The 2020-21 PGA Tour season ends with this week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. A field made up of the top 30 golfers in the season-long FedEx Cup standings will now compete for the $15 million first-place prize. Below, we look at the 2021 Tour Championship odds and make our PGA Tour picks and predictions to win.
The Tour Championship begins with starting strokes assigned by the FedEx Cup standings following Patrick Cantlay‘s win at least week’s BMW Championship. Cantlay enters the week atop the standings with Tony Finau, winner of the previous week’s the Northern Trust, in second.
Cantlay will tee off Thursday at 10-under par with a two-stroke lead over Finau. Places three through five will start at 7 under, 6 under and 5 under, respectively. Spots six through 10 start at 4 under, 11-15 at 3 under, 16-20 at 2 under, 21-25 at 1 under and 26-30 will begin at even par. The odds and our picks include these starting strokes.
Odds provided by Tipico Sportsbook; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds a full list. Lines last updated Monday at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Favorite
Jon Rahm (+380)
Rahm will begin the week four shots off the lead at 6 under but that’ll be manageable for the Tour leader in total strokes gained per round on the field. His 2.57 strokes gained per round are a half shot per round better than Cantlay and 0.59 better than Bryson DeChambeau.
The Spaniard slipped from second to fourth in the season-long standings with a T-9 finish last week. It was his sixth straight international top-10 finish, excluding his forced withdrawal from the Memorial Tournament. He remains No. 1 in the Golfweek/Sagarin ranking and the Official World Golf Ranking.
Rahm finished fourth at East Lake last year at minus-17, including starting strokes. It was an awful putting performance, but he has averaged 0.33 strokes gained per round with the flat stick this season.
Contender
Tony Finau (+700)
Finau’s a much better bet at odds nearly double those of Rahm and two strokes closer to the pre-tournament leader. He’s 17th in the Golfweek/Sagarin ranking but ninth in the Official World Golf Ranking following his win at the Northern Trust and a T-15 finish last week.
He’s tied for 10th in this field with 16 career rounds played at East Lake and has averaged 2.06 strokes gained on the field per round at this venue to rank tenth among the 30 golfers in attendance. He has just one win this season (and since 2016), but he has three runner-up finishes and three other top-10 showings in 21 events in 2021.
He needs to make up just two strokes over four rounds to force his third playoff of the year.
Long shot
Rory McIlroy (+2000)
It has proven risky to bet outside of the FedEx Cup leaders since the starting strokes format was introduced in 2019; however, McIlroy, who starts at 16th in the standings at 2 under, is worth a small-unit flier for a 20-1 return on your investment.
The two-time FedEx Cup winner has averaged 2.91 strokes gained on the field per round over 28 rounds at East Lake GC. After bemoaning the labors of the 2020-21 PGA Tour “super” season, McIlroy finished alone in fourth last week for his top North American finish since winning the Wells Fargo Championship in early May.
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Source: Golfweek https://ift.tt/2V95qPJ