Tour Championship 2019: Power ranking the top ten FedEx Cup favorites

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ATLANTA, GA – SEPTEMBER 11: Webb Simpson of the United States lines up his tee shot on the fifth hole with his caddie Paul Tesori during the first round of the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola at the East Lake Golf Club on September 11, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images) /

After three top-fives at East Lake, will this be Webb Simpson’s week? He’ll have to make up six shots to do it, but I like how the North Carolinan’s been playing of late.

Simpson is winless in 2019 but closed the regular season with back-to-back solo seconds at the WGC in Memphis and his home event, the Wyndham Championship.

In the playoffs, Simpson finished T-18 at the Northern Trust and T-24 at the BMW Championship. He did close with two rounds in the 60s last week at Medinah and has four sub-70 rounds over the last two weeks.

These results came at bomber’s courses, which haven’t matched well with Simpson’s more plodding style. East Lake still allows big hitters to thrive but is more receptive to guys like him.

Simpson finished T-4 at the 2018 Tour Championship despite a poor driving performance by his standards. He hit 55.36% fairways that week and averages 62.34% this year. A good week on the greens and three birdies over his last eight holes vaulted him to a solid finish anyway.

Simpson ranks 13th on Tour in strokes gained putting and 11th in strokes gained on approach. Sitting at third in scoring average (69.304) explains why he’s missed just one cut in 2019. That was back at the Valspar Championship in March.

The Wake Forest grad was one of the few saving graces on the 2018 American Ryder Cup team. He locked up a spot on this winter’s President’s Cup team sitting in sixth in the points after automatic qualifying ended last week.

Simpson finished ahead of Matt Kuchar, Bryson DeChambeau, Tony Finau, Gary Woodland, Rickie Fowler, Patrick Reed, Tiger Woods and more.

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