Golf Events / Tareq Quiroz / 24 September 2008 /

The Ryder Cup will take its toll on the US and European players but that can only help your punting on this week's Tour Championship, where a field of just 30 players will battle it out around East Lake.

There has to be a good case for the world of golf taking a week off to recover from last week's exertions at the Ryder Cup. I know that I feel a little jaded after the emotional roller coaster that I was subjected to in Valhalla. Alas, that is not the way the schedule works and we are right back at it this week with the PGA Tour grand finale. The TOUR Championship consists of the top 30 players in the Fed-Ex series and they will battle it out for the prize of TOUR Champion.

The Course

It makes a nice change to finally be back at a course where we have some solid and recent course form. East Lake GC is now the permanent home of the TOUR Championships and has already hosted the event seven times, including the last four years. It is a fitting place for the TOUR Champion to be crowned as it is a really good old test for the best players in the world. East Lake is a Par 70 course that plays just over 7,100 yards. If conditions are difficult the players will have their fair share of problems on their hands but given some decent weather I would expect the winning score to be something around ten to twelve under par.

The Favourite

As usual with this event we have a clear favourite. Unusually his name is not Tiger Woods. With the great man missing from the line-up this week the honour of market leader goes to the FedEx leader Vijay Singh. The big Fijian has been in scintillating end of season form and certainly merits his place at the top of the pack. He also has the advantage of having had last week off to rest his arm injury and watch his main market rivals slug it out at Valhalla. Clearly he will be freshest and at current odds of [7.2] he stands firm at the head of the market. Take into consideration that he won this event on this course in 2002 and you may just be tempted into backing Vijay this week despite the skinny odds.

The Next Best Bets

The quality of the field this week is undeniably strong but I am finding it very difficult to convince myself that anyone who competed in the Ryder Cup will be able to get over the winning line. Last week was so gruelling that there may not be much left in the tank. With over a third of the field ruled out on that basis the man that keeps jumping off the page at me is Ernie Els. His game is definitely in better order than it has been in a good while and he will relish the prospect of finally getting his hands on the TOUR Championship. Els was beaten in a play-off for this event in 2001 and will be hoping to go one better this time around. At current attractive odds of [19.5] the big South African is my pick of the week.

The Massive Outsider

Clearly with a field of the top 30 players on the PGA Tour for 2008 we are not going to be faced with too many huge priced contenders. However, this does not mean that we can't find some decent value down the bottom half of the market. One in particular who appeals to me is the Swede Carl Pettersson. In many respect he was a little unlucky not to feature in Europe's Ryder Cup side and will no doubt be fired up this week. A winner just four weeks ago he is full of confidence and cannot be ignored at odds of around [48.0] in the Winner market.

Interesting Info

There has only been one hole-in-one at the Tour Championship and that was by Jerry Kelly in 2002. You have to feel with just 30 players going to the tee the odds of [1.6] about there not being a hole-in-one for this event look pretty tempting. Zach Johnson shot an incredible third round score of 60 in last year's event but it was still not enough to stop Tiger winning by eight shots. The par-5 15th plays extremely easy and was in fact ranked the easiest hole on the whole of the PGA Tour in 2007, something worth bearing in mind if playing in-running.

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