PGA TOUR $800K Summer Sand Trap [$200K to 1st]<\/a><\/p>\nRory McIlroy, $11,300<\/p>\n
The big pivot at the top of the salary structure is going with Rory instead of Scottie Scheffler ($13,900). Playing both is technically possible, but that strategy leaves you with an average of only $6,200 for your other four roster spots. After his win last week, Scheffler will likely be the chalkier of the two options, but there is a good chance that Rory will end up making more sense for GPP since he saves over $2,500 and brings more leverage.<\/p>\n
Rory didn\u2019t contend last week while Scottie won, but he did post a pretty solid T-12 at the BMW, which was his first tournament since The Open Championship (another Scottie win), where he finished T-7. He has posted five straight top-20 finishes since missing the cut at the RBC Canadian Open.<\/p>\n
Rory ranks second in the field in Total Strokes Gained and Strokes Gained: Putting over the last 16 rounds, and over all the rounds played in the last 12 months, he also ranks second in the field in Total Strokes Gained and second in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee.<\/p>\n
The course plays to his strengths of long, accurate driving and strong, creative approach play. He won this tournament in 2016, 2019 and 2022 and finished in the top 10 seven of the last eight years and in nine of his 11 career appearances.<\/p>\n
Rory is a horse for the course and won\u2019t have to make up any ground on Scheffler since everyone will play from even par. He also won\u2019t have to look far to keep an eye on his chief competition, since he\u2019ll play in the same group with Scottie in Round 1.<\/p>\n
J.J. Spaun, $8,100<\/p>\n
Spaun is in the penultimate pairing just ahead of Scottie and Rory, but even though he comes in ranked third in the FedExCup standings, he has a salary outside the top 10 on the board. Part of that lower cost is that he\u2019s making his debut at East Lake, which is actually pretty cool for a player who has been grinding away for almost 250 PGA TOUR events.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s getting much less attention than Collin Morikawa ($8,300) and Patrick Cantlay ($8,700) just over him and Ben Griffin ($7,700) just under him in salary. He\u2019s higher risk without course history, but he also brings a very high ceiling, which we have seen all season from the 34-year-old SD State alum.<\/p>\n
He comes to this contest with five top-25 finishes in his last six events, dating back to his dramatic win of the U.S. Open at Oakmont. While he doesn\u2019t have multiple wins this season, he did come very close multiple times. He lost in a playoff at both THE PLAYERS Championship and the FedEx St. Jude Championship two weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s T-23 was a letdown, but his approach game still looked strong. His main problem was his putter. Over the last 20 rounds, he ranks in the top five in this elite field in Total Strokes Gained, Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, and Strokes Gained: Approach.<\/p>\n
If Spaun\u2019s putter gets hot like it has in a few recent tournaments, he could be right in contention again on Sunday, seeking the biggest prize of the season.<\/p>\n
Justin Rose, $6,800<\/p>\n
I had Rose in this same spot two weeks ago when he bested Spaun in that playoff at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He didn\u2019t show well last week at the BMW, continuing his trend of not posting back-to-back top-10 finishes despite plenty of strong showings.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll actually be playing with Spaun in Round 1 since he starts the week fourth in the FedExCup standings. He has done well this year in several events with limited but elite fields. Rose finished in the top 10 at Signature Events at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He also finished in the top 10 at the Masters and the Genesis Scottish Open before claiming the victory two weeks ago in Memphis.<\/p>\n
Despite last week\u2019s letdown, Rose should be set to bounce back in his return to East Lake, where he has a nice history of success. He posted six straight top-10 finishes earlier in his career, including runner-up finishes in 2012 and 2015. In 2018, his T-4 finish was high enough for him to win the FedExCup Championship, even though he did not win the TOUR Championship. He hasn\u2019t played this event since 2019, though, when he finished T-26.<\/p>\n
Rose is back at East Lake, and he has the potential to post another good finish. Last week\u2019s \u201cmeh\u201d should throw the public off his trail, but getting him under $7,000 is a great GPP option given his high ceiling at these events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zach Thompson gets you set for the TOUR Championship with his top fantasy golf pivot plays and targets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,15225,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-84195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-rail","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}