Monday Finish: Andrew Landry comes up clutch to stop slide

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The road to East Lake concludes with this week’s TOUR Championship, where 29 players (minus Will Zalatoris, back injury) will compete for a massive bonus payout. Merely qualifying for this field is a tremendous achievement, and nine players will be making their first career TOUR Championship start. Scottie Scheffler’s robust body of work in 2022 (four wins, including the Masters) gives him a head start this week at East Lake, but the FedExCup is far from decided. To get an idea of how quickly a lead can evaporate on the PGA TOUR, just look at 18-hole leads on TOUR over the last 15 seasons. In that time span, players who led by two shots after the first round only went on to win 14 percent of the time. Of the 10 players who held a lead of four shots or more after round one since 2007, only three went on to win. Twenty First Group ran 10,000 simulations to shake out the probabilities of every possible outcome this weekend in Atlanta. By the numbers, eight players have at least a 4 percent chance of winning it all. Sam Burns Starting strokes: -5 FedExCup win probability: 4.1% When Burns knocked off world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in a playoff at the Charles Schwab Challenge in May it was his third win of the 2021-22 season and moved him to second in the FedExCup. He’s cooled off since then and ranks 31st in Strokes Gained: Total since the U.S. Open began on June 15. That could be changing, though, as Burns is coming off back-to-back top-20 finishes and has a 68.2 scoring average in his last nine rounds. Stat of the season: Burns and Cameron Smith are the only two players ranked in the top 15 this season in both Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Putting. Tony Finau Starting strokes: -4 FedExCup win probability: 4.1% His opening-round 77 at the BMW Championship was a random smudge on an otherwise flawless mural. In Finau’s last 19 TOUR rounds he has a scoring average of 67.6 and has only failed to break par once – that ugly Thursday 77 at the BMW. Finau has a steep hill to climb this week in Atlanta, but he gained more than three full strokes Tee-to-Green in the final round last week, a positive harbinger for East Lake. Stat of the season: After ranking 66th on TOUR in greens in regulation percentage last season, Finau is ranked 5th in 2021-22. Jon Rahm Starting strokes: -3 FedExCup win probability: 4.3% Nine players have multiple wins this season on TOUR. Surprisingly, Rahm isn’t one of them – his lone victory came at the Mexico Open at Vidanta in the spring. Rahm hasn’t played poorly (he’s third on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Total), but the bar for him is justifiably sky-high. When he dipped to sixth in the Official World Golf Ranking earlier this month, it snapped a streak of 138 straight weeks in the top five. One reason to believe Rahm might make a run at it this week: He was 10 under and bogey-free for the weekend at the BMW Championship. Stat of the season: Rahm is averaging 10.4 more yards off the tee on measured drives this season than last. He leads the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. Cameron Smith Starting strokes: -4 FedExCup win probability: 4.5% Health is the biggest question facing Smith, as he missed the BMW with a hip injury. There are no questions, though, about the state of his game – his approach play has grown to rival how good he’s always been on and around the greens. Smith has improved his Strokes Gained: Approach ranking by 50 spots this season, from 53rd to 3rd. He is also the TOUR leader in birdie average after ranking outside the top 100 just three years ago. Stat of the season: Smith is the second player to win THE PLAYERS and The Open in the same season. Jack Nicklaus did it in 1978. Rory McIlroy Starting strokes: -4 FedExCup win probability: 7.6% Only one player in the field this week – Adam Scott – has more previous starts at East Lake than Rory McIlroy does (this will be his ninth). Despite starting six shots behind Scheffler, Twenty First Group gives McIlroy between a seven and eight percent chance at winning it all this week, which would make him the first man to win the FedExCup three times. Among those with 10 or more rounds played at East Lake over the last decade, McIlroy leads all players in birdie average (4.82). Stat of the season: In the four majors this season, McIlroy accumulated 53.6 Strokes Gained: Total. That was the most in a season by a player without a major victory in that season since Ernie Els in 2004 (60.2). Xander Schauffele Starting strokes: -6 FedExCup win probability: 8.4% Probably unbeknownst to him, Xander Schauffele had a putt on the final hole Sunday afternoon at the BMW Championship that would have reshaped this week’s championship. If Schauffele had made his birdie putt on 18, he would have finished alone in third place, pushing Scottie Scheffler back to fourth. That difference would have put Patrick Cantlay in the top spot entering this week instead of Scheffler. It was the latest example of just how close this season-long race can be. In 20 career TOUR Championship rounds, Schauffele has never shot over par. His career scoring average of 67.3 is by far the best of any player in the last decade. Stat of the season: Schauffele has not shot over par in the final round of a TOUR event all season. In fact, he hasn’t done that since September of 2020. Patrick Cantlay Starting strokes: -8 FedExCup win probability: 20.1% Cantlay became the first player in FedExCup Playoffs history to successfully defend a title at a specific event at the BMW. He can do one better this week by defending his TOUR Championship title to become the first to win the FedExCup in consecutive seasons. The numbers give him a better than one-in-five chance to pull it off. In eight starts since the PGA Championship, Cantlay has finished inside the top 15 seven times. Since June 1, he ranks 16th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, 9th in Strokes Gained: Putting and 4th in Strokes Gained: Total. Stat of the season: Cantlay ranked 64th on TOUR in putting inside 10 feet last season. He’s 3rd in 2021-22. Scottie Scheffler Starting strokes: -10 FedExCup win probability: 29.1% The PGA TOUR Player of the Year award has been given out since 1990. Never has a player been winless to start a season and gone on to earn that distinction – something Scheffler could wrap up with a victory this week in Georgia. The last time the world’s best gathered in the Peach State, Scheffler was making his first career start as world No. 1. We all know how that turned out. The single biggest statistical factor in Scheffler’s ascent has been his approach play, which went from good to extraordinary in 2022. Scheffler jumped from 83rd on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach last season to 4th this year, an improvement of about +2.73 strokes per 72 holes in that discipline alone. Stat of the season: Scheffler hit world No. 1 just 42 days after securing his first career win on either the PGA or DP World Tours, the fastest-ever rise to the top. The previous record was 252 days by Tiger Woods in 1997.

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This week will feature another difficult tournament in the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. The course will play as a par 71, measuring 7,521 yards and be putt on Champion G12 Bermudagrass overseeded with Poa trivialis. The tournament was canceled last year due to COVID-19, making Max Homa (2019 winner) your defending champion this week. There are 156 players in the field at press time, and the top 65 and ties will make the cut. STRATEGY Ten of the top-15 ranked golfers will be playing this week with the PGA Championship just two weeks out. Jon Rahm (+1100, $10,800), Xander Schauffele (+1400, $10,500), Bryson DeChambeau (+1600, $11,000) and Patrick Cantlay (+2800, $9,600) have elected to make a stop in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the first things you notice about Quail Hollow is the length, especially on eight of the par 4s that measure above 450 yards — two of which measure over 500 yards. The average driving distance here is also more than the TOUR average, as are the approach shots from 200-plus yards, coming in at 8% higher (31.1%). This week is one of the few tournaments where Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee is the predominant statistic that leads to success. Winners here are gaining an average of 1.545 strokes Off-the-Tee, which is twice as much as Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green. Focusing on driving this week doesn’t mean approach isn’t essential. Quail Hollow sports four water hazards in play on seven holes and greenside bunkers on every hole. The fairways are tight, and the greens historically play hard and fast, so ball-striking is vital. The course starts with three par 4s over 450 yards and ends with the Green Mile – Nos. 16-18 – which also have two par 4s over 494 yards. The top 10 in DraftKings scoring in 2019 was reasonably balanced, with an average price of just under $8,500. The cheapest golfer was the eventual winner, Max Homa, who was $6,600. The most expensive was Rickie Fowler at $10,600; he finished eighth in DraftKings scoring but fourth in the tournament. In 2018, the average price was about $500 less, averaging just above $8,000. The most expensive golfer was the eventual winner, Jason Day, at $10,200; the cheapest was Johnson Wagner at $6,800. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $750K Flop Shot [$200K to 1st] GOLFERS TO CONSIDER Jon Rahm +1100 to Win ($10,800 on DraftKings) When it’s a long, difficult, traditional American course, Rahm should be at the top of the list. There isn’t a ton we need to say about world No. 3 that you don’t already know. He’s excellent on these courses, ranking 14th in Strokes Gained: Total over the previous 50 rounds in difficult scoring conditions. He also won the Memorial Tournament last season, a comparable test of golf similar to this week. Quail Hollow will demand a robust Off-the-Tee game, and few are better than Rahm, who hasn’t lost strokes in this category since August 2019. Rahm finished fourth here back in 2017, which is his only time teeing it up at Quail Hollow before this week. Will Zalatoris +3000 to Win ($9,400 on DraftKings) A second at Augusta National, a 21st at THE PLAYERS Championship, a 10th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, a 15th at The Genesis Invitational and a sixth place at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot should tell us that when the scoring conditions get challenging, Zalatoris shows up. He lost just under five strokes Off-the-Tee at the RBC Heritage, which could’ve been some post-Masters hangover. His driving becomes much better when we zoom out, gaining Off-the-Tee in nine of his last 11 measured rounds. His ball-striking has been fantastic, and he should be able to score on the par 5s, ranking fifth over his previous 24 rounds. Also, consider Joaquin Niemann (+3000, $9,100) in this range. Like Zalatoris, Niemann’s strength Off-the-Tee gives him a significant advantage over the field, more so than Zalatoris. Over his last 24 rounds, Niemann ranks eighth in Off-the-Tee and 22nd in approach. Erik van Rooyen +16000 to Win ($7,200 on DraftKings) Like Rahm and Zalatoris, we should be looking for players who can take down Quail Hollow with their driver, and van Rooyen has gained strokes Off-the-Tee in three of his last four events. Van Rooyen finished inside the top 15 at the Valero Texas Open last month, where he gained 4.7 strokes driving. Van Rooyen has strong performances on similar courses, finishing 22nd at the Memorial Tournament (Muirfield Village) and 23rd at the U.S. Open (Winged Foot) last season. Another player to consider is Ryan Moore (+12500, $7,100), who has a knack for playing on these longer, American-style courses with his driving and long-iron accuracy. Over his previous 24 rounds, Moore ranks 15th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, and inside the top half of the field in both approach proximity from 175 to 200 yards and 200-plus yards away. If we scale out the timeframe to the last 50 rounds, Moore ranks top three in approach proximity from 175 to 200 yards. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $750K Flop Shot [$200K to 1st] Put your knowledge to the test. Sign up for DraftKings and experience the game inside the game. All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL). Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ/WV/PA/MI), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (NH/CO), 1-800-BETS OFF(IA), 1-888-532-3500 (VA) or call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN). 21+ (18+ NH). 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