This is it. A season that began in January culminates with a race to the finish to crown a champion of the FedEx Cup playoffs. It’s the 2024 Tour Championship from East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, GA. As always, here is a preview of the 2024 Tour Championship and a guide to betting the tournament.
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2024 Tour Championship Preview
The Golf Course
East Lake Golf Club is the oldest golf course in Atlanta and was the home course of the legendary Bobby Jones himself. While it was first built in 1904, it was redesigned by Donald Ross in 1913, adding yet another titan of the game to the Club’s lore.
Donald Ross redesigned both the No. 1 and No.2 golf courses on the property, with both nines ending at the clubhouse. Its status as a prestigious southern golf course was subsequently elevated, with the Club hosting numerous notable amateur tournaments as well as held the Ryder Cup in 1963.
Over the years, the reputation of East Lake Golf Club deteriorated due to suburban flight and decay in the surrounding city neighborhood. This changed in 1993 when local businessman Tom Cousins purchased the Club with the intent to inject capital into the surrounding neighborhood to revitalize it as well as restore the golf course to the original Donald Ross design.
Cousins brought in Rees Jones 1994, the son of Robert Trent Jones, and was responsible for redesigns such as Torrey Pines and Bellerive Country Club, who lengthened the golf course, re-positioned and re-shaped the bunkers, and restored the greens to the original Donald Ross specs.
This was enough to attract the PGA Tour to bring its Tour Championship (which at that time was played in the fall) to East Lake in 1998, and starting in 2005, it became the permanent home of the season finale of the PGA Tour.
Readers and listeners to past previews know the opinions of this author about East Lake. For those who don’t, it isn’t very high. The Rees Jones version of East Lake wasn’t very compelling and strayed from traditional Donald Ross architectural philosophies. Primarily, offering risks, rewards, and options for how to play the hole. Instead, East Lake simply became a contest of who can drive it the longest and straightest.
But after the 2023 Tour Championship, Andrew Green (who breathed new life into the East Course at Oak Hill Country Club) came in to perform a restoration of East Lake. Andrew Green discovered aerial photographs of East Lake from 1949 and used them in his inspiration for the restoration. It showed the original Donald Ross design, including bunker shapes, green locations and the overall topography of the golf course.
And boy oh boy, like he did to Oak Hill, Andrew Green may have hit this restoration out of the ballpark:
The video above is just a sneak peak of the improvements Andrew Green made. Thankfully, Google Earth has updated photographs that show exactly what he changed. Here are a few examples of changes Andrew Green made to East Lake Golf Club:
1st Hole – Before
The opening hole at East Lake was very straight forward. It was a long Par 4 up the hill featuring a narrow fairway and two bunkers left of the landing zone off the tee. The green called for a high fade into it with two steep grass faced bunkers guarding the front. Balls that missed the fairway likely resulted in a missed green in regulation.
1st Hole – After
One of Donald Ross’s calling cards was the use of diagonal hazards. Here, Andrew Green restored one of them on this hole. The fairway bunker on the left now cuts gradually back towards the center of the fairway, meaning drives that are leaking left require a longer carry to avoid it.
However, the goal off the tee is to take on the left bunker to set up the perfect angle into the green. Drives that bail right are safe but don’t have as much green to work with on the approach shot. As for the green itself, a long, skinny bunker short left now is the only bunker that guards the green. However, players who find themselves in it will have much more awkward stances than before. In addition, short grass was added around the green (as was on every hole at the new East Lake).
3rd Hole – Before
The short Par 4 3rd played the same for pretty much everyone. All players would hit driver and take the left bunker completely out of play. And with the topography of the hole, most balls would wind up down on the left side of the fairway near the last tree on the left. That set up a short wedge into the green that was guarded by a boomerang shaped bunker in front.
3rd Hole – After
This hole is much more interesting. Green reshaped and pushed the green back about 25 yards. He also utilizes another diagonal bunker that juts back into the fairway. Players who are able to carry that bunker have a great angle to the green. Longer hitters who hit it down the middle well past it run the risk of rolling their ball into a narrow bunker that calls for an awkward shot to the green. The fairway was widened and allows a player to bail left, but they have a poorer angle to the green. Especially when the pin is tucked back left.
8th Hole – Before
The 8th is one of the more penal holes on the golf course. East Lake looms all the way down the left to gobble up any errant shots left. While players can safely bail out right, a trio of bunkers must be avoided. This narrow hole plays one way – hit it straight down the narrow fairway. Hit the green. The end. Yawn.
8th Hole – After
Now that’s what we’re talking about! Green widened the fairway and moved the green up about 65 yards to create a dramatic, risk reward short Par 4 full of lots of options. Here’s all the ways players can play this hole:
- Riskiest: Take on the lake down the left. Carrying the left bunker takes a drive of about 293 yards, and doing so sets up the best angle to the green. It takes water out of play with the second and virtually takes the small bunker long left out of play, too. However, the shot must absolutely be perfect, as anything too far left will trundle down the short grass and into the lake.
- Safest: Bail out right. There’s plenty of fairway to work with. However, it’s the worst angle to the green. Approach shots coming from the right side of the fairway must carry two small bunkers that guard short right. In addition, when the pin is back left players not only run the risk of hitting into the small bunker long right (to the player) but anything too long will trundle down the collection area and into the water left.
- Medium risk: Hit it right down the middle. However, another diagonal hazard requires longer tee shots to take them out of play.
Forward tees could be used to make the hole truly drivable, which will add some much needed juice to the tournament. Great hole, and a tremendous improvement on what it was.
This is a few examples of ways Andrew Green has opened up East Lake to promote more variety hole to hole and different strategies tee-to-green. From the overhead views, East Lake looks so much better. Will it play better or noticeably different? That remains to be seen. But from a high level, the restoration seems to be a tremendous success based on ways Andrew Green revitalized the golf course.
Betting Strategies
Here is some general information about East Lake Golf Club. This will assist in optimizing betting strategies for the 2024 Tour Championship. Where applicable, speculation for how the changes made to East Lake will cause it to play differently than in years past is provided.
Par: 71
Previous editions of the Tour Championship at East Lake was a Par 70. However, the 14th hole has been pushed back about 70 yards and now plays as a Par 5. That adds one more stroke to the par of the course.
Length: 7,490 Yards
About 150 yards has been added to the scorecard at East Lake. Mostly by pushing back the 14th hole to a Par 5. However, the repositioning of greens in other areas of the golf course has added a little more length to it. Notably, the 9th plays as a long 260 yard Par 3 over the water, which is about 40 yards farther than what it was.
Architect: Tom Bendelow (1904)
Notable Renovations/Restorations
- Donald Ross – 1923
- Rees Jones – 1994, 2008, 2016
- Andrew Green – 2023-2024
Average Green Size: ~6,200 sq. feet
Not only did Andrew Green rebuild and relocate greens, he restored them to their original sizes. Each green plays on average 600 square feet larger. that might not seem like a lot, but it’ll be a noticeable difference.
However, because these greens are new they should play really, really firm (unless the golf course gets a tremendous amount of rain). And with short grass all around each green, balls might repel severely away from them. Even with their larger size, greens might be very difficult to not only hit, those that miss might see their ball run well away from it.
Agronomy:
- Fairways: Zorro Zoysia
- While the fairways remain zoysia, it’s a different variation of it. Zoysia is a fantastic surface to hit approach shots off of and shouldn’t play materially different than the old strain did.
- Collars/Approaches: Prizm Zoysia
- This is a significant change from before. Before the renovation, the short grass around each green was bermuda. Now it’s zoysia. That’s a much easier surface to chip off of. While chipping off of short grass ups the difficulty, the fact it’s not longer bermuda is a significant change.
- Rough: Tifway 419 Bermuda – 2.5″
- This remains the same as before
- Greens: TifEagle Bermuda
- The greens previously were MiniVerde Bermuda. Here are other golf courses that feature TifEagle bermuda greens:
- Plantation Course – The Sentry
- Sea Island – RSM Classic
- Albany GC – Hero World Challenge
- Concession Golf Club – WGC Concession
- Bay Hill Golf Club – Arnold Palmer Invitational
- The greens previously were MiniVerde Bermuda. Here are other golf courses that feature TifEagle bermuda greens:
Scoring at East Lake Golf Club
- 2023: -1.23
- 2022: -2.09
- 2021: -1.19
- 2020: -1.08
- 2019: +0.03
- 2018: -0.38
- 2017: -0.62
Before 2020, East Lake was one of the tougher golf courses on the PGA Tour. But as players started using equipment that allowed them to hit the ball longer and straighter than ever before, the challenge of East Lake diminished. That, and maybe the PGA Tour, purposely set up the golf course much easier to try and promote some manufactured drama into its (bullshit) Tour Championship format.
It remains to be seen how the changes at East Lake will impact its difficulty. Because the greens are very new, however, one would expect the green in regulation rate to go down a bit because greens will be much harder to hold. As such, scoring might not be as easy as years past.
Off The Tee
Here are stats and rankings of how East Lake Golf Club played off the tee relative to other golf courses played since 2015 prior to the renovations:
- Difficulty: 47th out of 93 golf courses (average difficulty)
- Average Driving Distance: 290.9 (60th out of 93 golf courses, shorter than average)
- However, the average driving distance last year was 299.6, as players took a much more aggressive approach off the tee
- Driving accuracy rate: 54% (17th out of 93 golf courses, higher missed fairways than other courses)
- Fairway Width: 24.4 Yards (2nd out of 93 golf courses, one of narrowest golf courses played)
- Missed Fairway Penalty: 9th out of 93 golf courses, big penalty for missing fairways
- Rough penalty: 6th out of 93 golf courses, big penalty for missing tee shots in the rough
- Non-Rough penalty: 32nd out of 93 golf courses, higher than average penalty for missing tee shots into non-rough locations (i.e. bunkers, water hazards, etc).
- Penalties off the tee: 68th out of 93 golf courses, lower frequency of penalty shots incurred off the tee than other golf courses
How will East Lake play differently off the tee? Here are a few areas where the renovations will change things.
First, players should be able to hit more fairways than before. While it’s not immediately discernable on the Google Earth imagery just how wide the fairways are, per Stewart Cink in a recent article, “the fairways are easier to hit” as they’ve been widened in certain spots. As such, don’t expect sub 55% fairway hit percentages in 2024.
To counterbalance the wider fairways are more strategically placed fairway bunkers directly in the landing zones. And as pointed out before, a lot of them act as diagonal hazards that require father carry distances to take them out of play on certain lines off the tee. And each hole seems to have a risk-reward option in that hitting toward riskier parts of the fairway presents an easier approach shot, while safe bail-out zones delay the penalty.
Second, East Lake has historically been a very penal place to miss a fairway at. The difference in score between tee shots that find the fairway and those that find the rough or a bunker is one of the highest on the PGA Tour since 2015. Expect that to remain the case in 2024 for a few reasons.
It will remain penal due to the agronomy. Zoysia is a very friendly turf to hit approach shots from. Many players describe it as like hitting off a driving range mat. Players would much prefer to hit off of that than inconsistent bermuda rough, where there’s a ton of guesswork about how balls will come out of it.
But another reason why it will be paramount to hit from the fairway this year is because these are all new greens. Newly constructed greens are usually very firm. It’ll be difficult to control the ball once it hits the green even from the rough. It’ll be nearly impossible on approach shots out of the rough. And with short grass now surrounding every green instead of rough, the ball could roll literally anywhere.
There also should be a slightly higher penalty for missing in non-rough locations (i.e. fairway bunkers). For the Oak Hill restoration, Andrew Green sought to make the fairway bunkers essentially a one shot penalty. With their steep faces and narrow nature, stances are often quite awkward and sometimes give players no option but to hit a wedge out of it.
Per visual inspection, the new fairway bunkers at East Lake were built in a similar manner. And as seen at the PGA Championship, absolute disaster is in play for those who find a fairway bunker.
In conclusion, while the holes have been change, East Lake will remain a golf course that is highly penal for those who miss fairways.
Approach Play
Here are stats and rankings of how the approach shots at East Lake Golf Club played relative to other golf courses played since 2015 prior to the renovations:
- Difficulty: 66th out of 93 golf courses (below average difficulty)
- Green In Regulation %: 61.4% (32nd out of 93 golf courses, above average difficulty)
- Approach Shots >150 Yards: 71st out of 93 golf courses (significantly below average difficulty)
- Approach Shots >150 Yards: 60th out of 93 golf courses (significantly below average difficulty)
Prior to the renovation, the approach shots at East Lake weren’t all that difficult, especially from the fairway. Most of the greens were shaped and contoured the same, with the only defenses being bunkers typically guarding shart and rough around each green.
Andrew Green beefed up the greens significantly with the green shapes, contouring, placement of bunkers and the addition of short grass. And given how firm the greens are expected to play because of how new they are, expect approach shots to play much more difficult across the board in 2024.
The biggest speculation will be what the proximity buckets at East Lake will be after the renovation. Here is what they were for the 2023 Tour Championship (per DataGolf)::
Based on the new yardages of each hole and an average of a sample of players at the 2023 Tour Championship hit their approach shots from, here is an estimation of the new proximity buckets for 2024:
- <100: 5.6%
- 100-125: 5.6%
- 125-150: 22.2%
- 150-175: 19.4%
- 175-200: 11.1%
- 200-225: 13.9%
- 225+: 22.2%
The most significant change is coming from shots over 200 yards. Last year, about 25% of shots came from over 200 yards. In 2024, it’s expected that a little more than one in three shots will come from over 200 yards. However, a significant portion of shots will still come from between 125-175 yards, as before. As such, bettors should continue to weight shots heavily from between 125-175 yards, while also increasing the weights on shots over 200 yards in 2024.
Around The Green
Here are stats and rankings of how the shots around the green at East Lake Golf Club played relative to other golf courses played since 2015 prior to the renovations:
- Difficulty: 54th out of 93 golf courses (slightly below average difficulty)
- Fairway: 61st out of 93 golf courses (below average difficulty)
- Rough: 37th out of 93 golf courses (above average difficulty)
- Bunker: 79th out of 93 golf courses (significantly below average difficulty).
The greenside surrounds are significantly different than prior Tour Championships. For starters, there is much more short grass around each green than before. That automatically ups the difficulty of getting up and down from off the green from these surfaces, particularly on all new greens with bolder contouring.
However, there is a significant agronomy change to the short grass. In 2024, the bermuda short grass around the green has been replaced by zoysia. This blunts the difficulty a bit because zoysia makes it much easier to get crisp ball first contact on it.
In addition, getting up and down from a greenside bunker should be a lot tougher to do than in prior tournaments at East Lake. Like the fairway bunkers, several greenside bunkers have steep grass faces, flat bottoms and are very narrow. Players will face more awkward lies in them than before.
Overall, conditions around the green should be a lot tougher than in years past at East Lake.
Putting
Here are stats and rankings of how the putting at East Lake Golf Club was relative to other golf courses played since 2015 prior to the renovations:
- Difficulty: 87th out of 93 golf courses
- Putts <5 feet: 92nd out of 93 golf courses
- Putts 5-15 feet: 83rd out of 93 golf courses
- Putts 15+ feet: 72nd out of 93 golf courses
There is pretty much nowhere to go but up in terms of the difficulty of putting at East Lake. And given how well Andrew Green restored the traditional contouring of the greens at Oak Hill, expect the same for East Lake to provide a sterner test than years past, particularly on longer putts.
Predictive Skillsets
Here is the predictive skillset chart that shows the types of players that typically do well at East Lake Golf Club (per DataGolf):
The predictive skillset chart matches what the data suggests at East Lake. Primarily, that it’s a very penal golf course to miss fairways at. As such, usually the players who do best at East Lake drive it really well, with a much higher correlation of players who find fairways finding more success than those who spray it everywhere.
As equipment has gotten more forgiving, however, longer hitters generally have found more success at East Lake than they did in, say, the early and mid 2010’s. That’s when the likes of Jim Furky, Billy Horschel and Henrik Stenson. In more recent years, it’s been players who drive it both long and straight like Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, and Viktor Hovland that have found the most success.
Expect more of the latter to dominate East Lake. While the fairways are a little wider, there remains a significant penalty for missing fairways. But as players yield drivers that are more forgiving off the clubface, elite drivers have been able to pick apart East Lake in recent years and be much more aggressive off the tee than they were in years past.
As far as other adjustments bettors should make to the course fit chart, better iron players probably will find more success than poorer ones this year. The combination of a higher volume of longer approach shots, the expected firm nature of the new greens at East Lake, and the anticipated higher penalty for a missed green at East Lake means stronger iron players will separate themselves more at East Lake than prior tournaments.
Other Information
Lastly, here is general information about who has won the Tour Championship with the staggered start leaderboard:
1. If the staggered start leaderboard had been in effect since 2007 (the first year of the FedEx Cup), every eventual winner would have started at least at -4. In 2010, a playoff would have happened between Luke Donald (-4) and Jim Furyk (-3). While Jim Furyk won the actual golf tournament, we’ll never know who would have prevailed in that hypothetical playoff.
2. Here is a breakdown of how what score each eventual winner would have started at if the staggered start had been in effect at East Lake since 2007:
- -10: 4 times
- -8: 7 times
- -6: 1 time
- -5: 2 times
- -4: 3 times
- -3 or worse: 0 times
3. Since 2008, ten of the 16 would be winners of the staggered start leaderboard and would at least be tied for the low 72-hole score of the tournament. The low 72 hole score has gained, on average 10.7 strokes per tournament on the field. In 2023, both Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland blew away the field by gaining 14 strokes in the tournament.
Follow the tips in this preview, and one should put together a solid betting card or DFS lineup for the 2024 Tour Championship.
