PGA power rankings: The 2019 TOUR championship
The 2019 PGA season wraps up this week as we are down to 30 remaining golfers vying for a spot in the Wyndham Rewards Top 10, and of course trying to become a FedEx Cup Champion. Welcome to FanSided Fantasy’s PGA power rankings for this week’s TOUR Championship, taking place at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia.
This PGA power rankings article will cover the top 15 golfers for this week’s event, and with each golfer will come a short blurb with some justification to their respective rankings. With only 30 golfers in the field this week, I will rank the top half of the field and shorten it up a bit from the norm. Before we do that, let’s talk about last week, and touch briefly on the history of this event.
PGA power rankings: The 2019 TOUR Championship – Course and History
Welcome to the final week of the 2019 PGA season! The final 30 in the FedEx Cup standings will descend upon East Lake Golf Club just east of Atlanta, and tee it up for the TOUR Championship and determine a FedEx Cup champion.
Scoring is quite a bit different for the season finale, as starting FedEx Cup strokes are awarded by placement in the standings. It is designed to favor those at the top, and there are massive amounts of money on the line.
30th place will take home $395,000 in bonus money, and that dollar amount substantially increases with each place in the standings.
The difference from first to second is a massive $10 million dollar difference as the winner will take home $15 million and second place will take home $5 million, and Justin Thomas has a two-stroke lead as he sits in first-place, basically at 10-under par to start.
I will touch more on starting strokes and the scoring format shortly and a bit with each individual player, but let’s dive into East Lake a bit. This golf course has been the destination of the TOUR Championship since its inception, as it became the final stop of the season in 2007 with the introduction of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
East Lake Golf Club is a fairly long course at just around 7,350 yards, but it is just a par 70 with only two par-fives. Challenging tree-lined fairways and water on five or six holes will require good iron play, and those who hit greens-in-regulation, (GIR) and putt well on fast Bermuda grass will have the advantage.
This is the first year with the new starting strokes rule, so it looks like past champions may not even be relevant.
Either way, the last scoring tweak took place in 2009, and this new format will be very interesting to see just how much of an advantage these starting strokes prove to be. Regardless of scoring, course history will be relevant once again this week.
The golfers who finished 26th-30th in the standings are even-par to start the tournament as always, but Justin Thomas is already 10-under par in first-place, and Patrick Cantlay sits in second at 8-under.
Even the group that starts at 4-under in 6th-10th place has a major disadvantage. I can see a battle between the top-five here, but it looks like everyone else is just trying to sneak into that Wyndham Rewards Top 10 and increase that payday with a higher finish. With that said, let’s check out the top 15 in the PGA power rankings for the TOUR Championship.