Ben Coley's golf betting tips: TOUR Championship preview and best bets

Ben Coley returns following an 80/1 winner in his latest PGA Tour preview. Here are his best bets for the TOUR Championship.

Golf betting tips: TOUR Championship 5pts win Rory McIlroy at 8/1 (General; 10.5 Betfair) 4pts e.w. Ludvig Aberg at 18/1 (bet365 1/4 1,2,3,4) 1pt e.w. Shane Lowry at 66/1 (Betfred 1/4 1,2,3,4) Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Your perspective on play-offs, even how you choose to spell playoffs, may depend on where you're from. It is fair to say that they are not a particularly important part of sport in the UK, even if both rugby codes and one darts tournament have embraced them. Try it in football's Premier League and there would be a revolt. In the United States, they're normal, and so 18 years ago in the United States, the PGA Tour built their version. After the regular season ended, Tiger Woods had his 30,574 points converted to an even 100,000. Vijay Singh had his 19,129, two-thirds the haul of the leader, converted to 99,000. Winners of the first three events received 9,000 and Tiger was one of them, so when he won 10,300 more at the TOUR Championship, he also won the FedEx Cup.

Scheffler, Ryder Cup watch, Bob sad and Niemann glad, Penge again, British Masters, FedExCup

I won't go through every change, major and minor, from then until 2019, but by the end of this period there was some sort of workable, coherent, somewhat complicated formula. Woods won the TOUR Championship again, providing some of the greatest scenes this sport has witnessed, but Justin Rose won the FedEx Cup which, back then, was two separate words. Now those words are squeezed together just like the two separate prizes. It's a mess and for six years, the PGA Tour has danced around the problem without getting appreciably closer to a solution. Starting strokes were a failure but we knew that before they were thrown out midway through this season, an act unaligned with the notion of serious, meaningful sport. Nobody is satisfied with what's left: a 30-man shootout for the FedExCup and TOUR Championship combined. Playoffs, play-offs, playoffs... they do not work in this sport. Golf is too volatile, whatever Scottie Scheffler does to undermine that point. The newest idea gaining traction, to begin with 70 and trim it each week simply by leaderboard position, would still leave us with an unsatisfactory TOUR Championship shootout. And for what? The distribution of money. I'm yet to come across anyone who knows precisely how and how much the players will get paid. All of this could be worse – hiya, LIV Golf – but the Tour yet again has found a way to open itself up to criticism if someone other than Scheffler wins the FedExCup. They are fortunate that he's so good and may well spare them. Bookmakers give him not far off a 40% chance of winning the thing he deserves to win. Would it really have been so bad if these next four days were a celebration of a dominant season, with a tournament also to play for? Perhaps new governance will result in positive changes and early indications are encouraging. On Monday, it was revealed that the future of this tournament may lie elsewhere, rather than having a permanent home at East Lake in Atlanta. That would be a start, albeit this course, restored ahead of last year's renewal, is familiar. There are benefits to knowing the holes and as things stand, maybe that's the best thing about all this.

Elite company joined ✅ pic.twitter.com/1VSRZYQW4E — PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 18, 2025

Playing now to a reduced par of 70, the 7,440-yard East Lake ought to provide a decent test, but it wasn't exactly fearsome last year and with some rain possible both prior to and during the tournament, a mid-teens winning total seems likely. What's certain is that this has always been a tee-to-green test and the best demonstration of that comes from the 2024 stats, which have the best four scorers ranked first, second, third and fourth in that category. This theme runs throughout the history of the TOUR Championship. In 2023, Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele shared low-scorer honours having ranked first and second. In 2021, the first seven home all ranked inside the top eight, and the one-two when Woods won were also one-two in strokes-gained tee-to-green. The only significant change now is the removal of the differing mindsets of players which the staggered scoring helped to create. We'd begun to see a trend for those buried down among the pack scoring best and that's one regret of the removal of that system. At least on the flip side it'll be much easier to follow come Thursday's start. Four players appealed from those somewhat towards the head of the betting and the ones I've excluded are Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland. Morikawa led the field in scoring last year, the third successive renewal in which he'd been among the best from tee-to-green, and his long-game is absolutely fine right now. Maybe this is the week he answers the critics. Hovland meanwhile is hitting his irons wonderfully and said he found a feel last week; he too loves it here. Preference though is first for a fresh RORY MCILROY, who just looks a couple of spots too big at a course he adores, one where he's run down Scheffler before and almost always played well. CLICK HERE to back McIlroy with Sky Bet Three times a FedEx Cup champion and never with the assistance of starting strokes, he's cut this course down to size several times over the years and I doubt the changes played too much of a part in his slightly underwhelming effort 12 months ago. Fast forward a year and he returns having won at Pebble Beach, Sawgrass and Augusta in what by any measure has been a fabulous campaign, one with plenty left to play for given his determination to win an away Ryder Cup for the first time since 2012, and no doubt capture another Race to Dubai.

Rory McIlroy

The FedEx Cup is also high on his list as an accolade McIlroy values more than some and I like the fact he skipped Southwind before returning with a quietly encouraging 12th at Caves Valley. McIlroy clearly wasn't thrilled with the state of his game early in the week having enjoyed a proper post-Open break, but his driving improved each day and was as good as it's been all year come the weekend. That could be a key sign that he's sharp enough to go ahead and contend at one of his favourite PGA Tour venues. "The game was awful for the first six holes and then actually felt like I found something, especially on the back nine there. So definitely something to build off going into next week," he said on Sunday. "This week was my three weeks off. I really didn't do anything in those three weeks. I was probably expecting too much to get in contention, but there were glimmers of really good stuff in there this week. "As I said, I felt like I found a bit of a groove over the last nine holes, so certainly something to build off going into the TOUR Championship." McIlroy talked about how the greens should be that bit more receptive, especially if that rain arrives, and 8/1 in a 30-man field which does feature some players I expect to be outclassed simply looks on the generous side. This is about the price he was for the Open if not a shade bigger, and this is East Lake. He is by far the biggest threat to Scheffler. With Southwind such a rigorous tee-to-green examination it shouldn't surprise anyone that the same players made my shortlist for this and LUDVIG ABERG edges Hovland and Morikawa for the support slot behind McIlroy. CLICK HERE to back Aberg with Sky Bet He's further down the ball-striking stats than we'd all like and expect him to be, but the Swede is striping it again after a mid-season lull. In particular, his irons have started to fire, and having lost more than half a stroke per round from January to May, he's more than a full shot better since then at +0.67 for the last 10 weeks. With his driver typically reliable – he's only lost strokes twice in 19 starts this year and in none of his last eight – Aberg is showing the sort of tee-to-green class that will be needed to compete at East Lake, where he was a modest 19th on debut despite being one of the best drivers in the field, ranking third.

That was largely due to ranking near last in putting and outside the top 20 in strokes-gained approach, but both those aspects of his game fired in the BMW Championship when seventh last week, his third top-10 finish in four starts. But for one nightmare hole at Portrush, he might well be on a run of four. That represents Aberg's most consistent form of the season and he seems very close to capturing a fourth professional title, which could come this week or else perhaps at Wentworth next month. Aberg said on Saturday: "I'm excited about what I've seen so far this week and these last couple of weeks, which is encouraging to me." I'm keen to have him on-side at 16/1 and bigger, with Hovland's driving just too big of a concern along with Morikawa's short-game. At bigger prices, Akshay Bhatia will arrive on cloud nine after scraping through in 29th place, and with his long-game in good shape could build on a decent debut spin around East Lake last year. But SHANE LOWRY has shown enough to believe he's being overlooked by the layers, who make him about the 26th most likely winner of the event (30 players). For context, he was 10th in the market for the Open (156 players) and while no doubt deserving of an elevated position there, he's fallen too far here. CLICK HERE to back Lowry with Sky Bet Lowry ranks eighth in this field in strokes-gained tee-to-green and I think East Lake is a good fit for him. It's a Donald Ross design somewhat reminiscent of Sedgefield (best of seventh), with echoes of Sawgrass (eighth), and even perhaps Firestone, the long, tree-lined par 70 where he made his stateside breakthrough.

Shane Lowry

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