The PGA Tour season-long title will be decided this weekend, and Scottie Scheffler will once again be the man to beat at East Lake Golf Club in the 2023 Tour Championship. The PGA Tour FedEx Cup Playoffs finale tees off Thursday in Atlanta, and Scheffler, the world's top-ranked golfer, will start the first round with a two-stroke lead.

Scheffler also sat atop the FedEx Cup Standings entering the Tour Championship last season. He led the entire way until a bogey on the 16th hole opened the door for Rory McIlroy, who won his third Tour Championship. McIlroy shot 63 on Saturday last year at East Lake but still entered the final round six strokes behind Scheffler. The Northern Irishman shot a final-round 66, while Scheffler shot 73 on Sunday.

Scheffler also came up short at Olympia Fields last week, but Viktor Hovland deserves some of the credit for that. Hovland shot a FedEx Cup Playoffs-record 61 in the final round, but Scheffler's putter again let him down. A missed 6-foot birdie try on 16 helped cost him what would have been his first victory since the Players Championship. Scheffler tied Matt Fitzpatrick for second in the BMW Championship, his ninth top-five finish since that Players victory.

The latest 2023 Tour Championship odds list Scheffler as the +140 favorite to win the FedEx Cup title, followed by McIlroy at +330, Hovland at 5-1 and Jon Rahm at 8-1. Patrick Cantlay, the 2021 FedEx Cup champion, at 16-1 is the only other golfer in the 2023 Tour Championship field priced shorter than 20-1.

The top 30 in the FedEx Cup Standings will tee off this week. Hovland's victory propelled him to second, and McIlroy is third after finishing fourth last week. Rounding out the top five are Rahm and Lucas Glover, who was ranked 112th entering the Wyndham Championship before posting consecutive victories. Glover was fourth following his St. Jude Championship victory and tied for 22nd at the BMW to lose a spot.

Hovland will start the 2023 Tour Championship at 8 under par, two strokes behind Scheffler. McIlroy will be three strokes back, with Rahm four behind Scheffler and Glover needing to make up five on the world No. 1. Five groups of five golfers each will begin between six and 10 strokes back.  

East Lake Golf Club has hosted the Tour Championship since 2005. The 7,346-yard par-70 layout designed by Tom Bendelow and updated by Donald Ross and Rees Jones is another playoff course that will reward great shot-making. Distance will be an advantage, but the course has the narrowest fairways in the PGA Tour rotation. Long approach shots will be common, and the nuanced greens can cause even the best putters some problems. 

In this 2023 Tour Championship betting guide, we'll take you through what you need to know about the rest of the field of competitors, the course itself and any projected weather considerations before diving into SportsLine's full slate of expert picks for the event. That includes outright winners with top longshot plays, as well as first-round leader, matchup and finishing-position best bets. 

You'll also find our projected leaderboard, One and Done picks, DFS picks and Fantasy rankings from our stable of experts, including Mike McClure, Sia Nejad, Eric Cohen, Patrick McDonald and Jim Holliman.

• Mike McClure is a professional DFS player and SportsLine predictive data engineer, specializing in advanced statistical analysis. His golf proprietary model is up more than $9,000 on its best bets since the PGA Tour resumed in June of 2020, nailing tournament after tournament.
  
• Sia Nejad specializes in betting and DFS in golf, among other sports. He's had incredible success in the outright and first-round leader markets. He also has been on fire on head-to-head matchups since the Charles Schwab Challenge, going 24-15-1 (+6.59 units) over that span.
• Eric Cohen is an avid golf bettor who correctly predicted the winner of three of the past four majors and nailed Scottie Scheffler's first career victory in Phoenix last year. He is a regular guest on "The Early Wedge" SportsLine golf show on YouTube.
• Patrick McDonald joined CBS Sports as a golf writer in 2022 and still likes to dip his toes into the betting pools on a weekly basis on the PGA Tour. He was up almost 17 units this season before the Masters -- a haul of nearly $1,700 for $100 bettors -- and now he's back to cash more tickets for SportsLine readers.
• Jim Holliman is a longtime writer and editor who has played the game for nearly three decades, and he has a strong feel for how the players fit each course. He has nailed five winners since the Masters, including Viktor Hovland (16-1) at the BMW, and has a knack for finding longshots who can contend and help fantasy players.    

2023 Tour Championship full picks: Model | Fantasy | DFS | McDonald | Nejad | One and done

So, which players are our experts backing in fantasy golf and betting for the 2023 Tour Championship? Who should you be counting on to cash in on outrights, head-to-head matchups and finishing-position wagers? ... Join SportsLine right now to see the best bets and analysis from SportsLine's top experts for the 2023 Tour Championship!