Why Steve Stricker will win the Tour Championship
Golf’s final tournament of importance for 2009 is this weekend at East Lake in Atlanta, and for the first time in the FedEx Cup’s short history, the $10 million prize has not been decided heading into the Tour Championship. But here’s a simple breakdown of what you need to know: the top five in the points standings are Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson and Heath Slocum. If any of those five win this week, they win the FedEx Cup.
Here’s why I think that’s going to be Stricker, who is +1500 on WagerWeb.com. He has been the most consistent player in the history of the FedEx Cup playoffs, and the only one to play in every round of every event. Stricker has 10 top-10 finishes this year on Tour, which includes wins at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, the John Deere Classic and the Deutsche Bank Championship.
More important, he has been about even with Tiger in these playoffs, as Stricker opened with a T-2 at The Barclays (along with Tiger) and the next week won the Deutsche Bank to take over first place in the FedEx Cup points. That lasted only a week after Stricker finished in a tie for 53rd place at the BMW Championship, while Woods won the tournament going away. Stricker and Tiger were paired for the first two rounds in each of the first three FedEx Cup playoff tournaments. Stricker’s scoring average was 69.83, while Woods’ was 69.00. So clearly Stricker isn’t intimidated.
Now the former journeyman could be staring at an $11.35 million paycheck if he wins the Tour Championship ($1.35 for the tournament and $10 million for the FedEx Cup).
“Yeah, it’s a very exciting week. I think there was a lot of buildup, especially we had last week off, and I think a much-needed week off for most everybody, needing to get a little rest coming into this week. It’s an exciting week. There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of anticipation, and you’ve just got to — bottom line is you’ve got to play good to do some good things, and you can’t try to get ahead of yourself thinking about the FedExCup or anything like that, I don’t think, and just try to pay attention to this tournament and play well here,” he said.
Stricker has played in the Tour Championship five times, with his best finish at tie for fifth in 1998. Last year, he was tied for 24th.
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