The PGA Tour heads to Boston this week for the second FedEx Cup playoff event in the Deutsche Bank Championship. In order to take advantage of the holiday, this week’s tournament has been scheduled to start Friday and wrap up on the Monday. Rickie Fowler will surely be trying to recapture some of the magic that helped him win this event a year ago after a late collapse at The Barclays last week prevented him from clinching an automatic berth on the United States Ryder Cup team and taking home the first place prize. It’s a star-studded field this week with all of the big names in play. We’ll see Jason Day, who is favored, along with Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Henrik Stenson. Whoever comes out on top will have to beat the best in the world.
Event Details
Event: Deutsche Bank Championship
Category: PGA
Date: September 2-5
Location: TPC of Boston, Norton, Massachusetts
Fowler needed only to finish in the top-three last week to earn the automatic berth on the Ryder Cup team but a 74 in the final round on Sunday led to him dropping to a tie for seventh. Meanwhile, Patrick Reed’s consistency was the key to his Barclays victory as he wrapped up a strong weekend with a 70 on Sunday to clinch his fifth-career PGA Tour win. The field will be absolutely loaded once again for this week’s event and it will be interesting to see if Fowler and Reed can deliver for the second week in a row.
Past Five Winners
2015: Rickie Fowler -15
2014: Chris Kirk -15
2013: Henrik Stenson -22
2012: Rory McIlroy -20
2011: Webb Simpson -15 (Playoff)
What To Know About The Course
The Arnold Palmer-designed TPC Boston is all about strong Greens In Regulation and putting statistics. It also helps if you have strong Scrambling numbers. A year ago, Fowler won despite ranking 30th in Driving Distance and 26th for driving accuracy. The average for the previous 10 winners at this tournament is 25.6 for Driving Distance and 25.8 for Driving Accuracy. The previous four winners have ranked third, second, sixth and fourth in Scrambling totals and the worst that any winner has ever ranked for that stat is 22nd.
The Field
World No. 1 Jason Day will once again take his place as the outright betting favorite for this week’s event and his overall numbers support that position on the sports betting board. Day is listed at +600 odds followed by Dustin Johnson at +1000 and then both Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth at +1200 odds. Fowler is a little further down the list as he is listed at +2000 to repeat as the Deutsche Bank Championship winner. Meanwhile, notable longshots include Phil Mickelson at +3300 and 2014 Deutche Bank Championship winner Chris Kirk at +16000.
A Good Matchup To Bet: Jordan Spieth over Henrik Stenson
Stenson has shown good form on the PGA Tour this summer but he is a risky play after he suffered a knee injury that forced him to withdraw last week and we are banking on him struggling to find his A game this weekend. Meanwhile, Spieth appears to be rounding in to form following a T-13 at the PGA Championship and a T-10 last week so it makes sense to put our money on last year’s FedEx Cup winner heading in to an event where he should clearly have the edge in this head-to-head betting matchup.
Top-Five Pick: Jason Day
Day hasn’t won an event since coming out on top at The Players back in May, but he has put together some decent starts and he has a strong history at TPC Boston. Day has finished in the top-10 three times in his last eight starts at this course and he has registered six top-20 finishes over that span. There isn’t incredible value betting on the outright favorite to finish in the top-five but it’s hard to ignore the circumstances considering there is a very good chance that Day breaks through with a win this week.
Top 10 Odds To Win The Deutsche Bank Championship
Jason Day +650
Dustin Johnson +1015
Rory McIlroy +1150
Jordan Spieth +1150
Henrik Stenson +1250
Adam Scott +2050
Patrick Reed +2050
Justin Rose +2250
Rickie Fowler +2550
Sergio Garcia +2550
