The top 70 in the FedEx Cup Playoffs are still standing as we head to Medinah Country Club for the BMW Championship. This event, which only dates back to 2007, has never been played at the course in Medinah, Illinois. It has been at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club four times, Crooked Stick Golf Club twice, Conway Farms Golf Club three times, Cherry Hills Country Club, Bellerive Country Club, and Aronimink Golf Club once.
So, we don’t have course form…ah, but we do! Sort of. Medinah Country Club hosted the 2012 Ryder Cup and the 1999 and 2006 PGA Championships. It has also hosted the US Open three times, but not since 1990, so that is irrelevant for this event.
A lot of things are at stake this week. The TOUR Championship at East Lake has a very unique format, in that the top players in the standings get additional strokes under par to start the tournament. Also, players outside the top 30 need to qualify for the championship event.
With a field of only 30 next week, this will be the last golf DFS write-up until the new season begins in October. Hopefully it’s been helpful for you and thank you for reading!
(for this week’s breakdown from golf betting expert Brian Blessing, check out the above YouTube video)
Tony Finau ($8,500) – This is most definitely a bomber’s course, so length of the tee will, pardon the pun, go a long way this week. That brings Tony Finau into the mix for sure. Medinah’s No. 3 course is over 7,600 yards and plays as a par 72. Finau hasn’t played all that well of late, with consecutive finishes outside of the top 25 and three missed cuts over his last seven tournaments, but distance off the tee will be a tremendous aid when it comes to getting onto some extremely well-protected greens. Responsible length is a big deal here and Finau ranks 25th in SG: Off the Tee.
Jason Kokrak ($7,800) – This course should set up pretty well for Jason Kokrak. Kokrak is 15th in SG: Tee to Green and 13th in SG: Off the Tee. He’s inside the top 100 in driving accuracy, which is good enough here. You’d certainly like to play from the short grass and there are some risk-reward holes, but Kokrak is an excellent player from the box. He’s also sixth in SG: Approach, which is huge at this course. So many of the greens are protected by a variety of hazards and being able to avoid those and hit some of the smaller greens at this track can provide a real boost to the round. Kokrak checks a lot of boxes for the type of player that you want to focus on this week. He hasn’t had too many finishes that match his statistical profile, but he does have back-to-back top-15 finishes.
Francesco Molinari ($7,800) – I know that golf can be a rhythm game, but are we really getting Francesco Molinari at this big of a discount? He’s played so bad this year that *checks notes* he’s missed one cut out of 13. Sure, he finished 82nd last week at The Northern Trust, but he was also just outside the top 10 at Royal Portrush for the British Open. He opened with a 69 back stateside for the first time since July, but went 72-75-74 the rest of the way. Molinari may not be having the same type of year he usually has, but he’s still a world-class player at a discount with a lot of upside.
Joaquin Niemann ($7,300) – Joaquin Niemann couldn’t have picked a better time to catch a second wind. He missed the cut at The Open Championship, but he hasn’t quite honed the playing into driving wind and rain part of his game yet. Outside of that MC, he’s been top-25 in each of his last five made cuts. Two events ago, Niemann was tremendous on and around the greens at the Wyndham Championship. He wasn’t as dialed in last week at The Northern Trust, but he figured some things out to finish with a 66 on Sunday. Niemann is T-26th in SG: Approach, 24th in SG: Tee to Green, and is in very good form heading into this tournament.
Jim Furyk ($6,700) – There is some equity in backing Jim Furyk this week. Furyk is unlikely to go out there and post a top-10 finish or something like that, but he fits the profile of a guy that can have success at a fairly tight course like Medinah. He’s extremely familiar with it having been associated with the Ryder Cup for years and he even had a top-10 finish in the 1999 PGA Championship. That’s not to say that his finish 20 years ago is predictive, but simply to say that few players in the field, if any, know this course the way he does. Furyk is third in driving accuracy, 23rd in SG: Tee to Green, and fifth in SG: Approach. The old man can’t put it out there the way that some players can, but he’s going to hit fairways all weekend long and give himself a chance at a lot of one-putt holes. That’s what you want for this price point.
