Inside the 2025 TOUR Championship: Which Underdog Could Topple Scottie Scheffler?

I was thisclose to folding my cards and calling it quits on the 2025 TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club. I mean, who gambles on golf these days, right? But then the PGA TOUR rippled things up, scrapping that quirky “starting strokes” method. Now, it’s the purest test: 72 holes, no gimmicks, just the top 30 FedExCup players duking it out for a staggering $10 million prize. Suddenly, the chessboard looked way more interesting. Toss in the fact that I’m playing with “house money” after snagging 21st place in the Race for the 2025 Mayo Cup—and a cool $6,000 payout—and, well, I’m itching to make a final splash. But making that splash means rolling the dice creatively: Kalshi markets, “Winner without Scottie Scheffler” bets on DraftKings, even some wild finishing-position wagers. Is it madness? Maybe. But as they say, fortune favors the bold… or at least the stubborn. Curious how I’m navigating this high-stakes labyrinth? LEARN MORE.

Initially, I wanted to take my ball and go home, so to speak, and not bet on the 2025 TOUR Championship at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia. However, I like that the PGA TOUR went away from the “starting strokes” format, and the top-30 golfers in the season-long FedExCup standings are playing 72 holes, straight up, for a $10 million winner’s share of the TOUR Championship. 

More importantly, I’m playing with house money after finishing 21st in the “Race for the 2025 Mayo Cup,” which paid out $6,000, and I’m trying to end this season with a bang. But, to do so, I have to get creative with my betting exposure for the TOUR Championship. Enter Kalshi, the “Winner without Scottie Scheffler” market at DraftKings, and a finishing position bet. 

The following odds are from when I bet on the golfers listed below, and they may have changed since then. 

After writing about Kalshi, a U.S.-based prediction market, offering NFL point spreads, totals, and player props this season, I decided to start shopping for bets on it. That said, Kalshi offered the best price for Scheffler to win his second straight TOUR Championship. Rather than fight it or quibble over his odds, I’m betting Scottie. It’s his world, and the other golfers are just living in it. 

I signed up for an annual subscription to Betsperts Golf, which allows me to build custom models. Betsperts assigns a total score to every golfer in the field based on the stats you choose. Here’s how big the gap is: Scheffler has a 95.6 score, and Viktor Hovland is second at 74.4. That’s absurd. Granted, I have to put up a sh*t-ton of money for a decent return on a Scottie bet. 

Nonetheless, he’s just so much better than everyone else currently. Scheffler has five wins in his last 10 starts, including the PGA and The 153rd Open Championships, and hasn’t finished worse than T8 during that stretch. So, if Scottie plays his B-game, he can still win the TOUR Championship. Unfortunately for the other 29 guys in the field, Scheffler is dominating golf right now. 

We know Hovland can win here; he’s the 2023 TOUR Champion. At East Lake, driving accuracy matters more than distance. Viktor has gained strokes with driving accuracy in five straight tournaments and hit 67.9% of fairways last week at the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club, a course that demands both distance and precision.

East Lake also tests long irons, and all four Par-3s are 200+ yards. Well, Hovland is third in this field for Strokes Gained (SG): Approach over the last 16 rounds and second in approach shots from 200+ yards, per Betsperts Golf. One of the crossover courses to East Lake is Innisbrook Resort, home to the Valspar Championship, which Viktor won earlier this season. 

He’s also gained strokes on the greens in four straight starts and three consecutive TOUR Championships. Add in his consistent success on comp courses, and this number looks mispriced. Hovland is second in my Betsperts Golf model, behind Scottie, but has the eighth-best odds in the “winner without Scheffler” market. That’s value.

This is more of a vibes bet that my model doesn’t support. English is only 27th in my Betsperts Golf model. Still, he has the second-best SG versus his baseline over the last 20 rounds and ranks fifth in total SG over that span, per DataGolf.com. That includes a T12 at the BMW last week, runner-up at The Open, and a T4 at the Travelers Championship.

English also won the 2025 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, one of the toughest tracks on TOUR, and finished T2 in the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, a strong comp for East Lake. The bottom line: Based on his form compared to several shorter-priced golfers, English’s “fair odds” for a top-10 (including ties) should be +125, not +160.

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Follow me on X (or Twitter, whatever) @Geoffery-Clark, and check out my OutKick Bets Podcast for more betting content and random rants. I’ll add bets to my PGA Tour 2025 betting record via X throughout the entire season.