Weekend Warriors – Tour Championship

It was a wacky couple of rounds to kick off the Tour Championship this week. Never before have I seen the #1 seed coming into the Tour Championship fare so poorly over the first two days. Bryson has already played himself out of contention and is so far back that there is a near zero chance that he will end up being the FedEx Cup winner this year. Likewise, Brooks Koepka, who was ranked 7th coming into the event and who is also a strong player of the year candidate, finds himself in last place, a huge surprise after playing so well for much of the second half of the season.

In taking a quick look at how my favorite players this week are doing that I wrote up, we are in bad shape with Bryson as mentioned above, but the only other whiff so far is Francesco Molinari. Neither player has been themselves from tee to green and both have really struggled with their putter. It’s a surprise in that both have been really good with their iron play over the last few months so it is odd that they are so off this week.

On the plus side, I was all-in on Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy up top and that is keeping a lot of good teams in contention. Justin Rose ranks 1st in SGTG through two rounds and while he is right at 0 when it comes to SGP, this is not a course where you need to make as many birdies to keep up with the top putters so position off the tee and approach work is key. Rory ranks 3rd from SGTG and 1st overall in SGBS. If his short game was not in such poor form, he would be way out in front of the field, but he’s 24th overall in SGSG so he’ll need to get that together if he wants to pull off a win.

In the middle and lower end, we’re in great shape with Billy Horschel, Tony Finau and Tommy Fleetwood. Billy continues to dominate from tee to green while Tony Finau has struggled the first two rounds. Interestingly enough, Tony ranks 5th in SGP, which is odd in that typically, Tony is not so good on Bermuda greens. Fortunately, he’s sitting in 10th place so if he can pick up his game, he should be able to finish inside the Top-10. Tommy Fleetwood continues to play his game and has had good balance in his game. He’s been losing strokes around the green, but I like the way he’s striking the ball so as long as we get good weekend Tommy, he could still contend with one late run.

The weather for the weekend will not be an issue for the players. While it will be hot and sticky, the winds are not going to be a problem so there should not be any problems. Obviously, given that there are only 30 players in the field this week, there is no cut and no MDF tomorrow.

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