The FedExCup Playoffs come to an end with the season finale this week as the PGA TOUR celebrates Labor Day with a fun Monday finish after taking an extra day and starting the final tournament of the 2019-20 season on Friday. The tournament will take place at East Lake Golf Club, as it does each year, and will feature all of the top-30 finishers in the FedEx Cup Standings. The setup is unique in that the players start the event with scores reflecting their position in the standings, making it more of an uphill climb for players with lower rankings to post a high finish. However, last year in the first year of this format, there were lots of changes in the finishing order from the starting order, so getting good value from players who start further back in the pack is definitely possible in classic formats.
Since he starts out in front of the pack and has been playing so well lately, Dustin Johnson ($15,200) gets a massive salary while last week’s winner Jon Rahm ($12,700), Justin Thomas ($11,900), Webb Simpson ($11,000), Collin Morikawa ($10,400) and Bryson DeChambeau ($10,100) all check in with five-figure salaries. In another no-cut event, you’ll probably need to find some value to round out your roster, so here are the four plays at $7,500 or less that I like the most heading into another great week of fantasy golf on the PGA TOUR.
DraftKings is offering a number of ways you can get in on the action, starting with the DraftKings PGA TOUR $1.55M East Lake Ending. Flex your golf knowledge and create a lineup here for the opportunity to turn $25 into $500K for a first-place finish while a total of $1.55 million will be awarded in prizes.
The DraftKings slate locks at 6:00 a.m. ET on Friday, Sep, 4. Set your lineups here: PGA TOUR $1.55M East Lake Ending [$500K to 1st]
Tyrrell Hatton, $7,000
The 28-year-old Englishman picked up his first PGA TOUR win this past season at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and posted five top-10 finishes, including a T4 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, which is played on another course designed by Donald Ross, who also set up East Lake.
Hatton comes into his first TOUR Championship with some good momentum after a T25 at THE NORTHERN TRUST and a T16 at the BMW Championship. He is a smaller player and isn’t a long bomber, which could make his game a nice fit for East Lake, where accuracy is typically valued over distance. He’ll begin the tournament -2 after finishing 19th in the FedEx Cup standings.
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Kevin Kisner, $6,800
Kisner will be starting one shot further back than Hatton at -1 after his 21st-place finish in the FedEx Cup standings. Kisner finished one spot ahead of Hatton in Detroit where he had a solo-third, matching his T3 at the Wyndham Championship, on the only other Ross-designed stop on the PGA TOUR this season.
Unlike Hatton, this won’t be his maiden voyage at East Lake. In fact, the 36-year-old will be playing this event for the fifth time in the past six years. His best finish was in 2017 when he finished third and managed to play his way into the top 10 last year as well.
Viktor Hovland, $6,600
Of the 23 rookies on the PGA Tour in 2020, only Hovland and Scottie Scheffler ($7,900) have made it to the finale. Hovland qualified in 27th place, so he’ll have a lot of work to do in order to notch a high finish this week at East Lake. He did get a win on the Tour this season with a triumph at the Puerto Rico Open back in February and he has had some strong finishes since the restart as well.
He didn’t have a great week last week, finishing T40 at the BMW Championship, so he may come in a little under-the-radar. He did have a much better T18 at The Northern Trust the week before and also posted a T12 at Detroit Golf Club, the other Donald Ross design he played this year. Hovland is a rising star on the Tour and has been pretty consistent since the restart making the cut in every event and posting six top-25 finishes in his 10 events. He has a ton of raw talent and isn’t normally available at such an affordable salary.
MacKenzie Hughes, $5,200
Hughes had to make some clutch putts down the stretch last week just to get to East Lake and finished with 71 to secure a T10 at Olympia Fields. He has finished in the top 15 in each of the two playoff events and comes into East Lake with very solid form.
While he hasn’t played at East Lake, he did secure a top 25 at Detroit Golf Club last year and has made the cut in both his appearances at the Wyndham as well, including a top-25 finish last season. Even though it’ll be his first time at this specific event, his success on other Donald Ross designs and his current form make him the best ultra-cheap play I would consider since I think he has a good chance to finish ahead of the other players starting with him at even-par, 10 strokes behind DJ.
Set your DraftKings lineups: PGA TOUR $1.55M East Lake Ending [$500K to 1st]
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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is Z.Thompson) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.