PGA Tour Championship Odds And Preview
by Richard Gardner, Bookmaker, Bodog Sportsbook - 9/24/2009
It's The Tour Championship this week at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta and $10 million is at stake this weekend for the winner of the FedEx Cup playoffs. This is the first year in the Cup's three-year history that it already hasn't been clinched by the time the PGA Tour got to the Tour Championship. This week's playoff finale is the final tournament before the Fall Series begins - and that's when the big names generally stop playing.
If you look at the PGA odds it's Tiger Woods' tournament to lose. The world's best golfer is getting 1/1 odds to win and golf-betting fans can't get enough of it.
But how many people will dare to bet against Woods? He won the BMW Championship by eight shots two weeks ago and that was the 10th time in his PGA Tour career that he's won by at least that many shots. Add to that the fact that Woods has six PGA Tour wins in 2009 and that's without a major victory.
Thanks in large part to a change in the rules, players' points for the Tour Championship have been reset. If you were No. 1 or No. 20 in points heading into this week, you still will reside in the same spot, but the point discrepancy is much smaller, which mathematically gives each of the 30 players in the field a chance to win the FedEx Cup.
At even odds to win The Tour Championship, a bet on Tiger Woods would mean a pretty low payout. Having said that, you do have other betting options: Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson and Heath Slocum could win it. No. 6 Padraig Harrington can win if he takes the tournament and Tiger finishes third or worse. No. 7 Sean O'Hair gets the big payday if he wins the Tour Championship and both Tiger and Stricker finish outside the top three. Even No. 30 John Senden, the last guy into the field, can win the FedEx Cup if he wins the tournament and several other improbabilities happen - mainly Tiger finishing last.
Every player who's qualified for The Tour Championship could win it. In fact, Retief Goosen (25/1) and Mike Weir (40/1) have won it in past years.
Here at Bodog, we obviously expect the vast majority of the action to be on Tiger (even money) this week. When he plays in any tournament, the total handle at Bodog jumps at least 20 percent in volume. The last time he played the Tour Championship, in 2007, he set a tournament-record with a 23-under 257, which bettered the previous mark by a whopping six shots. Woods is also the only two-time winner of this event in history.
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