PGA Tour: Tour Championship @ East Lake GC - 22nd-25th August 2019 - Brooks Koepka (Outright)

SEASON FINALE - TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

Standings prior to tee off on Day 1 (based on accumulated points throughout the season):

Justin Thomas -10

Patrick Cantlay -8

BROOKS KOEPKA -7

Patrick Reed -6

Rory McIlroy -5

Anser, Simpson, Kuchar, Shauffele, Rahm -4

Matsuyama, Johnson, Scott, Woodland, Finau -3

Fowler, Kisner, Rose, Snedeker, Casey -2

Reavie, Im, Conners, Leishman, Fleetwood -1

Glover, Kokrak, Howell III, Oosthuizen, DeChambeau E

KOEPKA TO WIN

World Number 1, Brooks Koepka, doesn't really care about golf, he just happens to be exceptionally good at it.

He has no emotional attachment to the game whatsoever which is a great thing - for winning important tournaments.

The lesser PGA Tour events, that he is obliged to play in to maintain his playing status and keep the sponsors happy, thrill him about as much as a cheese sandwich. If he could get away with it, he'd probably play a few bounce games in the run-up to the majors and that would be him for the season. In fact, he has more major wins than regular Tour wins (4/3).

His performances this year, when it really mattered, speak for themselves:

MAJOR CLAIMS

April: Masters – 2nd (-12)

May: USPGA – 1st (-8)

June: US Open – 2nd (-10)

July: The Open – 4th (-6)

We backed Koepka in the first three majors of the season because, in our humble opinion, he is Tiger-Woods-In-His-Prime good and will win many more. You won't find Brooks particularly high on any of the 63 billion year long performance metrics (51st SG: Putting, for example), yet he is World Number 1 and has won 4 of the last 10 majors. His ability to focus and perform at another level consistently (when it matters) is worthy of a lot more respect than he currently gets.

His cumulative score to par in majors since 2017 is -54, 21 shots ahead of Jordan Spieth who is next on the list, 23 ahead of Rickie Fowler who is 3rd and a staggering 36 shots ahead of Matt Kuchar in fourth. It’s just ridiculous scoring!

C.R.E.A.M.

The Tour Championship isn’t a major – let’s be clear about that. It will never hold the same cachet as one of the big four, the same way The Players Championship (overly spoken of as “the 5th Major”) never will, the majors are the majors let’s just leave them alone.

That being said we're banking on the $15m FedEx Cup Bonus being enough of a carrot for Brooks to dust off his 'A' game one final time this season - the fact that he has a 3 shot lead over 80% of the field before a ball has been hit will not really matter to him but it is a sweetener.

He doesn’t have the greatest record at the Tour Championship which you could view as a negative; however, this makes us even more confident as there is nothing Kopeka likes better than setting the record straight...

Brooks Koepka Outright @ 6.6 (7u) – Betfair

GOLF!