Dave Tindall picks out his best final-round bets for the action at East Lake.
Golf betting tips: Tour Championship round four
2pts win Scottie Scheffler at 4/1 (General)
1pt Alex Smalley to finish Top 20 at 13/2 (Sky Bet)
It’s been a struggle to find the perfect format for the Tour Championship. And the news that in 2028 the tournament will move to matchplay shows that the search goes on. But let’s be glad we’ve got standard 72-hole strokeplay this week as it’s produced a leaderboard that sets us up wonderfully for an exciting final day.
This is the top six: -15 Viktor Hovland, -14 Ryan Gerard, -12, Adam Scott, Ludvig Aberg, Scottie Scheffler, Chris Gotterup. The winner will likely come from one of that half-dozen but given that Rory McIlroy (63, joint-best round of the day on Saturday) and Cam Young come next at -10, maybe eight of the 30-man field could still win this.
Before pressing on, let’s just pause for a moment and think how different this would have looked had the Starting Strokes format still been in play. Rather than sit three in front of Scheffler, Hovland would be seven behind. That’s because Scheffler (1st in the standings) would have started at -10 and Hovland (26th) at Evens. Here’s another good one: Adam Scott would have been 10 behind Scheffler instead of level with him.
But back to the actual reality and it’s Hovland who is fancied to convert his one-shot lead and become the FedEx Cup champion for the second time in four years. You’ll find quotes of 7/5 for the Norwegian, with Scheffler and Gerard both 4/1, Aberg 10s, Gotterup 11s and Scott 18s. McIlroy is as big as 28/1 to produce a storming finish and get his nose in front.
Hovland, who birdied four of the final six holes on Saturday, has been the best putter so far this week, gaining just under seven strokes on the greens. That’s the big plus. Less convincing is his midfield rank of 14th (out of 30) Tee To Green. His take. “I'd say the last few weeks I have been putting a lot better, but it's been hard to put together consistently good days in a row. I mean, that's kind of how putting is. You can putt great one day, and the next one, putt not so great. I do feel like I'm reading the greens really well, and as soon as I find a read, I'm just super comfortable over the ball. Yeah, it's been awesome.”
But is that sustainable when the heat is really on? I have my doubts. It would be a similar concern with Adam Scott, who ranks 3rd for Putting but a lowly 23rd for Approach. Gotterup has the opposite problem. He’s 1st Tee To Green this week but 20th in Putting and in round three he was 27th on the greens.
I’m slowly whittling them down now. Gerard’s stats are admirably strong in all departments but I just feel this will all prove too big for a player whose only PGA Tour win is the 2025 Barracuda Championship (played under a modified stableford format). The counter to that is several players likening the bunched leaderboard here to the US PGA at Aronimink. On that Sunday, a true underdog, Aaron Rai, came through to win so perhaps a similar script could unfold. All in all though, the 4/1 for Gerard doesn’t leap out. Ludvig Aberg? Something just tells me he lacks the spark or the gears to go through in his current state. Sundays haven’t been good to him this year.
And so I’m drawn to the man at the very top of the FedEx Cup standings, your World No.1 SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER. Perhaps I’m being guided slightly by the idea that he deserves to win the lot due to his body of work this season. The golfing gods have taken note and will see to it. But, putting that to one side, there are far more grounded reasons to get with Scheffler.
The overriding feeling, based on plenty of evidence this season, is that it’s hard to see Scheffler not making his significant presence felt on Sunday. At some point, he’ll get on a run and put pressure on those ahead of him. And it’s very feasible to see him go surging past. Perhaps there’s even an element of other players thinking he deserves it. Hovland, Scott and Aberg are all very nice, reasonable men!
From a stats point of view, the issue would be the putter. Scheffler is 18th for SG: Putting on the week and was only 22nd yesterday. He addressed that in his Saturday press conference. “I hit a lot of good shots. I was close on the putts man. A lot of these pins are just sitting in some tricky spots. I had a lot of cross-grain, putting it cross-grain, cross-slope. So you have slope going one way, grain going another. And then a lot of these pins, they put on a lot of grain changes, so you can have 10- to 12-footers with multiple grain changes. It's challenging to hole putts. I'll just keep giving myself the looks, and hopefully they'll drop tomorrow.”
A couple of weeks ago, Scheffler demolished the FedEx St. Jude Championship field by eight shots after starting Sunday two in front. That is fresh in the memory for him and his rivals. Scheffler is also 1st for Final Round Scoring Average on the PGA Tour this season. I’m sold. Back him for the win at 4/1.
For a quirky second bet, back Alex Smalley at 13/2 (Skybet) to make the top 20. Due to JJ Spaun pulling out, there’s been an odd number of players in the field this week. But those forced to play solo have relished the solitude. Min Woo Lee (Thursday) and Cam Young (Friday) both shot 62s and Robert MacIntyre matched McIlroy’s Saturday low of 63 despite shooting 76 in his second-round two-ball.
Smalley is currently tied 28th on -3 but that’s just four behind those in tied 16th and three back from Ryan Fox in 21st. If, like those before him, he can reap the benefits of playing on his own, jumping into the top 20 is definitely within the realms.
Posted at 09:25 BST on 30/08/26
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