There are four rounds left of the PGA Tour season and the first of those comes in the Tour Championship on Thursday when the 29 men still alive in the FedExCup offering take to East Lake for their opening round.
This is a quirky event in that the 29 players don’t all start off on level par so there are a number of players having to go chasing and one or two of them looking to protect the advantage they built up over the course of the campaign.
First Round Leader
Whenever a feature tournament comes along my immediate tendency is to take a look at the first round leader market. This isn’t a normal tournament though. Usually we are looking for the lowest 18 hole score to be the first round leader but that isn’t necessarily the case here with one player beginning two shots clear of one player and further clear of everyone else. That player is Scottie Scheffler and you’d have to think if he breaks par he’ll lead after 18 holes but that is fully reflected in the prices.
Patrick Cantlay is the defending champion and two behind so he is the natural obvious pick to usurp Scheffler at the top of the order but I’m always wary of the man who won the previous week even as good as Cantlay is. Only Zander Schauffele is within four shots of the lead and while his East Lake record is exceptional I’m not convinced there is too much in the way of value in him to drag four shots back on a class act like Scheffler. It is a market I’m happy to leave alone.
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Thursday 2 Balls
The beauty of this tournament is that the field go out in two balls throughout unlike a usual PGA Tour event where the opening 36 holes sees the players out in threes. The order of the tee times are in reverse FedExCup order with the man ranked 29 out on his own first before 28 and 27 partner each other right the way through to the leading two. Adam Scott and Sahith Theegala are the first pair onto the golf course at 16.55 BST and then the pairings go off every 10 minutes before Scottie Scheffler and Patrick Cantlay go to the first tee at 19.05 BST. I’ll go with the one bet on Thursday.
Billy Horschel vs Tom Hoge
Match tees off at 17.25 BST
Two men who start their week on -1, nine shots off the pace, go out in one of the earlier groups onto the golf course on Thursday when Billy Horschel is paired with the grossly out of form Tom Hoge who will be playing his first competitive 18 holes around here.
That is significant because this is a golf course where knowledge of not just the track itself but also the competition environment and the pressure that playing for such a huge purse brings is usually crucial. Debutants don’t tend to have a great record here. Hoge qualified for the tournament with what he did in the early part of the season but arrives here having missed seven of his last eight cuts which would have been eight in nine you fancy had there been a cut last week. That is wretched form and while Horschel hasn’t exactly caught fire since he won The Memorial, he has been playing much better golf than that. Importantly, Horschel has been here a number of times and apart from 2020 where he had a mare he has a decent record here. He has won here in 2014 and shot one of the seven lowest scores on three other occasions. In five outings here he has twice opened with a 66 as well as a 65 last year and at 5/6 he looks like a penalty kick here.
Tips
Back B.Horschel to beat T.Hoge for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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