
Par: 71
Yardage: 7,490 yards
Average green size: 6,238 square feet
Features: East Lake Golf Club has undergone a massive redesign by Andrew Green since the 2023 Tour Championship. The greens were all redesigned to stop the repetitiveness of the circular greens that sloped back to front since Rees Jones’ redesign in 1993. The bunkering was changed back to some of the original designs. The eighth hole was shortened to make it a driveable Par 4. East Lake had become too predictable, with little to no memorable holes, before the new redesign. The Par-3 15th and the closing Par-5 18th were probably the only two holes that the average PGA Tour fan could remember from past events. The 14th hole has been changed to a Par 5 at 580 yards, which means there is more opportunity to score on the back nine.
Past champions: 2023 Viktor Hovland, 2022 Rory McIlroy, 2021 Patrick Cantlay, 2020 Dustin Johnson, 2019 Rory McIlroy, 2018 Tiger Woods, 2017 Xander Schauffele, 2016 Rory McIlroy, 2015 Jordan Spieth, 2014 Billy Horschel
2024 Tour Championship odds
All odds from BetMGM.
Betting slip
Xander Schauffele (+225) has the best recent course history here, but a lot of that can be thrown out the window with all of the changes to the golf course. We can’t throw out his current form off the tee or on the greens. He is firing on all cylinders heading into the final week of the PGA Tour season. He struggled on approach at the BMW Championship and still finished T5 thanks to his superior driving and putting.
Ludvig Åberg (+1800) hasn’t won yet this year but starts the tournament at 5-under with a real chance to surprise this week. He led the BMW Championship in Par-5 scoring and looks fully healthy to end the season. I love what I saw from him last week, and I’m not scared that he is making his debut at East Lake Golf Club because of all of the changes.
DFS plays
Scottie Scheffler ($12,200) is priced so low this year compared to others that it feels like a trap. The leader of the FedEx Cup has traditionally been in the $14K-$15K range, which made them almost unplayable if you didn’t think they could perform. This price will bring Scottie into a lot of teams. The changes to the golf course, and especially the greens, may be just what Scottie needs to feel reenergized here at the end of the season. He looked frustrated at the BMW Championship and has answered a ton of questions about why he doesn’t like the current format of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Xander Schauffele ($11,000) See above.
Ludvig Åberg ($9,900) See above.
Sam Burns ($8,500) is starting the golf tournament at 4-under after a T2 at the BMW Championship saw him leap up the FedEx Cup standings. Burns has gained over two strokes on approach in four straight tournaments, and he has gained over 13 strokes with his putter in his last two tournaments. He possesses the firepower needed to make up ground in this type of format.
Wyndham Clark ($8,100) finished a distant third to Schauffele and Hovland last year at the Tour Championship but still showed he can play this course with precision. He is scorching off the tee right now, gaining over 11.5 strokes off the tee in his last three tournaments. His approach numbers look off after he struggled with water ball issues on day one of the BMW Championship.
Tony Finau ($7,700) will benefit from the addition of the Par-5 14th hole. His putter went cold in Colorado after sustaining a strong streak of gaining strokes on the green. He had gained strokes on approach in eight straight tournaments before the BMW Championship and he finally got back to crushing it off the tee as he gained over 3.9 strokes off the tee.
Tommy Fleetwood ($7,600) has gained over 14 strokes combined on approach over his last three tournaments while gaining over 4.8 strokes off the tee in his last two outings.
Billy Horschel ($7,100) has gained over 16.5 strokes on approach combined over his last four tournaments. He has gotten hot at the right time and may play his way onto the United States Presidents Cup team. The 37-year-old has three top-nine finishes, including a win in 2014 at East Lake, in five tries.
Taylor Pendrith ($6,500) lost strokes on the weekend at the BMW Championship because of some water ball issues. He still managed to finish T13 thanks to a nice putting week, which has continued a recent trend for him. Pendrith is one of the best in the field in Par 5 scoring, and that will help him with the additional Par 5 added.
Tom Hoge ($6,100) gained over 8.8 strokes on approach last week and had a nice showing the last time he appeared at the Tour Championship when he broke par in all four rounds and gained over 2.3 strokes on the field on approach during the first round. He was a key $5,000 play that week and will be my low-priced play again this week.
One and done
I want to thank Brody Miller and Hugh Kellenberger for participating in the one-and-done contest this season. I finished in the lead, but Brody and Hugh battled me hard all season. A nice little run from Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau winning the U.S. Open were the deciding factors for me this season. Next year I hope we can expand on this coverage and also bring in a few more voices for the readers. Let me know in the comments if a reader contest is something you would be interested in.
Each week, we picked in reverse order of the standings, and couldn’t duplicate picks in the same week. Reference this spreadsheet for all of our picks.
Final standings
Dennis Esser: $10,952,589
Brody Miller: $9,432,969.16
Hugh Kellenberger: $8,731,627.63
(Photo of Xander Schauffele: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
