PGA TOUR Golf Bets: 2024 TOUR Championship Final Thoughts, Betting Card

TOUR Championship bets are next on tap at the best golf betting sites, as East Lake Golf Club gets ready to host in Atlanta, Georgia. First-round play begins Thursday. Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and Rory McIlroy headline TOUR Championship bets this week, as John Haslbauer provides his favorite picks among all the golf odds for this tourney. Below, you’ll find the best odds across betting apps for each player.

Click the odds anywhere in this article to place TOUR Championship wagers. For a full breakdown of the tournament and course, visit my TOUR Championship preview. 

TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP BETTING IRONY

This is it, the final event of the 2024 PGA TOUR season, as the 30 best remaining players will take a crack at East Lake under its unique staggered start format for the 2024 TOUR Championship.

Looking ahead to East Lake, this format may be the least compelling one to sweat all season from a golf betting standpoint. The staggered stroke handicap gives further advantage to the best players over the course of the season and makes it nearly impossible for about half of this field of 30 to catch Scottie Scheffler and his -10 head start. It’s an important reminder, however, that this is an event for the players, not the fans, and that a format like this is designed to reward the body of work of a full season, appropriately giving a player like Scottie Scheffler the best chance to claim the $25M grand prize to first place.

So, while it’s a bit ironic that the conclusion to the season with the greatest purse of the year is actually the least compelling from a fan or betting standpoint, I’d be remiss not to have a small piece of the action in this limited 30-man field. Ahead, we’ll go over my final bets for the 2024 TOUR Championship.

Final thoughts about the TOUR Championship format

I’ve had some great conversations over DMs this week about what the best solution to “fix” the juice-less TOUR Finale. The foundational issue is that for as much as PGA TOUR fans have been conditioned to hate LIV Golf for being a cash grab with inconsequential stakes or historical significance, the PGA TOUR has ironically followed the same formula to crown its season long champion.

Where we’ve gone wrong here, is we are trying to force a team sport concept into an individual sport. Sure, playoffs are always a compelling stage to watch Cinderella teams get hot at the right time. The best regular season team doesn’t win the championship more often than not in team sports. But the best player doesn’t always win the championship MVP either. Steph Curry can have a bad Finals series and still win the NBA Championship. That simply will never be the case in an individual sport like golf. As such, the current format disadvantages a player like Scottie Scheffler who has clearly been head and shoulders above the rest of the TOUR, but will not win the TOUR Championship if he has a mediocre week.

So what’s the best solution? I believe the Comcast Top 10 – as much as we joke about this as an arbitrary bonus – is the appropriate time to crown the TOUR Championship winner. This is handed out immediately after the Wyndham Championship at the conclusion of the regular season. Here, we reward the body of work of the player who displayed the best season in totality as your TOUR Champion. Thereafter, the FedEx St Jude Championship and BMW Championship still hold the same implications for players vying to secure a place in the top-30 for exemptions into all Signature Events for the following season.

When it comes down to it, the only palpable stakes left to play for at the TOUR Championship is the money, and golf fans simply do not care to watch the rich get richer. So, instead of forcing this manufactured championship on us, why don’t we zag in the other direction and use this as a stage for a PGA TOUR All-Star Weekend?

The PGA TOUR season is relentless, and the meritocracy nature of the sport means we don’t have many chances to see the game’s best players let their guard down and allow their personalities to shine through. An All Star Game format offers a stage to reward the best players while also giving fans a refreshing product to get excited about. The possibilities are endless for a golf All Star Weekend. We could see anything from trick shot contests, longest drive, putting contests, celebrity pro-am competitions, integrations with YouTube content creators, etc. East Lake has long been a stage to showcase the best players in the sport each year. Why not loosen up and have some fun with it to try and market that talent to the masses of casual sports fans?

HOW I BUILT MY TOUR Championship BETTING CARD

Try as I may to come up with a full card of props and first-round leaders, it simply felt forced to pull the trigger on any markets beyond outrights in the Shadow Leaderboard (Without Starting Strokes). That makes for an anti-climactic finish, as even a bet graded as a “win” this week will not be celebrated that way by the player. But if it pays out the same as a standard outright, we will take it! With Andrew Green’s restoration work in mind, there are more questions behind whether East Lake stalwarts like Schauffele and McIlroy will continue to dominate here, which frees me up to believe another surprise Keegan Bradley type of outburst at the BMW Championship could be brewing.

From a unit allocation standpoint, I will be rolling out my standard Outright exposure the “Without Starting Strokes” market only the 2024 TOUR Championship.

• Outright TOUR Championship bets – 3.5U in to pay 25U each

TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP BETS (WITHOUT STARTING STROKES): OUTRIGHTS (3.5 UNITS)

Collin Morikawa
My Bet: +1400
Best Available Odds:

The 2023 First Round Leader at the TOUR Championship, East Lake has since evolved into a course that should cater even further into Morikawa’s strengths with its heightened emphasis on Driving Accuracy and elite approach play. I was bullish on Morikawa to no avail at Castle Pines, however his form still looks encouraging enough to justify him as one of the top favorites on a position course where he has found prior success.

Golf Profit Boosts: All users get a 50% bet365 profit boost on any golfer to win this week. Caesars is also offering a 50% odds boost for PGA TOUR betting.

Billy Horschel
My Bet: +3300
Best Available Odds:

A past champion at East Lake, you can’t put into question Horschel’s prospects whenever he plays on a Bermuda venue. He’s gotten hot at the right time, as he often does leading into these playoffs, and he’ll now be playing with a chip on his shoulder as he sits firmly on the bubble for a Presidents Cup team selection. In trending ball-striking form, it’s easy to envision Horschel catching lightning in a bottle at East Lake this week.

Aaron Rai
My Bet: +5000
Best Available Odds:

The playoffs are all about heating up at the right time, and Aaron Rai has done just that, finally picking up his first career PGA TOUR win three starts ago at the Wyndham Championship. Three weeks later, he’ll see yet another Donald Ross Bermuda positional test in East Lake GC. He’s been a standout on comp courses this year, and ranks No. 4 in terms of SG: TOT over the last 36 rounds behind only Scheffler, Schauffele, and McIlroy.

Shane Lowry
My Bet: +5000
Best Available Odds:

My featured player of the week, there is so much to like about Shane Lowry coming into the final event of the year as he looks to carry momentum from an encouraging T13 finish at the BMW Championship last week. Lowry is best suited to score on positional Bermuda venues, which is exactly the set up we have in store this week. Looking to mark his fifth top-15 finish over his last eight starts, Lowry is my favorite value on the betting board at East Lake.

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TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP: THE BETTING CARD

That’ll do it for this week’s TOUR Championship bets. Best of luck this week with your own TOUR Championship bets. For more, follow TheLines on Twitter. And thank you so much for reading all season long.

Tour Championship Odds: To Win FedEx Cup (With Bonus Strokes)