The marathon session that is the PGA Tour’s regular season now turns into an all-out three-week sprint for more than $100 million.
The top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings have qualified for the first round of the Tour’s playoffs and all 70, no surprise here with the playoff money and points on the line, are scheduled to tee it up.
This opening event will be played at TPC Southwind in Memphis,Tennessee. The season long battle to be the points leader was settled early when Scottie Scheffler went on an unbelievable run midway through the regular season and ran off and hid from the rest of the field.
It’s the lower end of the top-70 that came down to the wire -- and literally down to the final holes. Victor Perez came into the final event at No. 70 with Davis Riley right behind him.
Perez carded a final-round 68 at the Wyndham Championship while Riley came in with a 70. When all the numbers were added up, Perez got the final spot by seven points--654 to 647.
What that means is Perez is teeing it up this week in a guaranteed payday event (there is no cut) while Riley heads home to watch the playoffs and wonder what might have been.
Now comes the sprint to the finish. This week is the first of the go-low or go home events as just the top 50 will advance to the second event, the BMW Championship, which will be held at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colorado.
After that, the top 30 will move on to the Tour Championship slated for Aug. 29-Sept. 1, at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. And while all of this juggling for positions is taking place, there will also be big paydays up for grabs and big point payouts.
Each of the first two events has a $20 million purse. The winner will receive about $3.5 million for the win. But just as important is each winner of the first two events will receive 2,000 FedEx Cup points.
That means even Victor Perez, at 654 points, isn’t out of the running for the a top-10 finish in the FedEx Cup title race. A win moves him to 2,654 points. Now that total won’t get him anywhere near Scheffler who leads the way with 5,993 points, but it will have a great impact.
With Scheffler and Xander Schauffele (4,057) running away with the first and second spots, Rory McIlroy comes into the tournament in the third spot at 2,545. That means that if the 70th place player can move into the hunt with a win, just think what can happen if anyone down the points board happens to win.
All of a sudden, there are a whole bunch of players licking their lips in anticipation of this week. We’re going to pick a player with incredibly low odds and one with incredibly high odds to win this week.
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When will the Scheffler bubble burst?
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 10 or 12 times this year alone: Never bet against Scottie Scheffler. Well, we’re going to take our own advice and run with it again.
We didn’t bet Scheffler to win Olympic Gold and, lo and behold, there he was, tearfully accepting the gold medal and keeping an amazing 2024 season going.
At a paltry +350 this week, it’s not a great number by any stretch of the imagination. We don’t care anymore. We’re taking it.
Sure, it would be easy for Scheffler to get complacent with the year he’s had so far, but we don’t see that happening. Just look at the numbers: Six victories in 16 starts in 2024. He’s also got 14 top-10s. He’s pocketed more than $28 million in winnings on the course. He added another $8 million with a bonus in the last few days by clinching the Comcast Business Tour top-10 for the regular season.
For many players, that’s a career. For him, it’s something to build on over the next three weeks. In the world of golf, hot streaks come and go -- and sometimes they never come back.
We’re betting Scheffler wants to ride this sizzling year for all it’s worth and with many, many more millions on the line over the next three weeks, that’s worth plenty.
How about a live longshot?
We’re going to wander down the list past the No. 50 spot and take a look at Jhonattan Vegas at +15000. Yeah, that’s right, +15000.
Vegas comes into this week No. 68 on the FedEx Cup list, just sneaking into the playoffs. He was struggling with his game for most of 2024 until he won the 3M Open in late July to creep into the top 70.
It was his first PGA Tour win in seven seasons. He played last week at the Wyndham and finished T-61 in an effort to ensure he stayed in the playoffs. Now, with the pressure off, he’s got nothing to lose this week.
Vegas has a guaranteed paycheck even if he doesn’t win, but if he should find his way into the winner’s circle--or a top-10 might do the job if the players just above him falter--he just might work his way into a top-50 spot that move on to the BMW Championship next week.
Speaking of top-10s, we’re going to double down and look at Vegas as one of our prop bets (see the others below) to finish in the top 10 at +800. He may have just snuck into the playoffs, but a win or a top-10 may just be enough to keep his season going.
Top props for FedEx St. Jude Classic
We’re going to use DraftKings and see if we can find a bet or two that might give us a nice payday.
The second bet we like--after the Vegas top-10 bet--is that there will be a playoff this week at +350. The reason is simple as there have been playoffs in the last three FedEx St. Jude Classic tournaments. Enough said.
And finally, take a look at the weather. If it’s good, we’re going to check out hole-in-one bets. For the tournament, it’s just +100 to see an ace. But, for each individual round, it’s +550 for there to be a hole-in-one.
We’re not sure which round to put a couple of bucks on, but we will see if we can find a pin sheet for the four days and see where easier pins are located.
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