PGA Tour: TOUR Championship golf betting preview and tips from Ben Coley

Recommended bets

2.5pts e.w. Tony Finau at 20/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5)

1.5pts e.w. Billy Horschel at 33/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5)

1pt e.w. Joaquin Niemann at 60/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5)

• All bets advised are in 72-hole market, ignoring starting scores

I hate the new FedEx Cup Playoff system.

On Friday, the final event of the season will begin at East Lake, whose nines were switched to produce an exciting finish. We used to get plenty of them. Remember in 2016, when Rory McIlroy holed out for eagle to muscle his way into a play-off which he then won, stealing the $10m jackpot from Dustin Johnson in the process? How about 2017, when Xander Schauffele nervily holed the putt which won him the TOUR Championship while Justin Thomas just - just - managed to become the latest bonus king. No? Not exciting enough? Too confusing for your poor little head?

OK then, 2018: Tiger Woods' first PGA Tour win in five long years. All of the injuries, all of the incidents, all of the episodes, washed away by the sea of fans who carried him down the final hole. Tiger Woods' army, loyal to the end. What a rush it was to witness that moment. What folly it was to create a system which, had it been installed a year earlier, would've denied it. Woods would still have shot the best score in the tournament, but he would not have won the tournament. How utterly preposterous.

In case you haven't heard, the TOUR Championship is now a faddy, pandering, contrived, ill-conceived event made for the Netflix generation. It begins with pre-ordained scores determined by FedEx Cup ranking, so that come Monday we have just one champion, a player who gets the TOUR Championship and the FedEx Cup, complete with its now $15m bonus. Dustin Johnson begins on 10-under, Jon Rahm on eight-under, and the rest with a mountain to climb already if they're to overcome the two players who served up that memorable finish on Sunday in Chicago.

The system was employed for the first time last August, and the PGA Tour got lucky. Rory McIlroy happened to shoot both the best score across these 72 holes, and also overcome the handicap he'd started the event with. It meant that folks like me could not protest that the wrong player had scooped the bounty. Make no mistake, though: this system guarantees that will happen, and often. It also significantly increases the likelihood of a runaway champion - there was only one man with in five of McIlroy, who won by three. And it gives us something like a 67% chance that one of three players wins this title; in other words, over time the variety of outcome will be narrowed.

I hate the new FedEx Cup Playoff system. And I've absolutely no interest in trying to work out who will win it, because this year it will probably be either 15/8 shot Johnson or 3/1 shot Rahm or maybe 5/1 shot Thomas or 12/1 shot Webb Simpson. The other 26 players have, as far as I can see, very little chance. And I don't really believe that Johnson and Rahm will struggle in the way that Thomas and Patrick Cantlay did last year. It's just 7/2 that they fill the first two places and that doesn't look totally unreasonable.

So, if you are looking for a bet you can follow simply via the PGA Tour leaderboard and Sky Sports coverage, I'm afraid this time I can't (or at least won't) help. Instead, I'm going to focus on the proper market - lowest 72-hole score. You might find it called 'without starting scores' but please do be careful when placing bets, whichever market you choose.

We've only one year to go on, but the best three scores in 2019 came from players who appeared to have plenty to do to win the whole thing. McIlroy was obviously close enough and said he wasn't really affected by the strange circumstances when teeing off for the first round, but third-placed Paul Casey began eight back and both spoke and played like a man who could freewheel.

It does make sense that the better scores might come from further down the list, for all that I doubt Johnson is overly moved by the prospect of winning even such an eye-watering sum of money. He and Rahm do have to begin this battle in contention, rather than attempt to work their way into it, and that may have some minor effect on scoring. Given that they head this market, too, and that they were put through the mill last week, there are grounds to take them on.

Rory would be the one but for the fact he will do the right thing and walk off the course the second his wife goes into labour, with the arrival of their baby girl expected any day now. That further encourages a bet or two in this market and though Xander Schauffele has a heck of a lot in his favour once more, it's TONY FINAU who looks better value on this occasion.

Starting from that Casey slot on two-under, Finau can't yet consider himself a realistic contender for FedEx Cup glory and if you believe everything you hear about him, that has to help. Personally I'm not one to dwell on his issues winning a proper PGA Tour event, but I'm not going to deny the fact that it at least removes a complicating factor. Backing him at 20/1 to lift a trophy wouldn't come easy; backing him at 20/1 to shoot the best score really does.

Finau's form here reads 7-15-7 and he said ahead of that second effort that East Lake is a course he really enjoys. That's probably because this long par 70 is a serious test, just like Harding Park (fourth) and Olympia Fields (fifth). Throw in eighth at the Memorial and his strong book of major form, including here in Georgia at the Masters, and there's no denying he gets better when conditions get more challenging.

Driving the ball well has been vital here over the years, underlined again by a McIlroy, Schauffele, Casey 'podium' in 2019. Finau has gained strokes in every one of his 10 starts post-lockdown, and over the last two months he's started to putt well, with his short-game helping him grind out a score in last week's BMW Championship.

Four top-10 finishes in his last six starts have been his reward and while he might have to settle for another here in an official, FedEx Cup sense, he's more than capable of shooting the best score - particularly as he's really taken a shine to these slick, bermuda greens.

Kevin Kisner and Harris English are two names you might expect to see towards the top of the putting stats and they should both play well. That said, it's hard for a player like Kisner to keep up on a course which stretches out close to 7,400 yards and won't play anywhere near as firm as Olympia Fields. He's been third here in the past and he'll do well to sneak into the frame once more.

Instead and at the same sort of price, BILLY HORSCHEL is fancied to continue his fine association with this course, one at which he became FedEx Cup champion on merit in 2014.

Seventh on debut, Horschel has only made it to East Lake twice since, and the only player to have beaten him across these two appearances is Tiger Woods. He simply loves the course, its bermuda greens, its old-school, Donald Ross feel, and what it represents in his career.

Clearly suited by it, you can see why he'd have been especially desperate to make it to the TOUR Championship and he did so by the skin of his teeth, pipping Adam Long to 30th place in the FedEx Cup by three points. There's a chance that takes the edge of him and he blows out here, but Horschel isn't the type to down tools and a strong start could see him make a significant move up the leaderboard.

"It would be really great. I've got a real fondness for East Lake," he said while waiting to learn his fate last week. "It's just an unbelievable course, unbelievable tournament, and my record shows that I do love it a lot with a win, a second and a seventh-place finish, I believe.

"I wish I could say I was hoping to play better today. I played really good golf, and I got absolutely nothing out of it. It's been a struggle. It's been a test of my patience all week. I've hit a lot of really good shots. I've hit probably so many good putts over four days and absolutely made nothing, and if I would go over the last four days of how many lip-outs I've had, I'm not just saying burning the edges, I'm saying true lip-outs. It's easily 15, 20-plus.

"I'll tell you what, if I somehow make East Lake, I love what I can do there. I know I'm going to start 10 shots back and that's a big margin to make up... so I know I'm going to have to do something special when I get to East Lake, but the game is trending in the right direction.

"Whether I play next week or whether I don't get to play until the US Open, I just love the trajectory my game is going and the progress we've made as a team this year."

Those are bullish words and the statistics do confirm that it's the putter which has cost him over the last fortnight, since he almost won the Wyndham at an easier but not altogether dissimilar course. Horschel though has become a reliable putter, especially on bermuda, and is expected to get back on track in that department.

From tee-to-green he has been exceptional here on every visit, and there was nothing wrong with what he did at Olympia Fields. Suited by this return to his favoured part of the US and entitled to view this as a free roll, the popular Floridian ought to be a factor in the low-72 market at around the 35/1 mark.

Scottie Scheffler is hitting his ball really well and the Texas youngster could find this to his liking, but it's worth chancing the less consistent but no less capable JOAQUIN NIEMANN at almost twice the price.

Niemann was superb last week, leading the field in greens-in-regulation, and ranking second only to Johnson in strokes-gained ball-striking (off-the-tee plus approach). Clearly, his long game is in great shape and that's been true throughout summer bar one disappointing display with driver at TPC Boston.

The move to East Lake asks a new question and it is fair to say he's played much of his best golf further north, on bentgrass greens. However, that looks to have been factored into the price and he has top-10 finishes in South Carolina and Texas to allay those concerns somewhat, especially on a golf course which should again bring a collection of the best ball-strikers to the top.

At 52nd in the world rankings, he has the added incentive of returning to the top 50 and the rewards that entails, and there will be no slacking off from the youngster even if Johnson and co sail off into the distance from an early stage. He's got plenty to play for and spoke of the confidence generated by Sunday's effort, where he showed once more that his future is likely to involve plenty of final rounds battling against Rahm and the other youngsters coming through.

On last week's form and latent ability he's overpriced, so let's hope he does find this long, demanding course to his liking.

Cameron Smith is in a similar spot in the world rankings and though his debut here was low-key, his iron play was excellent only for a cold putter to cost him. The Australian has defied his lack of distance on some big courses in the past and seems to have turned a corner with back-to-back top-20 finishes, enough to look twice at the 100/1 on offer.

Sungjae Im comes alive on bermuda and is another at a big price. He's part of an interesting group at four-under, with Daniel Berger entitled to play well along with English, Hideki Matsuyama a big factor if he can defy some generally terrible putting stats on bermuda greens, and Bryson DeChambeau guaranteed to opt for all-out attack.

That area on the FedEx Cup leaderboard - four-under down - might just be the best place to focus. Those 25 players are entitled to feel less pressure, without having yet given up all hope of winning the lot. It's probably beyond Horschel to do so but that's no bad thing and one way or another, it seems unlikely that the best scores come from the very top of the table.

If they do, at least it will underline what a terrible idea this was in the first place.

Posted at 1140 BST on 01/09/20

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