Fantasy Golf tips: Tour Championship

We’ve checked the rules of Fantasy Golf and unfortunately it’s not permissible to pick Jason Day six times to fill your available slots.

The 27-year-old Australian has won three of his last four starts and now finds himself as the world’s number one player, having usurped Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. After dominating from start to finish to take last week’s BMW Championship by six shots, the US PGA champion looks a must-pick for this week, when the final leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs sees the 30 remaining players head to Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club for the 2014-2015 season finale.

One person who won’t be taking home the FedEx Cup title and the $10,000,000 cheque that comes with it is last season’s champion, Billy Horschel, having failed to make it to the final stage this time. His victory last year made him the fifth consecutive FedEx Cup winner to win the Tour Championship en route to the big cheque. It’s easy, then, to look at the players leading the FedEx Cup Playoffs for a winner this week, but with just £15m to spend, you’re going to have to look for some gems outside of the big boys. Any of the top-five players in the current standings – Day, Spieth, Fowler, Stenson and Watson – would win the Playoffs with a victory this week, but you’d need some pretty creative accounting to get all five in your team.

Anyone expecting a red numbers blitz as (officially) the Tour’s 30 best players fight it out may be disappointed: East Lake’s par-70 layout doesn’t offer an easy ride. Average scoring last year was 0.259 strokes over par, with only 13 of the 29-man field (Dustin Johnson left the event a man short last year) finishing better than level.

Here’s who we’re tipping this week…

Jason Day, £4.5m
Not picking him this week would be like not picking Spider-Man in a big money wall-climbing contest. He’s won three of his last four starts, four of his last six. His current form alone would be enough to make him a must-have, so when you add in the fact he normally does well here (he finished T4 last year and T6 in 2011), he has to be the first name on your team sheet.

Rickie Fowler, £3.5m
Showing fantastic late-season form; a T-4 finish last week came on the back of victory at the Deutsche Bank Championship. He leads the Playoffs in one-putt percentage, and showed good course pedigree with an eighth-placed finish here last year.

Hideki Matsuyama, £3m
Has finished inside the top-25 in each of the first three FedEx Cup events, including a T7 last week. He ranks third in birdies or better and seventh in adjusted scoring during the Playoffs.

Paul Casey, £1.4m
He finished T4 here in 2010 and is showing signs of the form that got him into the top-10 in the world in 2009 and 2010. He ranked joint-top in Greens In Regulation at last week’s BMW Championship and topped the field in Proximity to the Hole. If the putter warms up and he can maintain his play tee-to-green, he could be in contention this week.

Robert Streb, £1.2m
Amazingly, Streb has more rounds under par than anyone else on the PGA Tour this season, with 72. All he needs to do is put four hot ones together and he’ll be right in contention. And if you think we made that sound unduly simple, it’s because in a week like this you have to find some value in the field and it can be pretty tough to justify some of your selections, okay?

Kevin Kisner, £0.7m
This is his East Lake debut, but he tends to play his best golf on Bermuda grass, so should feel at home here. Six birdies helped him to a mightily impressive 66 in the final round of last week’s BMW Championship.