#FedEx Cup Championship: Betting against Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm

Last weekend, Jon Rahm won the BMW Championship at 10/1 by making a 66-foot putt on the first playoff hole to defeat Dustin Johnson, who had just made a 43-footer on the 72nd hole to advance to the playoff.

This weekend (beginning Friday and ending on Labor Day), the top-30 players in the FedEx Cup standings finish the season at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

Last year, the PGA Tour switched the format with a staggered scoring scale to ensure that the Tour Championship winner also wins the FedEx Cup. By virtue of being No. 1 in the current FedEx Cup Points, Dustin Johnson will begin the event at 10-under. Jon Rahm, No. 2 in points, will start at 8-under. Justin Thomas, No. 3 in points, starts at 7-under.

With only 30 players, there is no 36-hole cut. There are two betting markets available, one for the FedEx Cup championship (using the staggered scoring) and one for the actual lowest 72-hole score. Here are some players who are worth a wager in each:

FedEx Cup Championship

Webb Simpson (11/1)


Going to try and beat the short-priced favorites Johnson and Rahm. Simpson punted on playing last week at the BMW Championship and avoided the Bentgrass/Poa Annua and now returns to his preferred Bermudagrass and all seven of his wins have come on shortish courses that cater to ball-strikers. The gamble on skipping a week could potentially pay off since he only dropped one spot in the FedEx Cup points. Simpson starts at -6.

Collin Morikawa (20/1)


Morikawa was a disappointing 20th last week at the BMW Championship. He got off to a brutal start at 9-over through the first two rounds. This is Morikawa’s first look at East Lake, but Xander Schauffele won here on his debut back in 2017. He will start at -5, which is where Rory McIlroy started in his victory last year.

Low 72 holes

Tony Finau (18/1)


Another week, another top 10 for Finau at the BMW, where he finished fifth. He has two seventh-place finishes in three starts at East Lake and has done well of late on these challenging par-70 layouts, finishing fourth at Harding Park for the PGA and fifth at Olympia Fields for the BMW. Finau also has four top 10s in his last six starts so he continues to peak as we head toward the U.S. Open.

Daniel Berger (18/1)


Berger has finishes of 12th, 15th and 15th in three appearances here but now he’s playing the best golf of his career. He won at Colonial, was runner-up at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude and third at the Northern Trust and RBC Heritage. Two of Berger’s three career PGA Tour wins have come in Memphis at TPC Southwind, which has the same Zoysiagrass soft fairways as East Lake.

Billy Horschel (25/1)


Horschel doesn’t always make the Tour Championship, but when he does he’s done very well with a victory in 2014, a runner-up in 2018 and a seventh in 2013. He almost didn’t make this week’s top 30 but squeaked into the 30th spot when Corey Conners three-putted from 4 feet Sunday on the 18th. So now that he survived to come in the backdoor of the Tour Championship field, he is playing with house money and no pressure.