Tour Championship 2019: Power ranking the top ten FedEx Cup favorites
The Tour Championship switches formats this year to an adjusted leaderboard. How will players react? We’ll break it down in the final edition of the 2018-19 PGA TOUR Power Rankings.
The PGA Tour season is about to come to a close. The 2019-20 campaign is just a couple weeks away, but we’ve still got $15 million to hand out to the FedEx Cup winner this weekend at the Tour Championship.
The top 30 players in the FedEx Cup Playoffs have assembled in Atlanta to try out this new tournament format.
Since the playoffs began in 2007, the Tour Championship was a traditional stroke play event. The tournament winner often doubled up as the playoffs points winner, but not always.
Now, the format has changed to make this a net championship. The FedEx Cup leader starts the tournament out at 10-under-par, No. 2 is at 8-under and etc. The tournament winner will win the FedEx Cup and fans have just one leaderboard to monitor. NBC’s Steve Sands won’t have as much on his plate crunching the FedEx Cup points projections.
The full breakdown:
- 1st) Justin Thomas, -10
- 2nd) Patrick Cantlay, -8
- 3rd) Brooks Koepka, -7
- 4th) Patrick Reed, -6
- 5th) Rory McIlroy, -5
- 6th) Jon Rahm -4
- 7th) Matt Kuchar -4
- 8th) Xander Schauffele -4
- 9th) Webb Simpson, -4
- 10th) Abraham Ancer, -4
- 11th) Gary Woodland, -3
- 12th) Tony Finau, -3
- 13th) Adam Scott, -3
- 14th) Dustin Johnson, -3
- 15th) Hideki Matsuyama, -3
- 16th) Paul Casey, -2
- 17th) Justin Rose, -2
- 18th) Brandt Snedeker, -2
- 19th) Rickie Fowler, -2
- 20th) Kevin Kisner, -2
- 21th) Marc Leishman, -1
- 22nd) Tommy Fleetwood, -1
- 23rd) Corey Connors, -1
- 24th) Sungjae Im, -1
- 25th) Chez Reavie, -1
- 26th) Bryson DeChambeau, E
- 27th) Louis Oosthuizen, E
- 28th) Charles Howell III, E
- 29th) Lucas Glover, E
- 30th) Jason Kokrak, E
It would be easy for me to go right down the line and just take the top 10 leaders for my rankings this week given their strokes advantage. But I’ll try to mix it up a little bit and find some guys who could play the underdog role well and make a charge.
How sweet would it be for a player to start 10 back of a fellow competitor and come back to beat him?
The venue this week is East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. It’s hosted this event long before it joined the FedEx Cup mix. It’s a 7,385-yard par-70 that’s a relatively straightforward test.
The fairways are somewhat narrow and the Bermuda rough can grow thick.
Strokes gained off the tee and approach are important stats as well as par-4 scoring. The par-4s are all 175 yards and up, so good long iron play will be a priority.
It looks like it’ll be a very wet week in Atlanta, so consider leaning toward big hitters having more of an advantage this week.
Let’s see who will hoist the FedEx Cup on Sunday.