BMW Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report
With three holes to play at the FedEx Cup St. Jude Championship on Sunday, it’s possible that Justin Rose hadn’t even contemplated lifting the trophy. His playing partner, Tommy Fleetwood, was two shots clear with an easy Par 5 ahead, where he was expected to stabilize or even extend his advantage.
But Fleetwood, despite hitting a perfect drive on 16, hit his approach into the grandstand, fluffed his third shot, and only just got up and down for par. Rose, meanwhile, made birdie at 16 and 17, where Fleetwood again made a hash of his approach shot before missing a par putt.
In the space of a few minutes, he’d gone from favorite to lift the trophy to needing a two-shot swing on the last – Rose, utilizing all his experience, made par to squeeze out his playing partner and book a playoff with J.J. Spaun. They shared the first two extra holes, before Rose’s clutch putt on the third handed him a 12th PGA TOUR title – he’s the first non-American winner on the TOUR aged 45+ in over a decade.
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Rose, Spaun, and Fleetwood are all guaranteed their place in the season-ending TOUR Championship… but who will join them there? Most of the PGA TOUR’s biggest names will be heading to Caves Valley this week in a bid to finish inside the top 30 of the FedEx Cup standings, however there will be some notable absentees.
Jordan Spieth, Wyndham Clark, and Tony Finau are amongst those that missed out on qualifying for the BMW Championship, so they will be watching on from home like the rest of us.
But what they can expect to see from Caves Valley, which is found in the Ownings Mills area of Maryland? The answer, at the time of writing, is who knows: not even the PGA TOUR seems to know if the track will play as a Par 70 or Par 72 this week, and hadn’t responded to our question at the time of publishing. Caves Valley played as a Par 72 for this event in 2021, but it was simply too easy: Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau topped the leaderboard with a score of -27, while all 70 players (as it was back then) ended the week under par.
So we think that the layout will be changed to a long old Par 70, with two of the holes that previously played as Par 5s being switched to 500+ yard Par 4s. Look out for official confirmation of that. Either way, Caves Valley is a long old stretch, with driving distance and natural length on approach both very helpful in 2021, alongside solid Bentgrass putting. We expect no different in 2025, either.
Normally, we post picks at 50/1 or longer in this column. But given the reduced field size of 50 players, and the fact that there’s some intriguing picks at 45/1 this week, we’re just going to open up our BMW Championship 2025 sleeper shortlist up a little to try and land a late season winner.
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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the BMW Championship here.
Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2024-2025)
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