GOLF

Daily Fantasy Golf Course Primer: TOUR Championship

The FedEx Cup Playoffs finish up with one small-field event. How does the course dictate player selection this week?

It may not be the Masters. It may not be the U.S. Open or the Open. Heck, it may not even be THE PLAYERS.

But the FedEx Cup is coming to a close this weekend at East Lake, and you're darn right there's some DFS rosters to be built!

With a 30-player field, hitting on the right names will be difficult. Learning some ins and outs of the course could help get an edge.

Course and Tournament Overview

It's a 30-golfer field with no cut (imagine if there was) at East Lake GC in Atlanta. The course is a par 70 that spans just shy of 7,400 yards, making it the third-longest of 12 par 70 courses to be played in 2016.

In terms of difficulty, it's not that bad relative to other courses on tour in terms of playing to par, but take that with a grain of salt given the field that competes here.

YearDifficulty RankCoursePar Yds Avg ScoreAvg O/U Par
201627East Lake GC70 7,385 69.615-0.385
201517East Lake GC70 7,307 70.3750.375
201420East Lake GC70 7,307 70.2590.259
201330East Lake GC70 7,307 69.383-0.617
201220East Lake GC70 7,319 70.4170.417
201128East Lake GC70 7,319 69.792-0.208
201018East Lake GC70 7,319 70.2750.275
200916East Lake GC70 7,304 70.5500.550
200815East Lake GC70 7,304 70.9830.983


The real difficulty comes if you miss fairways.

Key Stats

Strokes gained: tee to green and strokes gained: putting are always worth monitoring. This week, these are the most important stats, based on historical data.

Key Stats for the Tour Championship at East Lake
Strokes Gained: Tee to Green
Par 4 Scoring
Scrambling
Good Drive Rate
Strokes Gained: Putting on Bermuda


No surprise that strokes gained: tee to green matters here, as these golfers are good, and it requires a strong all-around game to get to the final 30 in itself. With just two par 5s, we can look to par 4 scoring, which also generally shows us which golfers are strong all around.

The fairways are narrow and difficult to hit, and golfers often vocalize that aspect of East Lake. Scrambling and good drives (fairways hit plus greens in regulation) are paramount this week as a result.

And we have to account for the Bermuda greens (we don't have to, but with so few golfers, why not see where it takes us at least?) and how players putt on Bermuda. (You can do that with the putting splits app on FantasyGolfMetrics.)

Course History Studs

Of the 30 golfers in the field, 22 have played East Lake at least once since 2006. Just keep in mind that there were renovations in 2008.

Golfers who haven't played here include Patrick Cantlay, Jon Rahm, Pat Perez, Tony Finau, Brian Harman, Adam Hadwin, Kyle Stanley, and Xander Schauffele.

Six golfers have played here just once: Jhonattan Vegas, Kevin Chappell, Russell Henley, Brooks Koepka, Marc Leishman, and Justin Thomas.

On the flip side, three golfers have played here at least seven times in that span: Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson, and Justin Rose.

Chappell did place second here last year in his lone career start at East Lake, and because Rory McIlroy didn't make the final 30, Chappell is the pseudo defending champion. It's either him or Jordan Spieth, who won here in 2015, though Spieth was 17th last year. He finished 2nd in 2013 and 27th in 2014, as well.

Dustin Johnson has four straight top-10s here: 10th in 2012, 5th in 2013, 5th in 2015, and 6th in 2016. Justin Rose has four top-six finishes from 2012 to 2015 (2nd, 6th, 4th, 2nd). Jason Day kind of has a top-10 string going. He withdrew in 2016 but was 10th in 2015 and 4th in 2014.

Paul Casey was 4th at East Lake in 2010, 5th in 2015, and 4th in 2016.

Similar to Chappell in that he has played here only once, Justin Thomas finished sixth last year, for what it's worth.