Tour Championship Betting: All-new Westwood value at East Lake

Westwood and McIlroy have talked of forming a Ryder Cup partnership
Fresh from a revolutionary short game session with Tony Johnstone, Ryder Cup-bound Lee Westwood has momentum going into the FedEx Cup finale, says Ralph Ellis
There's decent money on the senior tour for golfers. Zimbabwe's Tony Johnstone, for instance, picked up around 9,000 euros a few weeks ago for finishing seventh in the Welsh Open.
It is loose change, of course, compared to the PGA Tour - and especially the ten million dollar bonanza on offer this week for whoever wins the FedEx Cup. If that happens to be Lee Westwood, I do hope he weighs in Johnstone for a couple of hundred grand of it.
Johnstone is the 56-year-old ex-pro who is at the centre of one of the season's most remarkable transformations. His own story was incredible enough already. Diagnosed in 2004 with multiple sclerosis, and facing the end of his career as a result, he has apparently conquered the crippling condition after being accepted on a Cambridge University trial of a revolutionary new drug. He was the last of 334 to be offered a place, so the very fact he could compete on the senior tour was a sensation.
But then this summer he got chatting to Westwood's manager Chubby Chandler about the faults in the former world number one's short game. Johnstone, whose chipping was always the most potent weapon in his own armoury, thought he saw what was going wrong. Chandler flew him to the States for a five-day coaching clinic - and Westwood hasn't looked back since, making him the standout value to win the Tour Championship in Atlanta this weekend.
Rory McIlroy is, not surprisingly, the 5.85/1 favourite and in the sort of form that should help him wrap up the multi-million bonanza. But the last two years the leader in the FedEx cup rankings going into the final weekend has failed to deliver. Bill Haas was number 25 before winning at East Lake last year to walk off with the dollars, and a year earlier Jim Furyk hit the top from 11th place. So the best bet has to be to look for value among the contenders, and Westwood at 20.019/1 fits the bill.
"My 'feel' on chipping has really come back," said Lee.
"It is amazing how quickly I have seen the improvements. Tony just took me back to basics and simplified things. I am impressed how it is going."
It's not surprising, then, that he is looking so relaxed at the moment. He has got a smile on his face out on the course, which is always a good sign. There's a fantastic picture in today's Telegraph of him and McIlroy laughing together during the BMW Championship and as a side issue they both fancy the idea of teaming up in the Ryder Cup. That would be a juicy partnership if you are backing Europe to regain the trophy at a price of 2.546/4.
Westwood made a tough decision after being cut from the USPGA to part with his long term coach Pete Cowen, but it seems to have brought dividends. He's had a new freshness about his game, and recorded a couple of top-five finishes.
A win at East Lake this weekend won't guarantee him the big FedEx prize. He would still need some others to mess up. But it would confirm his return to the form that took him to number one and could really give him - and a 56-year-old from Zimbabwe - something to smile about.