A dramatic and highly unusual PGA Tour season will come to an end this week with the 2022 Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Ga.
The Tour Championship is unlike any other event on the calendar. Instead of a traditional tournament to help decide the FedEx Cup Champion, the PGA Tour changed the format of the event a few years ago to avoid having a winner of the tournament and then a separate winner of the FedEx Cup. We saw this happen in 2018 when Tiger Woods won the actual Tour Championship event, but Justin Rose hoisted the FedEx Cup.
With the new format, the player who wins the Tour Championship event also wins the FedEx Cup.
To guarantee that, the Tour introduced a 30-player field with staggered scoring. The player (in this case, Scottie Scheffler) who enters East Lake atop the FedEx Cup standings gets a two-stroke edge over the second-place player, all the way down to a 10-stroke edge over the guys toward the bottom.
Here’s a look at the field and where every player will start out this week at East Lake:
2022 PGA Tour Championship starting scores
| Golfer | Starting Score |
|---|---|
| Scottie Scheffler | 10-under |
| Patrick Cantlay | 8-under |
| Will Zalatoris | 7-under |
| Xander Schauffele | 6-under |
| Sam Burns | 5-under |
| Cameron Smith, Rory McIlroy, Tony Finau, Sepp Straka, Sungjae Im | 4-under |
| Jon Rahm, Scott Stallings, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, Matt Fitzpatrick | 3-under |
| Max Homa, Hideki Matsuyama, Jordan Spieth, Joaquin Niemann, Viktor Hovland | 2-under |
| Collin Morikawa, Billy Horschel, Tom Hoge, Corey Conners, Brian Harman | 1-under |
| K.H. Lee, J.T. Poston, Sahith Theegala, Adam Scott, Aaron Wise | Even par |
As you can probably surmise, this unique format makes for an interesting week of betting. Most sportsbooks will post two sets of outright odds, one that incorporates the “staggered scoring” and another market that treats the Tour Championship as a normal golf event.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler unsurprisingly will go off as the +250 betting favorite to win the event. Scheffler will start the event with a two-stroke lead over Patrick Cantlay, who is next on the board at +400. Xander Schauffele is next up at +700, despite the fact that he is kicking off at 6-under, one stroke behind Will Zalatoris, who dropped to +1200 because he withdrew from last week’s BMW Championship with an injury.
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You can probably expect Rory McIlroy to get plenty of support at +1200 even though the Northern Irishman will start the event six strokes behind Scheffler. McIlroy has consistently gone off as the betting favorite when he’s played this summer, so there’s likely going to be plenty of punters who view the 12/1 on McIlroy in a 30-man field as a bit of a discount.
2022 Tour Championship Odds (With Staggered Scoring)
Odds via BetMGM.
| Golfer | Odds |
|---|---|
| Scottie Scheffler | +250 |
| Patrick Cantlay | +400 |
| Xander Schauffele | +700 |
| Will Zalatoris | +1200 |
| Rory McIlroy | +1400 |
| Jon Rahm | +1600 |
| Tony Finau | +1800 |
| Sam Burns | +2200 |
| Cameron Smith | +2500 |
| Justin Thomas | +2800 |
| Sungjae Im | +3000 |
| Matt Fitzpatrick | +4000 |
| Cameron Young | +4000 |
| Jordan Spieth | +5000 |
| Collin Morikawa | +6600 |
| Joaquin Niemann | +6600 |
| Viktor Hovland | +6600 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | +10000 |
| Scott Stallings | +10000 |
| Sepp Straka | +10000 |
| Corey Conners | +12500 |
| Max Homa | +12500 |
| Billy Horschel | +15000 |
| Adam Scott | +20000 |
| Aaron Wise | +25000 |
| Brian Harman | +25000 |
| Sahith Theegala | +30000 |
| J.T. Poston | +40000 |
| Kyoung-Hoon Lee | +40000 |
| Tom Hoge | +40000 |
If you’re looking to bet the Tour Championship as a normal event (as in the golfer with the best 72-hole score is deemed ‘the winner’), there will be some sportsbooks that post odds and others that don’t.
DraftKings has a market for both and currently has three players (Schauffele, Cantlay, and McIlroy) atop the board at +800, just ahead of Rahm at +900 and Scheffler at +1000.
If you are betting on this market, you may want to consider taking a shot on a few longshots. Typically, these tournaments feature more than 150 players and a cut, but this week you’re only asking your player to beat out a field of 29 (maybe 28 if Zalatoris withdraws) other golfers. And even though the field features a ton of star power, many of the usual big names (like Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau) are missing.
Players like K.H. Lee, Sepp Straka, Scott Stallings, and Sahith Theegala could all be worth consideration at long odds in this market:
2022 Tour Championship Odds (Without Staggered Scoring)
| Golfer | Odds |
|---|---|
| Xander Schauffele | +800 |
| Patrick Cantlay | +800 |
| Rory McIlroy | +800 |
| Jon Rahm | +900 |
| Scottie Scheffler | +1000 |
| Justin Thomas | +1400 |
| Tony Finau | +1600 |
| Will Zalatoris | +2000 |
| Cameron Smith | +2000 |
| Matt Fitzpatrick | +2000 |
| Sungjae Im | +2200 |
| Sam Burns | +2500 |
| Jordan Spieth | +2500 |
| Adam Scott | +2500 |
| Collin Morikawa | +2800 |
| Max Homa | +2800 |
| Corey Conners | +2800 |
| Viktor Hovland | +3500 |
| Joaquin Niemann | +3500 |
| Cameron Young | +3500 |
| Billy Horschel | +3500 |
| Aaron Wise | +4500 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | +6500 |
| Brian Harman | +6500 |
| Sahith Theegala | +8000 |
| Scott Stallings | +9000 |
| J.T. Poston | +9000 |
| K.H. Lee | +10000 |
| Tom Hoge | +20000 |
| Sepp Straka | +25000 |
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