The Tour Championship returns to Atlanta to be held at East Lake Golf Club as the final leg of the 2024 FedEx Cup Playoffs. Scottie Scheffler enters the Tour Championship for the third consecutive year as the No. 1 seed and will start the tournament at 10-under par.
Schauffele has yet to win a FedExCup title. East Lake Golf Club, especially its greens, poses plenty of problems for Schauffele. Xander Schauffele is the No. 2 seed and will start at 8-under. Schauffele has a great track record on this course, winning the tournament in 2017 and firing a final-round 62 last year to tie Viktor Hovland for the shot total.
Rory McIlroy is looking to win his fourth FedExCup title and will start at 4 under par, the same number he finished with in the biggest comeback in FedExCup history. 4 under par is about as close as you can get when predicting a FedExCup winner. Giving Scheffler a six-stroke lead is not an ideal situation for anyone, even if Scheffler doesn't like this golf course.
East Lake Golf Club underwent extensive renovations prior to the tournament, and all the changes to the course have given Scheffler some optimism but also some questions for golfers who have dominated the course for years.
In my projections this week, I decided to up the percentage of strokes gained on approach and use a smaller sample of the past 24 rounds, excluding the BMW Championship. The water ball situation at Castle Pines Golf Club completely tipped the balance of the statistics. Scheffler and Schauffele both ended up losing strokes on their approaches because of the elevation and unfamiliarity with the golf course. Nobody suffered from this bias more than Akshay Bhatia, who lost over 11 strokes on his approach last week. With the addition of another par 5, I'm going to take par 5 scores and birdie or better scores into a little more consideration this week. Keegan Bradley jumped from 50th to 4th in the FedEx Cup Playoffs with his win on Sunday, but I still can't think of a scenario where he won't drop at least a few places when this week is over.
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Course information
Course: East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta
Designer: Tom Bendelow (1908), 1913 redesign by Donald Ross, 1993 redesign by Rees Jones, 2023 redesign by Andrew Green
Par: 71
Yardage: 7,490 yards
Average green size: 6,238 square feet
Features: East Lake Golf Club is undergoing a major redesign by Andrew Green since the 2023 Tour Championship. All greens have been redesigned, eliminating the repetition of circular greens that slope from back to front since the 1993 Rees Jones redesign. Bunkers have been returned to their original design. The 8th hole has been shortened to be a driveable par 4. Prior to the new redesign, East Lake had become too predictable with few memorable holes. The par 3 15th and final par 5 18th are probably the only two holes that the average PGA Tour fan remembers from past events. The 14th hole has been changed to a 580-yard par 5 to provide more opportunities to improve scores on the back nine.
Past winners: 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 are taken from BetMGM.
Betting Cards
Xander Schauffele (+225) has had some of his best recent results here, but all the changes to the golf course have undermined much of that. His current form off the tee and on the greens can't be ignored, and he's coming in hard for the final week of the PGA Tour season. He struggled with his approach at the BMW Championship, but still finished T5 thanks to some great driving and putting.
Ludvig Oberg (+1800) has yet to win this year, but he started the tournament at 5 under and could very well be the one to surprise this week. He led the par-5 score at the BMW Championship and looks to be completely healthy for the rest of the season. He played great last week and will be making his debut at East Lake Golf Club, but with all the changes, it's not scary.
DFS Play
Scottie Scheffler ($12,200) feels trapped this year with a very low price tag compared to the other players. The top FedEx Cup players have traditionally been in the $14,000-$15,000 range and barely playable if they were not thought to be up to the task. This price tag will put Scottie on a lot of teams. A change of golf course, especially the greens, might be just what Scottie needs to get rejuvenated here at the end of the season. He looked frustrated at the BMW Championship and has answered many 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) begins the golf tournament at 4 under par after tying for second at the BMW Championship and rocketing up the FedEx Cup standings. Burns has gained more than two strokes on his approach in four consecutive tournaments and 13 or more strokes with the putter in his last two tournaments. He has the offensive firepower necessary to make a comeback in this format.
Wyndham Clark ($8,100) finished a distant third at last year's Tour Championship behind Schauffele and Hovland, but he still showed he can play this course with precision. He's scorching off the tee right now, winning 11.5 strokes or more off the tee in his last three tournaments. His approach numbers look poor after he struggled with water polo issues on the first day of the BMW Championship.
Tony Finau ($7,700) will benefit from the addition of the par-5 14th hole. His putter has been in good form, gaining strokes on the greens, but was out of form in Colorado. He had gained strokes on his approach in eight straight tournaments prior to the BMW Championship, but he finally gained 3.9 or more strokes off his tee shots and was dominant again.
Tommy Fleetwood ($7,600) has won a combined total of 14 or more strokes on his approaches in his past three tournaments and 4.8 or more strokes off the tee in his past two starts.
Billy Horschel ($7,100) has a combined approach score of 16.5 strokes or better in his last four tournaments. He's on a roll at the right time and could be in line for a spot on the U.S. Presidents Cup team. The 37-year-old has three top nine finishes in five starts, including a win at East Lake in 2014.
Taylor Pendris ($6,500) lost strokes at the BMW Championship over the weekend due to a water ball issue. He still managed to finish in 13th place thanks to a great putting week, which has been trending for him lately. Pendris was atop the field in par-5 scoring, and with the added par-5s that will work to his advantage.
Tom Hoge ($6,100) gained 8.8 strokes on approach last week and played well the last time he played in the Tour Championship, breaking par in all four rounds and gaining 2.3 strokes over the field on approach in the first round. He was the key player for the $5,000 for the week and is my low-priced player again this week.
One time only
Thanks to Brodie Miller and Hugh Kellenberger for participating in this season's One-and-Done contest. I finished on top, but Brodie and Hugh battled hard with me all season. Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau's amazing runs to win the U.S. Open were what decided my season. Hopefully next year we can expand this coverage and include a few more reader voices. If you're interested in a reader contest, let me know in the comments!
Each week, selections were made in reverse order and no duplicate selections were allowed in the same week. See this spreadsheet for all selections.
Final standings
Dennis Esser: $10,952,589
Brody Miller: $9,432,969.16
Hugh Kellenberger: $8,731,627.63
(Photo of Xander Schauffele by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
