We are down to the Top 100 in the PGA Tour FedEx Cup playoffs as the players descend on TPC Boston for this week’s Dell Technologies Championship. Only the top 70 will move on to next week’s BMW Championship. This is a big week for a lot of bubble guys, just like last week was, so that will be a betting angle to follow. Unlike last week, though, we’ve got a lot more course form data as this event has been held in TPC Boston since 2003.
This is a Friday-Monday event, so final round action will take place on Labor Day. While that isn’t a big deal for this week, it could be a betting angle next week at Aronimink, which has not held a PGA Tour event since the 2011 AT&T National.
With last week’s win and 2,000 points, Bryson DeChambeau is the new leader for the FedEx Cup. Dustin Johnson is second and Justin Thomas is third. With his runner-up finish, Tony Finau moved up into fourth place and grabbed his ninth top-10 finish to tie Thomas for second on the PGA Tour. Only DJ has more with 10.
As far as the field goes, 98 of the top 100 are on hand. After skipping The Northern Trust, Rory McIlroy is back. Rickie Fowler and Francesco Molinari are sitting this week out. Fowler is out with an oblique strain and his Ryder Cup may be in question, let alone the FedEx Cup playoffs. Henrik Stenson and Brandt Snedeker are also back after withdrawing last week.
TPC Boston comes in at about 7,350 yards and as a par 71. This course opened in 2002 and has hosted this event every year since 2003. It is a standard northeastern course with fairways that curl around water hazards and some shaggy bunkers that been lowered at times to force players to open the club face a little more if they’re around the edges. Most of the greens are surrounded by trees, so there won’t be anything to throw players off in terms of distance on the approach.
We’ve seen players go real low here in the past. The winning score was 15-under from 2014-16 and Justin Thomas won last year at 17-under. From 2008-13, 22-under was the winning score three times and 20-under did it once, so players should have more of an opportunity to post a number this week.
Not surprisingly, 5Dimes Sportsbook lists Dustin Johnson as the favorite at +875. DJ finished tied for 18th last year at 7-under. He shot a couple of 66s, but also shot a 72 and a 73. He was more consistent in 2016 with a 9-under mark and three rounds of 68 or better. A third-round 75 prevented him from having a shot. This isn’t really a bomber’s course. That’s not to say that DJ can’t win, and big hitters have won here before, but there isn’t much value this week.
Reigning champ Justin Thomas is +1100 this week. JT opened with a 71 last year, but shot 17-under over his final three rounds to take down the title by three shots over Jordan Spieth. That was after Thomas missed the cut in 2016 with a 4-over. He didn’t play particularly well in 2015 either. Thomas has progressively gotten better and better over the last couple of years, including his FedEx Cup win last year. He played sound golf at Ridgewood with four rounds under 70 and a top 10 finish to close the gap a little bit on Johnson, though the standings are mostly irrelevant with how many points are available for first, second, and third. Thomas would be the preferred pick between the two and the preferred pick in matchups.
Brooks Koepka is +1250 and Jason Day is +1475. Koepka shot a solid 11-under last weekend at Ridgewood. He’s saved his best golf for the best events, but it’s hard to take short prices like this because he hasn’t been as consistent as some of the others in this price range. He’s just played well in the strongest fields and that has impacted his FedEx Cup points total. Day was the runner-up here in 2010. He opened with a 75 last year, but then finished 8-under the rest of the way. Day had three straight top-15 finishes prior to last year’s slow start. He’ll be a sneaky upside pick in matchups, but there probably isn’t enough value at +1475 to take him outright.
Rory McIlroy is +1600. McIlroy is a two-time winner of this event and ranks second to Tiger Woods in all-time FedEx Cup bonus money. Tiger, of course, is the only two-time winner of the FedEx Cup. It is hard to rate Rory this season. He’s been very selective about his tournaments and has spent some time on the European Tour. He hasn’t won a PGA Tour event since the Arnold Palmer in March and played poorly last time we saw him at the PGA Championship. That came after he was second at The Open Championship and sixth at the Bridgestone. This is a higher price than we’d usually see Rory, so he’s probably worth a little bit of investment.
Tiger Woods is +2300 after a gritty effort at Ridgewood. He didn’t play all that well, but made it through the weekend and then had a bogey-free round to show for his efforts. Jon Rahm is a pretty interesting player at +2500. We haven’t heard much from Rahm this season, but he was fourth here last year and needs to get back on track after last week’s MC. Rahm is second in strokes gained off the tee this season. This isn’t a huge event for big hitters, but it helps.
Further down the board, we see a lot of guys at +3300 and a lot of guys in the 60 to 70 range. Billy Horschel is 50/1 after playing very well last week at Ridgewood. Horschel tends to play well in these FedEx Cup events, including wins in the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship in 2014.
Paul Casey has something of a gift price at +5000 with back-to-back top-five finishes at TPC Boston. He was fourth last year and second two years ago when Rory won. Casey is not in very good form, but this course works for him.
We’ll save the best two for last. Patrick Reed is +3300 and he should get some looks this week. Reed has been sixth, fifth, and fourth over the last three years in this tournament. Reed played well last week at Ridgewood, but only managed to finish 25th. Henrik Stenson is also +3300. He leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained approach to green, which is probably the most important shot at this event. Stenson won in 2013 and was runner-up in 2015. If he was fully healthy, he’d be in the 20/1 range. There’s value if we gamble on his health here.
Coverage of the 2018 Dell Technologies Championship will be on Golf Channel and NBC throughout the weekend.
Odds as of August 27, 4 p.m. ET:
Dustin Johnson +875
Justin Thomas +1100
Brooks Koepka +1250
Jason Day +1475
Rory McIlroy +1600
Rickie Fowler +2000
Jordan Spieth +2000
Justin Rose +2200
Tiger Woods +2300
Jon Rahm +2500
Adam Scott +3000
Bryson DeChambeau +3300
Henrik Stenson +3300
Hideki Matsuyama +3300
Tommy Fleetwood +3300
Tony Finau +3300
Patrick Cantlay +3300
Patrick Reed +3300
Webb Simpson +3500
Phil Mickelson +4500
Paul Casey +5000
Billy Horschel +5000
Brandt Snedeker +5500
Marc Leishman +5500
Louis Oosthuizen +6000
Matt Kuchar +6600
Gary Woodland +6600
Alex Noren +6600
Aaron Wise +6600
Tyrrell Hatton +6600
Zach Johnson +6600
Bubba Watson +7000
Daniel Berger +8000
Ian Poulter +8000
Kevin Na +8000
Xander Schauffele +8000
Rafa Cabrera-Bello +8000
Kyle Stanley +8000
Keegan Bradley +8500
Kevin Kisner +10000
Luke List +10000
Charley Hoffman +10000
Cameron Smith +10000
Branden Grace +10000
Ryan Moore +10000
Adam Hadwin +11500
Byeong Hun An +12500
Emiliano Grillo +12500
Chez Reavie +15000
Chris Kirk +15000
Jason Kokrak +15000
Jimmy Walker +15000
Kevin Chappell +15000
Jamie Lovemark +15000
C.T. Pan +15000
Brian Harman +15000
Austin Cook +15000
Beau Hossler +15000
Ryan Palmer +15000
Pat Perez +15000
Russell Henley +15000
Russell Knox +15000
Stewart Cink +15000
Kevin Streelman +17500
J.B. Holmes +20000
Chesson Hadley +20000
Brian Gay +20000
Charles Howell III +20000
Ollie Schniederjans +22500
Peter Uihlein +22500
Si Woo Kim +24500
Brendan Steele +25000
Abraham Ancer +25000
Andrew Putnam +25000
Anirban Lahiri +25000
J.J. Spaun +25000
Joel Dahmen +25000
Jason Dufner +25000
Kevin Tway +25000
Michael Kim +30000
Keith Mitchell +30000
Andrew Landry +30000
Scott Piercy +30000
Ryan Armour +30000
James Hahn +35000
Ted Potter, Jr. +40000
Troy Merritt +40000
Tom Hoge +40000
Whee Kim +40000
Satoshi Kodaira +50000
Patton Kizzire +50000
Kelly Kraft +50000
Brice Garnett +50000
-END OF 2018 PREVIEW-
The second event of the FedEx Cup playoffs is coming up this weekend at TPC Boston with the Dell Technologies Championship. This event, like last week’s Northern Trust, has a new sponsor this season. This tournament had been known as the Deutsche Bank Championship from its inception in 2003 until last year’s event. This is a rare event in that play will be completed on Monday with the Labor Day holiday coming into the equation. Most golf tournaments run Thursday-Sunday, but not this one, so those that played last week’s Northern Trust will have an extra day to get up to Norton, Massachusetts and an extra day to recuperate.
Two-thousand FedEx Cup points are on the line this weekend, as the top 100 in the FedEx Cup points standings are eligible to play. Those outside the top 100 are either off playing in Europe or will have to wait for the wraparound portion of the schedule to start again in October. Ninety-seven players are actually in the field this week, with Adam Scott spending some time with the family, with a new addition last week, and Brandt Snedeker and Scott Piercy sidelined with injuries.
There are two more events left in the FedEx Cup playoffs after this one. The top 75 players will advance to the BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Illinois. The top 50 then move on to East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta for the TOUR Championship, where a FedEx Cup champ will be crowned. This year, we also have the Presidents Cup at Liberty National, which will immediately follow the TOUR Championship.
As far as points go, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, and Dustin Johnson were the top four heading into last week’s Northern Trust. Heading into this week’s Dell Technologies Championship, that order is flipped, with Johnson first, Spieth second, Thomas third, and Matsuyama fourth. Right now, Patrick Rodgers would be the last to make it into next week’s BMW and Chad Campbell would be the first cut.
TPC Boston has been a good course for scoring. The par 71 track comes in around 78,350 yards and rolls through the New England area just north of Boston. The course is heavily wooded, so accuracy off of the tee is very important here, otherwise players may have to cut and slice balls around trees to get out into open air. On holes without a lot of wooded areas, the rough can be extremely thick and lush, with the cooler conditions of the impending fall making things pretty soft. There aren’t a lot of demanding hazards, but this is a course that requires precision.
Last week’s winner Dustin Johnson is this week’s favorite at +500 at 5Dimes Sportsbook. DJ had been struggling a little bit since his back injury at The Masters. Johnson hadn’t won since March 5 in Mexico and only had two top-10 finishes, with a second at the Wells Fargo and an eighth at the RBC Canadian Open. He shot a 13-under last week and bested Jordan Spieth in a playoff. Johnson finished eighth in this event last year, with a third-round 75 on a good day for scoring standing out in a bad way. He shot 68-66-66 in the other rounds. That was by far his best finish at TPC Boston in the last five years. It has been a feast or famine course for DJ. He was fourth way back in 2012, but finished six shots off of the impressive pace of two-time winner Rory McIlroy. He was 27th in 2013 and 44th in 2015. It’s no surprise that he’s the favorite, but he has been inconsistent here.
Jordan Spieth has to be kicking himself this week. He opened the door for somebody to catch him with some slip-ups in Sunday’s final round and eventually got caught. He’s the second favorite this week at +750. Spieth has not played well at TPC Boston over the last three years. He tied for fourth in 2013 when he finished five shots back of Henrik Stenson. He was 29th in 2014, cut in 2015, and 21st in 2016. While he hasn’t played bad, this is a course where something between 15-under and 20-under generally wins and he hasn’t really been in the mix in quite some time. He’s in pretty decent form, with wins at The Open Championship and the Travelers in recent weeks, and this isn’t a particularly long course. Still, it’s hard to take him at such a low price.
Sitting at +1400 are Hideki Matsuyama and Rory McIlroy. McIlroy obviously stands out as the one to take at this event, since he has won it twice. Rory, who made it seem like he was going to bypass the FedEx Cup playoffs, was a surprise participant last week and struggled by finishing 34th. It has been a tough year for Rory, who doesn’t have a PGA Tour win and hasn’t even cracked the top three in an event yet this season. But, this is a course that Rory really thrives at and it shows. He’s a two-time winner in 2016 and 2012. He was just outside the top 25 in 2015, fifth in 2014, and 7-under was only good enough for 47th in 2013. You can question his recent form and his year-to-date, but never count Rory out on a course where he has had success.
A lot of good players are at low prices, so we’ll move down the board a little bit and look for some value. Henrik Stenson is a good price at +2200. Stenson is a past winner and a past runner-up at TPC Boston. He was steady at The Northern Trust with a tie for 17th, so he positioned himself well for a run at it this week. Stenson is also in pretty decent recent form coming off of his win at the Wyndham Championship earlier this month.
Charley Hoffman is another good grab at +5000. Hoffman won this event back in 2010 and also finished third in 2015. The 40-year-old was in pretty good form about four weeks ago when he fell short in a playoff at the RBC Canadian Open and followed that up with a third-place finish in the WGC-Bridgestone. He was 17th last week and finished on a high note with a final-round 65. He’s a great value this week and could be a consideration in DFS formats as well.
Those really looking for a long shot this week can invest in Jason Kokrak. Kokrak has a top-10 finish and a top-20 finish at TPC Boston within the last three years. He’s also one of those guys in significant danger this week. He’s in 79th place in the standings. Kokrak cracked the top 25 last week at Glen Oaks to move up 15 spots. He’ll have a lot to play for this week in hopes of heading to Illinois next week.
Coverage of the Dell Technologies Championship will be on NBC and Golf Channel beginning Friday and on through the Monday holiday.
Odds as of August 28, 5:30 p.m. ET
Dustin Johnson +500
Jordan Spieth +750
Hideki Matsuyama +1400
Rory McIlroy +1400
Rickie Fowler +1600
Jason Day +1600
Jon Rahm +1800
Justin Thomas +1800
Henrik Stenson +2200
Patrick Reed +2500
Paul Casey +2500
Brooks Koepka +2800
Matt Kuchar +2800
Louis Oosthuizen +3300
Adam Scott +3500
Justin Rose +4000
Sergio Garcia +4000
Kevin Chappell +4500
Charley Hoffman +5000
Webb Simpson +5000
Daniel Berger +6600
Jason Dufner +6600
Marc Leishman +6600
Patrick Cantlay +6600
Kevin Kisner +8000
Russell Henley +8000
Xander Schauffele +8000
Tony Finau +8000
Zach Johnson +10000
Ryan Moore +10000
Phil Mickelson +10000
Kevin Na +10000
Jhonattan Vegas +10000
Chez Reavie +10000
Francesco Molinari +10000
Gary Woodland +10000
Branden Grace +10000
Brian Harman +10000
Charl Schwartzel +10000
Jason Kokrak +12500
Ian Poulter +12500
Kyle Stanley +12500
Keegan Bradley +12500
Ollie Schniederjans +14000
Lucas Glover +15000
Jamie Lovemark +15000
Bud Cauley +15000
Bill Haas +15000
Graham Delaet +15000
Emiliano Grillo +15000
Rafa Cabrera Bello +15000
Robert Streb +15000
Si Woo Kim +20000
Scott Brown +20000
Sean OHair +20000
Chris Kirk +20000
Grayson Murray +20000
Chad Campbell +20000
Billy Horschel +20000
Brendan Steele +20000
James Hahn +20000
Pat Perez +20000
Martin Laird +22500
Adam Hadwin +22500
Hudson Swafford +22500
Chris Stroud +25000
Danny Lee +25000
Anirban Lahiri +25000
Bryson Dechambeau +25000
Charles Howell +25000
Cameron Smith +25000
Camilo Villegas +25000
Kevin Streelman +25000
Kevin Tway +25000
Luke List +30000
Morgan Hoffmann +30000
Patrick Rodgers +30000
Patton Kizzire +30000
Stewart Cink +30000
Sung-Hoon Kang +30000
Wesley Bryan +30000
William McGirt +35000
C.T. Pan +35000
Nick Taylor +40000
Meen-Whee Kim +40000
Michael Kim +40000
Kelly Kraft +40000
Jonas Blixt +40000
J.J. Spaun +40000
Jim Herman +40000
Mackenzie Hughes +50000
Rod Pampling +50000
Cody Gribble +100000
