Tour Championship Best Bets: Expert Golf Picks, PGA Tour Betting Preview

The 2025 PGA Tour season concludes with the Tour Championship, which tees off this weekend from East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Ga.

The 30-player field sports the richest purse of the season with $40 million in total and $10 million up for grabs for the winner.

Scottie Scheffler is looking to become the first back-to-back winner of the Tour Championship. After his thrilling win at last week's BMW Championship, he comes into the weekend as the overwhelming favorite at +150 odds to win the Tour Championship at DraftKings.

Behind Scheffler on the odds board, as he has been all season, is Rory McIlroy at +850 odds to win the Tour Championship. McIlroy has won the title three times, most in PGA Tour history.

Other top contenders include Tommy Fleetwood at +1400, Ludvig Aberg at +1800, Russell Henley at +2000, and Justin Thomas, J.J. Spaun, and Patrick Cantlay at +2500.

Here are our Tour Championship best bets and expert golf picks for this weekend's season finale.

Tour Championship Best Bets

Playbook

Bet McIlroy Over Scheffler Instantly!

Rory McIlroy

Outright (+850) · Matchup vs. Scottie Scheffler (+280)

Spencer Aguiar: I think that Rory McIlroy is a little bit closer to Scottie Scheffler this week than what the market is putting out there. My model has him somewhere in the 40-45% range to beat Scheffler, where as in the market he's at like 25-30% to beat him straight-up over the course of four days.

So whether it's a matchup head-to-head against Scheffler or it's +850 outright, I like it.

This is one of those tailor-made courses for McIlroy. His off-the-tee game is strong, and I just think he's a little bit closer to Scheffler this week than we've seen in recent memory.

So I'm going to use that as my edge to try to bet McIlroy this week against Scheffler.

Tommy Fleetwood

Outright (+1400)

Wes Reynolds: I'm ready for the pain. I'm ready to get hurt again like I did two weeks ago in Memphis.

Look, to his credit, Fleetwood rebounded from essentially giving that Memphis tournament away. He was tied for fourth last week at the BMW and was one of three players, along with Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland, who are in this field of 30 who gained strokes across the board last weekend.

And when you look at the aforementioned Memphis Tournament, TPC Southwind is a pretty good correlation to East Lake here, and even though Fleetwood didn't end up winning and finishing tied for third, he was the best player in the field for most of that event. He just wasn't able to get it home.

At his media availability this week Fleetwood even acknowledged how funny it would be if he finally got his first PGA Tour win and it came in winning the FedExCup Championship. And I think he's got a shot to do exactly that.

Viktor Hovland

Outright (+3000)

Wes Reynolds: Viktor Hovland was the winner here two years ago and was also the low 72-hole score in that staggered scoring format that they got rid of this year. He was also fourth here last year and eighth in 2021, so I think he has taken a liking to this place.

Hovland is second on the season for Strokes Gained: Approach, behind Scottie Scheffler. He's been one of those guys this year who has been very hit-or-miss. When you think he's going to play well, he doesn't, and when you think he's not going to play well, all of a sudden he wins like he did at the Valspar earlier this year when he was as high as like +7000 to win.

I'm going with a little bit of a gut-instinct pick here with Hovland. I was down to either Hovland or Ludvig Aberg for my second choice and I just ended up going with Hovland here.

Harry Hall

Matchup vs. Brian Harman (-125)

Spencer Aguiar: The funny thing about this bet is that a lot of what I look for at a venue like this doesn't mesh with Hall playing well here, and there are numerous comparable venues that just don't check the boxes for Hall.

But one of the things that I looked at when I started running the data a little bit deeper for Hall is he is very similar in a lot of way to that Ben Griffin style of production with his game where you get this middle-of-the-pack distance return, really horrible accuracy numbers, but a lot of that ends up getting outweighed by these high-end marks elsewhere.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing when the dispersion of scoring marks based on the long-term data here deliver a much more flat slate across the board to where around-the-green is going to matter and putting is going to matter. Everything comes into play here.

So the way that I look at these tournaments is I'm always looking for players to fade, and Brian Harman is one of those options that I do like taking on this week. He's dead-last for me when I looked at weight of proximity plus aggression and merged that in with expected total driving.

One of the differences that comes into play for these no-cut tournaments is I do think you need to find upside with the players you are backing. Hall is volatile and obviously a wild-card at this course, but I like the upside he possesses against a golfer like Harman, who has not found the best success at East Lake in the past.

Sungjae Im

Matchup vs. Nick Taylor (-110)

Spencer Aguiar: I don't know if I've ever given out a play that's going to be as universally hated as this one in backing Sungjae Im, a player who nobody can understand how he's even in this tournament.

When you get these condensed, 30-man, no-cut tournaments this is the kind of thing that ends up happening. Books are going to be much more efficient when dealing with fewer players and so the selections for me are often going to veer in unexpected directions.

So this is an instance for me where I just have to trust the data that's part of the process here, and my handicapping process isn't going to disagree with anything we talk about in regards to whether Im should be here or not. We saw him lose all control with his irons this season and he's been nearly a stroke per round off of his total from 2024.

But this goes back to how much the course matters here, and that's what I'm looking at more than anything else. There certainly is a homefield advantage narrative that can be a little bit lazy at times, and while that can be true to a certain extend, what moves him up my sheet is he gets an unexpected increase in GIR percentage just based on the strength of his driver and his ability to find fairways.

So that did move him up to 16th overall in my model, where Nick Taylor never really got past that 28-30 range in this 30-player field. So in looking for upside in this tournament this is where I landed. Im over Taylor checks all the boxes for me.

Collin Morikawa

Matchup vs. Cameron Young (-135)

Wes Reynolds: I think we're probably still doing to see Collin Morikawa on the Ryder Cup team, but he could probably use a solid performance here to ensure it despite his pedigree and his major championship success.

That's because it's been a whirlwind of a season for Morikawa. I believe he's on his fifth caddie of the season. He's tried everything but has not been able to figure it out.

You look at his numbers last week and you see he finished tied for 33rd but he was number four on Strokes Gained: Approach last week and was second in Greens in Regulation.

So why did he finish tied for 33rd? Well, because he was second-to-last in putting. He lost six strokes there and then lost another four more around the green.

So he's an absolute mess, but I'm going to bank on him going back to the Bermuda here, a place where he's had some success. He's actually been the low scorer here before. Last year, Scheffler won with the staggered scoring, but Morikaway was the low scorer for 72 holes.

I think he likes this track and I'm willing to buy a guy in a low spot off a bad putting week.

Cameron Young

Outright (+3500)

Spencer Aguiar: I'm actually on the opposite side this week. I'm usually the last player to back Cameron Young. I couldn't tell you the last time I've done that in any fashion. He's usually oen of the players I'm looking to bet against.

But when I look at what he puts together, there is a lot of Wyndham Clark in his game. He thrives off the tee and is great with the putter. The struggles with the approach game are always end up coming up, though.

If this goes south for him this week, it's going to be because the driver doesn't find enough short grass off the tee. The only encouraging trend I saw when shooting for a pure upside play is he was the No. 1 expected producer for me historically off the tee at Donald Ross courses.

So while he can be very wayward by any stretch of the imagination, he has found success in some of these spots. I'm going to buck public consensus in this spot and back Young as one of just two outrights I have this week.

Sam Burns

Outright (+3000)

Wes Reynolds: Sam Burns was second last week in both putting and scrambling, so the short game is in really good shape right now. And this week he gets to play on Bermuda grass, where I think we all know he's an elite putter.

I think Burns is likely in the conversation for one of the final captain spots on Keegan Bradley's Ryder Cup team, and I think a good showing here in Atlanta will go a long way toward getting him last week.

Burns ended up T4 last week, and he's another guy who can be a little bit erratic off the tee, but he certainly has the distance and certainly has the short game. The irons can be very hit-or-miss for Burns, but if he can have a spike week I think he'll be right there, so I like him at 30-1.

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How to Watch the Tour Championship

• What: Tour Championship
• When: August 21-24, 2025
• Where: East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta, Ga.
• Par: 70
• Length: 7,490
• Purse: $40 million

Round 1: Thursday, August 21

• Live stream: ESPN+ (11 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET)
• TV coverage: Golf Channel (1 to 6 p.m.)

Round 2: Friday, August 22

• Live stream: ESPN+ (11:15 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET)
• TV coverage: Golf Channel (1 to 6 p.m.)

Round 3: Saturday, August 23

• Live stream: ESPN+ (12 to 7 p.m. ET)
• TV coverage: Golf Channel (1 to 2:30 p.m. ET); NBC (2:30 to 7 p.m. ET)

Round 4: Sunday, August 24

• Live stream: ESPN+ (11 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET)
• TV coverage: Golf Channel (12 to 1:30 p.m. ET); NBC (1:30 to 6 p.m. ET)

Tour Championship Odds

Odds via DraftKings and as of Tuesday