LONG ISLAND, New York – The 2025 PGA Tour season will reach its climax in the Tour Championship starting Thursday at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club, but the odds are it most likely will be little more than a coronation ceremony for World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler as the game’s most dominant player since the Tiger Woods era.
Scheffler (+165 odds) scored his fifth victory of the season in come-from-behind fashion last week at the BMW Championship playoff event. His worst finish in 18 starts this season is T-25, and he arrives at the par-70, 7,440-yard East Lake layout on an incredible streak of 13 straight finishes of T-8 or better, including all five wins.
That last number includes two major titles at the PGA and the Open Championship. Oh, and did we mention Scheffler will be defending his 2024 Tour Championship title?
The only plausible challenger to Scheffler is Rory McIlroy (+700), who did most of his damage earlier in the season with three victories, including the Players Championship and a Masters title that gave him the career Grand Slam. McIlroy skipped the first playoff event at the St. Jude Classic before a T-12 finish at the BMW, but he had three straight T-10 finishes before the playoffs and has sub-70 scores in 11 of his past 16 rounds.
My top five in the limited field of the top 30 includes three relatively hot players having career seasons – J.J. Spaun (+3300), Ben Griffin (+3500) and Russell Henley (+1800). Spaun prevailed over the U.S. Open obstacle course at Oakmont, and he lost playoffs to Scheffler at The Players Championship and to Justin Rose two weeks ago at the St. Jude FedEx playoff event. Spaun has six T-10 finishes.
Griffin will be making his Tour Championship debut after a season with two wins, including the team event at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans, and a total of nine T-10 finishes. Henley also has nine T-10 results this season, including a win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and is on a streak of six straight events with a finish of T-17 or better. He shot 62 in the final round last year at East Lake.
Rounding out my top 10 choices are Cameron Young (+2800), Tommy Fleetwood (+1100), Justin Thomas (+2800), Maverick McNealy (+3500) and Ludvig Aberg (+1600). Young ended the regular season with his first career win at the Wyndham Championship and followed with finishes of fifth and 11th in the two playoff events.
Fleetwood blew a great shot at his first career PGA Tour win in a loss to Rose at St. Jude but has seven top-10 finishes, including T3 and T4 in the playoffs, and is riding a streak of 11 straight sub-70 rounds. Thomas has struggled for the past month, but he has seven T-10 finishes this season and has averaged 67.81 strokes over 32 rounds at East Lake.
McNealy will be making his Tour Championship debut, but he also has seven T-10 finishes this season, including an impressive third place at the BMW. Aberg had an early-season win at the Genesis Invitational and has six T-10 finishes, including three of his past four events.
As tempting as it might be to bypass the short odds on Scheffler and go for a higher payoff, he is playing at a stratospheric level that is unmatched by anyone else in the sport this season. In fact, he has won 12 of his 37 events over the past two seasons without missing a cut. Scheffler truly is the new Tiger on the PGA Tour.
Best of luck to all.
