ZURICH CLASSIC: The Big Easy is mostly known for good food and good times, but this week it’ll also be home to world-class golf as the PGA Tour makes its annual stop through town with the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. This is viewed by many players as an ideal preparation week for the upcoming Players Championship so there are several big names in the field, most notably world No. 1 Jason Day, who heads BETDAQ’s Win Market at 6.2, and defending champion Justin Rose, who sits right behind Day at 9.8.
What similarities does this event have with The Players, you ask? Well it’s the golf course, primarily. TPC Louisiana is a Bermuda-covered Pete Dye layout, just like TPC Sawgrass. Like all Dye courses, it prioritizes ball-striking and is extremely penal in spots. There are plenty of scoring opportunities at TPC Louisiana, however, and indeed it generally plays quite easy by Tour standards, with each of the past four champions shooting 19-under or better and Rose reaching 22-under in his victory last year. The par-5s are reachable for most of the field, the landing areas off the tee are fairly wide, and the greens are relatively spacious and straightforward. And many of the players are quite familiar with the place, as it has hosted this tournament since 2007. We can expect birdies galore this week.
So… where does that leave us? We have a decade’s worth of results to go on here, so we should be able to make an informed choice this week, but that doesn’t mean some long-odds lightning bolt can’t strike– someone like Seung-Yul Noh back in 2014. This does have the feel of one of those “land mine” weeks on my opinion, but maybe we can be the ones who know where to walk…
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Daniel Berger (25.0)- Berger nearly picked up the first win of his career in this event last year, eventually coming up four strokes short of Justin Rose’s 22-under total and settling for sixth. The 2015 Rookie of the Year struggled a bit to open this season but he’s come around quite nicely in recent weeks, finishing 11th or better in each of his past three stroke-play tournaments– a stretch that includes his 10th-place showing at The Masters. With his length off the tee, obvious comfort on Bermuda greens, and penchant for making birdies in bunches, Berger seems like a good bet to contend at TPC Louisiana on a year-in, year-out basis, and his recent form makes him one to watch this week.
David Hearn (94.0)- There’s a lot to like about Hearn here– after suffering through a horrible stretch of five missed cuts in six starts, he seems to have figured things out, shooting par or better in 12 of his past 14 competitive rounds and finishing 13th in the Valero Texas Open last week. He’s got a great history at TPC Louisiana, too, making the cut in all five of his appearances in this event and finishing T6 in 2015 after opening with a 65. And lest we forget, one of Hearn’s main selling points this week is his price– at better than 90/1, he’s a bona fide longshot with a legitimate chance to win.
Chad Campbell (375.0)- Though it’s been nine years since Campbell last won on Tour, he still pops up on the leaderboard at times and can be a dangerous player on the right golf course. Campbell has always played his best golf on Bermuda grass and he does well on courses that allow him to hit driver frequently, and at over 7,400 yards with generous landing areas, TPC Louisiana is just such a course. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Campbell finished 8th in this event last year after shooting 68 or better in all four rounds. The pick is way outside the box and the odds are astronomically long, but I have a good feeling about Campbell this week.
TOURNAMENT MATCH BETS
Charles Howell III (1.91) vs. Danny Lee (1.91)
Lee’s game has been a bit spotty of late, as he’s finished outside the top-40 in six of his past seven starts and hasn’t really contended since February’s Phoenix Open. He’s never finished better than 25th in this event, either, while Howell has six made cuts and a runner-up finish to show for eight career Zurich Classic appearances. Recommendation: Howell at 1.91
Patton Kizzire (1.8) vs. Cameron Tringale (2.0)
With two top-15 finishes in his last three starts, Kizzire has been hotter than Tringale in recent weeks, with the latter man making his last three cuts but finishing outside the top-25 in each of his last eight events. Kizzire has never played TPC Louisiana in competition, however, and Tringale’s record in this tournament is simply stellar, with four top-20s and two top-10s in eight career starts. Did I mention that he was runner-up to Rose last year? Recommendation: Tringale at 2.0
