TOUR Championship betting preview and tips: Tiger Woods fancied at East Lake
Golf expert Ben Coley is backing Tiger Woods to steal the headlines in the final event of the PGA Tour season as he previews the TOUR Championship.
Recommended bets
3pts e.w. Tiger Woods at 14/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4)
1pt e.w. Kevin Na at 80/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4)
1pt e.w. Patrick Cantlay at 40/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4)
For details of advised bookmakers and each-way terms, visit our transparent tipping record
Justin Rose has the opportunity to properly celebrate his ascent to the top of the sport with victory in the TOUR Championship, which would make him the latest FedEx Cup champion and add another eleven or twelve million to the bank balance.
A fortnight ago, Rose's second place at the BMW Championship saw him take over from Dustin Johnson as golf's world number one but while delighted to achieve a long-held ambition, his immediate reaction was of course one of frustration, as he really ought to have won at Aronimink to complete the job in style.
Rose has since had time to contemplate his success and, as he's shown countless times before, is not one to dwell on negatives for long. Still, he might have preferred to get straight back on the bike and the near fortnight break between these two events reveals a potential negative for backers of the 9/1 joint-favourite.
In 2010, 2012 and 2016, there was a gap between the BMW Championship and the TOUR Championship, and it's in these three years that form from one event to the next proved particularly fickle.
Two years ago, Rory McIlroy beat Ryan Moore and Kevin Chappell in a play-off for this title and none had been in the top 40 of what's just a 70-man field for the BMW. In 2012, while faring better, East Lake winner Brandt Snedeker had been 37th a fortnight previously and none of his chief threats had contended, while in 2010, winner Furyk had been mid-pack - 37th again, in fact.
Three tournaments can only tell us so much, and it should be noted that 2009 also qualifies and while winner Phil Mickelson had been out of sorts coming in, many of those closest to him had been in the mix a couple of weeks earlier. Still, the idea that we could see a very different leaderboard to that which ended Keegan Bradley first, Rose second in the latest BMW Champonship is one I'm keen to explore.
That temptation is enhanced by the course. While Aronimink and East Lake are both designed by Donald Ross, a Golden Era architect whose work is familiar to hardened PGA Tour followers, the former played soft and simple having been restored by Gil Hanse and East Lake should, by rights, prove an altogether tougher test. So far this decade nobody has bettered 13-under and the only player to manage that score won by three. It's a long par 70 which represents a serious challenge.
We do tend to see certain players pop up on Ross layouts come rain or shine, and Rose is one of them. So is Moore, whose first win came at Sedgefield Country Club, home of the Wyndham Championship. The last two winners of that event - Brandt Snedeker and Henrik Stenson - are both winners here, too; Bill Haas has been first at East Lake, second at Sedgefield, a feat Sergio Garcia has achieved in reverse. Webb Simpson, Jordan Spieth and others besides help underscore the relevance of this particular correlation.
It could also be worth looking at the Greenbrier Classic, where Xander Schauffele broke through before winning this title as a rookie 12 months ago. Given how few players in the relatively low-key Greenbrier wind up at East Lake, it's surely telling that Haas, Schauffele and Danny Lee have all contended at both during the same season, and that Kevin Kisner has threatened to win both titles.
As far as East Lake itself goes, the course opens itself up to various lines of attack but the last two winners both led the field in strokes-gained off-the-tee and it's hard to escape the notion that this is a drivers' layout. Schauffele, McIlroy, Stenson and Billy Horschel suggest as much and I'm happy to let outlier extraordinaire Jordan Spieth fly, after he poured in everything he looked at when capping a fabulous 2015 season.
If we are looking for a quality driver, who perhaps didn't make headlines in the BMW but had previously been in good form, then Bryson DeChambeau is the man. Winner of the first two events of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and duly awarded a Ryder Cup place having now picked up four titles in 18 months, the youngster needed a break and could return in the form which effectively secured him top spot in the FedEx Cup for this final showdown.
He's respected at a very fair 20/1, but winning three Playoff events is uncharted territory and I marginally prefer the claims of Tiger Woods at the prices.
Woods was my headline selection for the BMW Championship, where an abysmal Friday with the putter proved particularly costly as he finished one shot out of the places and just three shy of the play-off won by Bradley, having made a thrilling charge on the final day.
Otherwise, it was an excellent performance and another step forward as he nears the completion of his return to the top of the sport, which requires only silverware now. Woods ranked second in approach play and fifth in total driving - a season's best, backed up by strokes-gained figures which put him inside the top 25, and a key indicator that his turn may well be near.
It's no fluke that he's suddenly keeping the ball in play. Tiger returned to an old driver shaft at The Northern Trust to kick-off the Playoffs and his driving numbers improved instantly. He's been 12th, 11th and fifth for total driving compared to 20th, 64th and 61st in his previous three starts, has gained strokes across all along the way, and signed off from Aronimink hitting 13 of 14 fairways.
East Lake will provide a different challenge, but it's one he knows well and with a win and four runner-up finishes to his name, plus a contending eighth on his penultimate visit, he'll know that he's returning to the right sort of course. Aronimink fits into that category, too, but I've no doubt that sweltering, rain-soaked conditions made life harder for him in what developed into a shootout.
Asked there to assess his progress during 2018, Woods confirmed that he feels close to completing the jigsaw. "My last piece was the driver," he said. "As you've seen throughout the summer, that was the only piece that was missing. Lo and behold I find one at Ridgewood, went back to an old shaft, same thing I put in my three-wood and five-wood, the shaft I know. Next thing you know today (I hit) 13 fairways."
If Woods brings that level of accuracy to East Lake, there's no reason he can't be right in the mix once more and while everyone here is motivated, few will bring the hunger which comes with five years without a trophy. With his schedule beyond the Ryder Cup yet to be mapped out, the time is now for Woods and he looks a solid each-way bet.
Beyond the headline selection, I find this quite difficult and to be frank the Frys.com Open can't come soon enough.
Schauffele contended when defending his title at the Greenbrier and could do the same on his second start at East Lake, Horschel loves it here and averages less than 68 strokes per round since the start of July, while European duo Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood both look right for the course, but I can't bring myself to side with any of this quartet at the prices available.
Paul Casey is tempting at 40/1 given his impeccable course credentials but I'm less than certain his withdrawal from the BMW Championship can be overlooked and instead, I'm going to return to one of the aforementioned pointers and back Kevin Na.
As touched upon, the Greenbrier has been a solid guide here in the past and Na's runaway success there at the height of summer immediately puts him on the radar. Since then, he's scored a couple of Ross-coloured top-15 finishes in the Playoffs and as a player with a top-five at the Wyndham Championship in the bag, again he fits many of the requirements on paper.
The negative is Na's fairly modest course record, but dig a little deeper and you'll see he's been fifth at halfway twice before, and indeed held onto that position through 54 holes in 2010, at a time when he was still working out how to find a way to fall over the line.
This will be the first time that Na has played at East Lake having won earlier in the year and his recent form is good enough to propel him into contention again, especially if he's boosted by the emotional success of Korea's Sangmoon Bae on the Web.com Tour last week.
Na, who considers himself half Korean and gave an emotional speech to his Asian supporters after winning in Virginia, is very much part of the clique of Korean golfers on the circuit and it's worth remembering that one week after he won in July came victory for another Korean-American, Michael Kim.
All those things considered, Na might be able to do what Moore did a couple of years ago and defy a length deficit to force his way into the conversation at a generous price.
In terms of those whose form dipped at the BMW Championship, Cameron Smith is interesting having finished third in the first two Playoff events and gone well here in Georgia at the Masters, but I prefer Patrick Cantlay and he rounds off my selections.
One of the best drivers on the circuit, Cantlay has the game for East Lake but couldn't show it last year, when teeing off just days after he'd scraped into the field, securing invites to all the 2018 majors and basically completing a hard-fought return to the top of the sport.
Viewed in such a light, his slow start (74) becomes forgivable and he's better judged on a second-round 66 followed by a level-par weekend, which hinted that he has the game for this layout.
Cantlay has regressed throughout the Playoffs this time but the break since Aronimink could help him and a tree-lined, classical course such as East Lake is just the ticket for someone who I believe is on the verge of joining the very elite, which means a Ryder Cup debut in two years.
Finally, I did consider Keegan Bradley at 50/1, as three players have won the final two events in the past and he does fit the bill in some respects as a quality driver of the ball. However, the aforementioned break is a negative when it comes to emulating 2014 FedEx Cup winner Horschel, and if one thing is certain this week it's that he won't putt as well as he did at Aronimink.
Posted at 1930 BST on 17/09/18.