PGA DFS Preview: 2021 TOUR Championship

Hi RotoBallers! I'm Andy Lack and I'm very excited to be with you as a new member of the RB PGA team! In our ongoing attempt to expand and improve our PGA coverage, I will be dropping a 'Tournament Preview' every Monday morning.

I hope this preview will give you a head start on your TOUR Championship research and I'd also like to encourage you to check out my Inside Golf Podcast to hear more of my thoughts on East Lake and this week's tournament. If you aren't already utilizing RotoBaller's amazing weekly PGA content, fix that right now by joining us this week and throughout the rest of the PGA Tour season.

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RotoBaller Weekly PGA Article Schedule

Monday

You can find out all you need to know about this week's layout with Josh Bennett's Course Breakdown (Premium) and learn which golfers have thrived at this course in the past with Joe Nicely's Horse For The Course.

Tuesday

We kick your DFS research into high gear with articles from Spencer Aguiar! Spencer will highlight his favorite DraftKings Plays of the week - an article that also includes his popular PGA DFS Rankings Wizard Model - and offer great tips with his Head-To-Head Betting Preview, while Joe Nicely drops some salary savers in his DraftKings Value Plays (Premium) article. We also have you FanDuel fans covered with free PGA DFS picks for every tournament.

Wednesday

Things start getting intense on Wednesday and we've got you covered! You can check out RotoBaller Staff One And Done selections and get inside the mind of our team with our PGA DFS Expert Roundtable (Premium). We also have two of the most popular articles in the PGA DFS industry with Spencer Aguiar's Vegas Report (Premium) and Joe Nicely's DraftKings Core Four (Premium). You can also check out Josh Bennett's DFS Cheat Sheet (Premium) for a quick cram session!

Tournament Overview

2021 TOUR Championship

Recent Winners

• 2020: Dustin Johnson (-11)
• 2019: Rory McIlroy (-13)
• 2018: Tiger Woods (-12)
• 2017: Xander Schauffele (-12)
• 2016: Rory McIlroy (-16)

Event Details

• Purse: $46 million (15 million to winner)
• FedEx Cup Points: Winner is the champion!
• Field: 30 Players

The PGA Tour travels to Atlanta, Georgia this week for the TOUR Championship. This is the final leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs, as only 30 players remain after the completion of last week's BMW Championship. Before we dig into the course, the key metrics, and three players to keep an eye on, it's important to discuss the infamous staggered scoring format that the TOUR Championship employs. Beginning in 2019, the FedEx Cup finale adopted a new format in order to ensure that the winner would also be the FedEx Cup champion. The number one player in the FedEx Cup standings will begin the tournament at 10-under par. The number two player will begin at eight-under par, number three at seven-under, number four at six-under, number five at five-under and so on throughout the entirety of the 30 players in the field. Players ranked six through though ten will begin at four-under par, 11 through 15 at three-under, 16 through 20 at two-under, 21 through 25 at one-under, and 26 through 30 at even par.

This unique format, along with a field of only 30 players, makes the TOUR Championship a fascinating and difficult proposition for fantasy managers. With such a small field, it will be exponentially harder to differentiate and identify the edges that I normally discuss in this article. With that being said, the best advice I can give is to simply lean on game theory. There will certainly be a few players with astronomical ownership percentages, and a large advantage can be found by attempting to differentiate the best we can with the limited player pool at our disposal. Let's get into the course breakdown, key statistics, and three players that are worthy of further attention.

Course Breakdown

East Lake Golf Club- Atlanta, Georgia. 

Sitting just five miles east of downtown Atlanta, East Lake Golf Club is an old-school, classical layout designed by Tom Bendelow in 1908. Donald Ross re-designed the course in 1913, and Rees Jones made further renovations in both 1995 and 2008. East Lake plays as a par 70, measuring 7,346 yards with Bermuda-grass greens, Bermuda-grass rough, and Zoysia-grass fairways. Greens average around 6,000 square feet, and fairways average 28 yards wide. East Lake has been the host course for this tournament since 2004, so we can certainly develop an understanding of what it takes to succeed to at East Lake given the wealth of data at our disposal.

I've written extensively about Donald Ross before in these articles, but just to give a quick recap, Ross is best known for his undulating green complexes and classical-style parkland layouts. The PGA Tour is no stranger to the farmed designer's work, as already this summer we have traveled to the Ross designed Detroit Golf Club for the Rocket Mortgage Classic and Sedgefield Country Club for the Wyndham Championship. Ross has also designed iconic major venues such as Oak Hill and Pinehurst N0. 2. East Lake falls somewhere in between Sedgefield and Pinehurst. It may not be set up like a U.S. Open, but it's no birdie-fest either. In each of the last ten years, the winning score has fallen somewhere in between eight and 14 under.

Like most Ross designs, East Lake's green complexes certainly require a player's upmost attention, but I still wouldn't label them as the course's greatest defense. The narrow fairways and gnarly Bermuda-grass rough is what characterizes the difficulty of East Lake. Players have hit an average of 54% of their fairways at East Lake, a healthy difference from the Tour average of 66%. Tiger Woods summed up the challenge at East Lake nicely in a 2018 interview, "In general, this is a ball-striker's course. If you drive the ball in the rough, you know you can't get the ball close. The Bermuda rough, you just can't control it. It puts a premium on driving." Jim Furyk also echoed this sentiment, "A lot of the defense of this golf course really is the Bermuda rough. You have to hit the fairways. Some of them are very thin and very difficult to hit." The numbers certainly back this up, as nine of the last twelve winners at East Lake have ranked inside the top-nine in fairways fit. The last six winners have also ranked fourth, first, sixth, first, first, and third in strokes gained off the tee. For this reason, I will place a large emphasis this week on strokes gained off the tee, driving accuracy, and fairways gained.

While off the tee, and more specifically, driving accuracy metrics are at the top of my priority list, players will still need a well-rounded game to succeed at East Lake. Approach play is always paramount on a Ross course, as players must position themselves correctly on these greens in order to attack this golf course. Rory McIlroy articulated the challenge nicely, "It's difficult at times to put yourself on the right side of the pin. I felt like I had a lot of putts today from 15 to 20 feet, but you're just being so defensive with them. You're just rolling them down the hill, hoping, with good speed that they might drop." While East Lake never turns into a putting contest, players who have experienced success on fast Bermuda-grass greens will also have my attention. In conclusion, driving accuracy mavens with an affinity for Bermuda is a wonderful place to start when handicapping East Lake. Of course, given the staggered scoring format, there are realistically only a handful of players that can win the actual tournament. Yet that will not stop us from using the numbers to identify players that can greatly improve upon their starting position, which will ultimately be the difference maker in profitable fantasy lineups. Let's dig into the metrics!

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Key Statistics 

Outside of the obvious four major statistical categories (strokes gained off the tee, strokes gained approach, strokes gained around the green, and strokes gained putting), here are a few ancillary statistics that should prove pivotal, as well as the top-5 players in the field in these metrics over their last 24 rounds.

1. Fairways Gained  
   1. Corey Conners
   2. Collin Morikawa
   3. Abraham Ancer
   4. Sungjae Im
   5. Harris English
2. Greens in Regulation Gained  
   1. Jon Rahm
   2. Patrick Cantlay
   3. Collin Morikawa
   4. Louis Oosthuizen
   5. Daniel Berger
3. Strokes Gained Putting Bermuda-grass Greens 
   1. Cameron Smith
   2. Joaquin Niemann
   3. Louis Oosthuizen
   4. Bryson DeChambeau
   5. Abraham Ancer
4. Bogey Avoidance 
   1. Patrick Cantlay
   2. Louis Oosthuizen
   3. Jon Rahm
   4. Collin Morikawa
   5. Daniel Berger

While those five statistics are a great place to start, I am also looking at scrambling, proximity from 200 yards plus, and course history from East Lake, Sedgefield, TPC Southwind, and Innisbrook.

Players To Target

High-Price Tier

Justin Thomas (-4 starting position)

While Justin Thomas has undoubtedly been underwhelming since his March win at the PLAYERS Championship, I have certainly been encouraged with the direction that his game is trending in. Thomas has gained over two strokes on approach in three consecutive starts, all which resulted in a top-26 finish. After a less than stellar stretch of approach play during the summer, Thomas' irons are definitively back. Yet it is not just his irons that leave me optimistic about his chances this week. Over his last 36 rounds, the 14-time PGA Tour winner also ranks fourth in scrambling, eighth in bogey avoidance, and tenth in proximity from 200 yards plus, out of all players in this field. Thomas possesses an elite short game, and he has been excellent at manufacturing pars on more difficult tracks.

East Lake is also a spot that should call to mind nice memories for the University of Alabama product. Thomas has made the TOUR Championship in each of the last five seasons, and he has never gained less than three strokes on the field total in each effort. Thomas' game log at East Lake reads sixth, second, seventh, third, and second. He has been clawing for a win here for five consecutive years, and despite a six stroke disadvantage on Patrick Cantlay, I firmly believe that Thomas will work his way up the leaderboard as the week progresses.

Mid-Price Tier

Viktor Hovland (-3 starting position)

While Viktor Hovland has only played East Lake once, in 2019, his game fits this course to a tee. Over his last 36 rounds, the Oklahoma State product ranks fifth in strokes gained off the tee, sixth in fairways gained, tenth in bogey avoidance, and third in proximity from 200 yards plus. For all the length that Hovland possesses off the tee, he is one of the most accurate drivers of the ball as well. The young Norwegian is one of only four players in this field to rank top-ten in this field in strokes gained off the tee and fairways gained. Similar to the roadmap that Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, and Xander Schauffele have employed in recent efforts at East Lake, I believe Hovland's driver will set him apart.

The two-time PGA Tour winner is coming off a 17th-place finish last week at the BMW, which included a final round 65. He gained 3.6 strokes off the tee, two strokes on approach, lost 1.6 strokes around the green, and lost 0.1 stroke putting. Hovland's ball-striking has been steadily improving over the last three weeks, and his short game and putting have been getting better as well. All aspects of Hovland's game are currently trending positively, and two of his best putting performances of the season have come on Bermuda-grass greens. The future Ryder Cup stalwart gained over four strokes putting at both the Wells Fargo Championship and the Valspar Championship. Hovland should be more than eager to return to the south-east

Value-Price Tier

Corey Conners (-1 starting position)

Corey Conners will be starting the TOUR Championship at one-under par in 21st place, but I feel strongly that he will be one of the biggest movers up the leaderboard by tournament's end. Conners has only played East Lake once, in 2019, and while he only finished 26th, the Canadian gained 2.8 strokes off the tee, 0.7 strokes on approach, and lost a combined 7.3 strokes short game and putting. Conners is a much better player now than he was in 2019, and a strong performance at East Lake will be a nice capstone to a breakout 2020-2021 season that included 17 top-25 finishes in 27 starts. While he never found the winner's circle, a 10th at the November Masters, a seventh at the PLAYERS Championship, an eighth at the April Masters, a 17th at the PGA Championship, and a 15th at the Open Championship display a worthy competitor against the world's best.

Conners is coming off a ho-hum 22nd-place finish last week at the BMW Championship, where he only gained 0.5 strokes off the tee and lost 0.1 stroke on approach. Oddly enough, Conners did gain 2.9 strokes around the green, good for his best short game performance of the entire season. While that was far from one of Conners' better ball-striking weeks of the year, I am glad to see his short game and putting trending in the right direction, and I have little doubt that his ball-striking will return to form. The former Valero Texas Open winner has not lost strokes on approach in back to back weeks since July of 2018. Over his last 36 rounds, Conners also ranks first in this field in fairways gained, and sixth in this field in greens in regulation gained. The Kent State product's best putting stretch of the season came during the Florida swing, so a return to Bermuda-grass greens should be just what the doctor ordered for the ball-striking maven.

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