PGA Tour - FedEx St. Jude's Championship
Tough loss in Greensboro, FedEx Playoffs start in Memphis
Wyndham Championship - Recap
Well that was disappointing. After 2 and 3 rounds I was sitting there feeling pretty good. I liked where we stood and early math said we were going to have a monster week. Well, Sunday was a rough day for our guys and we finished the weekend with a small loss.
Should I really be pissed that we lost $20? No I shouldn’t, but it is frustrating when it feels like you are going to be having a big week.
FedEx St Jude’s Championship
The PGA Tour travels west from NC to Memphis, TN for the start of the FedEx Playoffs (for those unfamiliar with the FedEx Cup scroll to the bottom of his newsletter to the section titled “FedEx Cup Explainer”).
The St Jude’s Invitational is hosted by TPC Southwind which plays to a par of 70 across ~7,250 yards and has hosted this event, and it’s predecessor, since 1989. After the last few weeks of super low winning scores, expect this one to be more challenging for the players, especially the Par 3 14th hole. I expect the winning score to be in the range of -13 to -16 like it has been the last 3 years.
While I am usually able to find a bunch of value for these bigger tournaments, I am actually struggling to find much ao let’s get to this week’s dance card (about 8u of risk):
Outright (0.25u on each):
Matthew Fitzpatrick +2200
Billy Horschel +5000
Corey Conners +6600
Aaron Wise +6600
T10 (0.25u on each):
Matthew Fitzpatrick +240
Sungjae Im +375
Russell Henley +600
Keith Mitchell +900
T20
1u on Matthew Fitzpatrick +100
0.5u on Sungjae Im +180
0.5u on Billy Horschel +210
0.25u on Corey Conners +240
0.25u on Russell Henley +260
0.25u on Harold Varner III +310
0.25u on Keith Mitchell +375
Match ups
0.65u on Billy Horschel over Tyrrell Hatton -130
0.65u on Willy Z over Sam Burns -130
0.55u on Matthew Fitzpatrick over Tony Finau -110
0.55u on Patrick Cantlay over Cam Smith -110
0.55u on Patrick Cantlay over Justin Thomas
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds. I bet them as I write this so they are live within the 30 min or so of publication.
Daily Fantasy
Taking a pass
Good luck in all your action!
FedEx Cup Explainer
I know this might be something that many of my readers / subscribers already know, but for those who do not I wanted to have a little section on what the FedEx Cup is.
Starting in 2007 the PGA Tour wanted to create a new way to reward the players who had been successful across the PGA Tour calendar (starts in late Sept and rolls all the way through late August the following year) with a grouping of tournaments with a huge prize at the end - Patrick Cantlay won last year and received $15 million1 of the total $70 million prize fund.
The way it works now is that throughout the year each tournament awards FedEx Cup points based on where you finish and the Top 125 players make the FedEx Cup playoffs2. The playoffs consist of 3 events:
FedEx St. Jude Championship
BMW Championship
Tour Championship
What makes this rather you unique is that each tournament is a little bit different starting with the fact they have progressively smaller fields (125 to 70 to 30) and the only tournament with a cut is the St Jude’s. The progression from one tournament to the next is based off of FedEx Cup points that carry over from the regular season, BUT these tournaments are worth quadruple the number of points vs a regular event so guys can move up the rankings quickly if they play well. Another unique point is that if a player is unable to play they do not replace that player, they just make the field smaller.
Once the final 30 have been determined for the Tour Championship they will be given a starting score for the tournament based on the final FedEx Cup standings (aka the standings after the BMW is over):
1st place will start -10
2nd place -8
3rd place -7
4th place -6
5th place -5
6th - 10th place -4
11th-15th place -3
16-20th place -2
21-25the place -1
26-30th place even Par
The player with the lowest aggerate score after the 4 rounds of the Tour Championship (aka the score they shoot + their starting score) will be crowned Tour Champion and FedEx Cup Champion and score the $15 million pay day along with a 5 year PGA Tour exemption.
For those who care, This is not $15 million in cash, but rather this ends up in a cash deferred account
In addition to making the playoffs these players receive a bonus as well as full Tour status for next year, which is HUGE this year given the changes that are coming.