The FedExCup Playoffs get underway on the PGA Tour this week when the leading 70 players of the campaign head to TPC Southwind for the FedEx St Jude Championship, the third to last event of the season where only the leading 50 players on the rankings will head to next week.
Lucas Glover was a bit of a surprise winner here last year but he hasn’t had the season that he would have wanted which means that he hasn’t qualified for the playoffs this time around so we are guaranteed a different winner.
Recent Winners
2023 – Lucas Glover
2022 – Will Zalatoris
2021 – Abraham Ancer
2020 – Justin Thomas
2019 – Brooks Koepka
2018 – Dustin Johnson
2017 – Daniel Berger
2016 – Daniel Berger
2015 – Fabian Gomez
2014 – Ben Crane
The Course
TPC Southwind is once again the venue for the tournament this week. The par 70 now measures 7,243 yards. Golfers are used to courses getting longer these days but a growing trend appears to be the moving of bunkers to correspond with the likely landing spots to make them true hazards. That happened here four years ago and dramatically altered the scoring since then. There is rain in the forecast for Friday so the course may play long.
The fairways here are generally on the tight side and there is usually some scraggly rough around the greens so this is a course that needs to be played from the short grass. When you look at the list of past winners it is generally players who strike the golf ball purely. It might pay to have a bit of length this week as we are deep into summer so storms are never going to be far away. This is a decent test of golf which should make for a good watch.
The Field
Only the top 70 in the FedExCup rankings have made it through to this tournament and all of them are guaranteed four rounds as there is no cut. While there is a battle for the title at TPC Southwind, there is also a race to be in the top 50 of the standings as only they will move onto next week so this is always one of the better tournaments of the season. Without the defending champion, the field is headed by the number one in the rankings in Scottie Scheffler.
The other major winner who is a PGA Tour is in the field this week in the form of the USPGA Championship and The Open champion in Xander Schauffele while the current FedExCup champion Viktor Hovland is also in the field. There are a galaxy of stars on show here including Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay among others. The winner of the last event of the regular season, Aaron Rai, is also in the field this week.
Market Leaders
Scottie Scheffler comes here not just as The Masters champion but also the Olympic champion and he is the 7/2 favourite to win the tournament this week. You have to think he is very much the man to beat here. He is an elite ball striker with length if the course plays long and these greens are not the hardest to putt on so even his weakness isn’t as big here. He doesn’t have a top 10 in the last two starts here though so maybe something about the place doesn’t suit his eye so I’ll take the chance that this isn’t his week.
The two-time major champion of 2024, Xander Schauffele, is next in the betting at 8/1. He has suddenly turned into a winning machine of the big tournaments and the number two seed heading into the playoffs has to have a massive chance of landing the big loot in Atlanta in a couple of weeks. The way he is hitting the ball it would be no surprise at all if he wins this tournament but that final round at the Olympics suggests that maybe the amount of intense golf he has played lately could be catching up with him.
Rory McIlroy probably hasn’t had the 2024 he would have wanted and unless something big happens over the next three weeks it will probably be remembered for him coughing up the win at the US Open so he’ll be motivated to put that right here. He was T5 at the Olympics a fortnight ago without ever really being deep in contention but generally he rises to the occasion in the bigger events and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he lands the win at 10/1 but that US Open meltdown still scares me into not backing him.
Collin Morikawa was really knocking the door down for a big win earlier in the year but he has gone a little quiet in the latter part of the season. He still comes in here as the fourth seed and is a 14/1 shot to run off with a title he should really have all the tools to contend for. He is an elite ball striker and we shouldn’t have to worry about his putter on these greens. He has gone T5-T13 in the last two years here so it would be a surprise if he isn’t deep in contention but I see his price as just fair rather than anything spectacular.
Main Bets
Billy Horschel probably thinks that The Open was one which got away but he hasn’t dwelt on that and posted a top 10 finish in among all the mayhem at the Wyndham Championship last week. He looks to be hitting the ball as well as he ever has and that is definitely no bad thing coming into an event where ball strikers rise to the fore. We know that Horschel can handle the added pressure of these elevated events as he is a former winner of the FedExCup and he looks primed for a massive go at this opening playoff event. He feels like a big price here.
Shane Lowry is the other player I want on side as a main bet. His putter has killed him on so many occasions but like Horschel, he was heavily in contention at The Open only to fall foul of those tough conditions on the Saturday afternoon but if the Irishman can’t find his form with the putter on these greens then he’ll never find form with it again. These are the easier greens on the PGA Tour and so Lowry shouldn’t be disadvantaged with the putter here. He repeated puts up great tee to green numbers this term and if he can do that here he really shouldn’t be far away.
Outsiders
Ben An would be another one who probably fits that Lowry profile except his putter hasn’t been as stone cold. He is an excellent driver of the golf ball and generally he is decent with the irons and he might well fly under the radar this week. He has had a better few weeks than his results have suggested but he has struggled to put all four rounds together. Sone of that is down to conditions and others is costly mistakes but at the prices we are getting on the Korean I’m willing to take the chance that on a less punishing layout from the second shot in that he can be a feature.
Emiliano Grillo hasn’t featured on the deep end of a leaderboard for a while but he was in the top 10 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational earlier in the season where the field there is as strong as it is here and the course is much tougher. There are shades of form on his side recently too. He was up with the early pace after 18 holes of the Olympics having opened with a 66 but couldn’t maintain that start while three solid rounds on a course better suited to the bombers at the 3M Open before that saw him finish in the top 25. Here there is a premium on driving the ball well and that is where the Argentine comes into his own. It is only 15 or so months so that he won on one of the biggest ball striking courses on tour at Colonial and so I’ll pay to see if he can put another four solid rounds together to get into contention here.
Tips
Back B.Horschel to win FedEx St Jude Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 46.00 with Paddy Power (1/5 1-7)
Back S.Lowry to win FedEx St Jude Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-7)
Back B-H.An to win FedEx St Jude Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-7)
Back E.Grillo to win FedEx St Jude Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 201.00 with William Hill
Back them here:
