Until we get to that answer, though, East Lake is going to continue to play host to the finale of the season, with millions of dollars on the line for the top 30 golfers in the standings.
Let's dive into my TOUR Championship picks and PGA Tour best bets for this week's event.
TOUR Championship Outright Picks
Xander Schauffele 16/1
I am someone who typically bets Xander Schauffele a lot more than he should every season. We haven't seen that this year (until the past two weeks), but it's been for the best because of the lackluster output we have gotten from him over the last nine months.
Schauffele's data has consistently made him a negative EV wager on most boards, as shown by my model's attempts to take him on across multiple contests throughout the year. Some of that has started to waver here recently (St. Jude fade was suboptimal). However, my model is projecting Schauffele as nearly an 11.5/1 second-favorite on this board, which is too much for me to ignore at a venue he has dominated in the past.
Schauffele ranks second in this field among similar golf course designers and landed fourth in my Weighted Scoring model. Will those metrics be enough to overcome a disappointing year? We will see. But I do think his 16/1 opening price was one of the better looks on the slate.
Tom Kim 55/1
A player who has an average finishing position of 16.10 in a 30-man field doesn't exactly scream VALUE at the most basic level of this conversation, but I thought Tom Kim was one of the better looks on the board if you were trying to find a longshot wager here at over 50/1 odds.
Kim posted top-12 grades across all iterations of my model, including a fifth-place Weighted Strokes Gained mark over just his last 24 rounds. That return is noteworthy because it shows a higher short-term ceiling, and it ended up landing as something I valued across all markets this week.
Matchup wagers or better than 17.5 on the leaderboard are additional ways to play this take, but I will take a swing here on Kim as an outright bet.
TOUR Championship Matchup Pick
Tommy Fleetwood -115 over Ludvig Aberg
Sharp markets seem to have taken a liking to Ludvig Aberg this week. I don't fully disagree (multiple top-end metrics show upside), but I chose to discuss this play on my website over the two additional matchups because the data outlook is unique for this wager compared to the others (you can also get all three plays on the Action podcast this week). Being contrarian is also something that I like to try and be when possible.
I simulated the tournament 25,000 times to find any aberrant results. Aberg showed a vast range of outcomes. There were wins, top-five finishes, and a ton of bottom-end results. In fact, no elite golfer on the slate had as many "dud" performances as Aberg did across all the simulations I ran.
I don't want that narrative to be blown out of proportion for someone who ranked second in "Comp Courses" and fifth in "Weighted Scoring." The driver is also about as good as you are going to find in this field, yet I want to ask the question again: "Where is this price coming from in the market that is making sharps act in favor of Aberg, and why might upside and safety tell two different stories on this board?"
To answer the first part of this question, I do think those scoring marks and past iterations on similar courses are noteworthy when trying to back a golfer who has been close multiple times this year but hasn't been able to get across the finish line. While his East Lake history isn't as promising, Quail Hollow, Augusta National, Bellerive, and countless other similar locations are tailor-made for his driving acumen to separate him from the pack. If sharps are honing in on that narrative, there are reasons to be optimistic.
On the flip side of that equation, why do my simulations start to tank Aberg's average finish position for the week down to 14.79, the 12th-best on the board for a top-five-priced golfer? That answer seems to have more to do with a disdain toward his approach metrics and putting. Those are two areas where golfers can detach from the pack because of the overall ease of production, and misses start to compound in a very data-intensive way, showing a lack of true upside in the mix. Perhaps that is why Aberg has nothing better than a 19th here in two tries?
All of that is a straightforward way of saying I am taking Aberg on this week. It won't come from any golfer matched against him on the slate because the upside is worth noting, but if a Tommy Fleetwood bet can keep me from wasting more units on him as an outright, there must be some positives there that aren't even being discussed.
