Tour Championship 2023 Betting Tips: Schauffele to excel again at East Lake

70 players were cut to 50, and following last week's BMW Championship, only 30 of golf’s superstars move onto the FedEx Cup finale at the Tour Championship from East Lake. Viktor Hovland rallied to shoot a course record 61 at Olympia Fields, and he took down the BMW title with the lowest round in Playoffs’ history. Viktor rocketed himself up the rankings and now comes in as no. 2 for the FedEx Cup.

The Tour Championship at East Lake is the last event of the Playoffs, and a cash bonanza is up for grabs. It’s $18 million for the top dog come Sunday and Scottie Scheffler leads the market (2.46) closely followed by Rory McIlroy (4.3) who was overtaken by Hovland (5.6) in the standings after the BMW Championship. John Rahm (8.8) and Lucas Glover (38.0) round out the top five in the FedEx Cup rankings while Patrick Cantlay is infiltrating the field at a price of 18.5. This is a staggered format where the higher in the FedEx Cup rankings you are, the bigger the handicap head start you get. For example, Scottie will start at -10 while Hovland will start at -8, Rory at -7 and so on…

The Course – East Lake GC

East Lake is a ball striker’s playground with narrow fairways surrounded by a thick treeline. It’s a parkland track with deep Bermuda rough and firm, fast speedy Bermuda greens sloping from back to front. Eastlake is a Donald Ross masterpiece implementing tight Zoysia grass into closely mown green surrounds. Players will often have difficulty with chipping here. Driving accuracy is a premium at East Lake and emphasis will be on tee to green play. An all-around game is needed which perhaps explains Xander Schauffele’s dominance around these parts! Hit as many greens as possible and avoiding the troublesome shot making around the greens is the brief.

The Contenders

Max Homa (28.0) is a man coming into top gear and he is available in the outright market at 28.0, coming into the Tour championship at no. 6 in the standings. Max will start at -4. He shot 62 in the second round at the BMW, and he is showing progressive form of 21-12-10-6-5-5 for a top of the ratings 10.0 in the model. Homa is 15th in strokes gained: tee to green and 8th in strokes gained: total this year and has a score of 9.04 out of 10 in my course fit model. The American finished 5th at East Llake on debut last season in the strokes without handicaps. He’s 14.0 in the 72 hole strokes (without handicap) market.

Xander Schauffele owns fabulous form at East Lake and he’s a man to watch in the winner w/o starting strokes market. Xander will tee off at -3 in the main outright market at 28.0 but is available at 12.0 in said alternative market. Schauffele is a two-time winner of lowest strokes around here, rating 8.93/10 for course fit and he has an amazing average finishing position of 3rd over 6 appearances if we take the handicaps out of the equation. He carded rounds of 71-65-67-68 at the BMW championship to finish in 8th place and he ranked 3rd in strokes gained off the tee for the week. He’s fifth in approach play for the season, key around this track.

Sam Burns is simmering nicely form wise, but he may be playing a little better than his results show having shot a Saturday 62 at Olympia Fields. At 38.0 in the winner w/o starting strokes market I think we are getting some good value on Burns. We can look at him in some place markets too where he’s 4.2 to break the top 10 with handicaps included. He’s trending into some top form with a rating of 8.47 on my progressive form model and 8.52 on the course-fit-o-meter.

Recommended bets

Max Homa to win @ 28.0 or @ 14.0 in Winner w/o starting strokes
Xander Schauffele to win @ 28.0 or @ 12.0 in Winner w/o starting strokes
Sam Burns @ 38.0 in Winner w/o starting strokes or @ 4.2 to finish in the Top 10