With the “Aloha Swing” concluded, the PGA Tour returns to the mainland as players make a trip to the Coachella Valley desert in La Quinta, California for The American Express at PGA West. This is a very unique event for a number of reasons. First, this tournament is actually part of a Pro-Am where each pro tees off with an amateur for the first three rounds of the tournament. Another difference is that three different courses will be in use instead of the typical single course. Finally, the cut will take place after 54 holes have been completed on Saturday, instead of the usual 36-hole cut on Friday. It will be the top 65 and ties who make it through to Sunday’s final round on the Stadium Course.
Along with the Pete Dye Stadium Course, the Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta Country Club are the other venues in play for this week. The latter two courses are among the five easiest on Tour, which makes very low-scoring rounds the norm. Players will tee off on those two courses only one time. After more than 50 years of course changes, the current rotation of courses has been the same since 2016.
Each of the courses in the rotation share many of the same characteristics. First, with mostly calm winds and clear skies in a desert environment, this tournament is as close to “dome golf” as players will experience all year which leads to each being among the top-10 easiest annual PGA courses. All three courses have four scoreable par-5s and measure under 7,200 yards. Each also has pure Poa trivialis greens and ryegrass fairways surrounded by non-penal dormant Bermuda rough.
The Stadium Course is the toughest of the three and will be used for two of the four rounds. It is a Pete Dye design featuring smaller greens, plenty of bunkers and seven holes with water danger to contend with. Another reason the winning score usually ends up in the 25-under range is that all three are resort-style courses with pin placements made intentionally easy for the amateurs that are playing. It is a tournament where all different styles of players can thrive and those with the hottest flat stick in the inevitable putting contest are usually rewarded.
The Field
The strongest-ever field will tee it up this week in the California desert at the American Express, including 10 of the top-25 and 22 of the top-50 ranked players in the world. The headliners include #1 Scottie Scheffler, #5 Patrick Cantlay, #6 Xander Schauffele and #10 Wyndham Clark. Also in attendance are numerous other notables like Tony Finau, Sam Burns, Tom Kim, Sungjae Im, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, and Min Woo Lee. Multiple event winner and past Ryder Cup member, Daniel Berger will also make his long-awaited return to play this week. Berger has not played due to injury since the 2022 U.S. Open.
For the first three rounds, players will be paired with an “amateur”. They could be celebrities, professional athletes, CEOs of companies, or someone you have never heard of who thought it would be a great idea to fork over $30,000 to take part in the event. While most PGA players love the conditions of the courses and the weather, they also despise the format and having to play most pro-ams in general. Rounds can approach six hours with the amateurs basically tagging along and hacking their way around the course.
Past Winners and Odds
Betting Strategy
There is definitely no need to overanalyze and get complicated this week when looking for the right type of player to target for outrights and finish position bets. We should be looking for “birdie-makers” with high upside who are solid on approach and can get hot with the putter. Scottie Scheffler enters the week as the top player on the board once again at +550 to win. Yet he lacks the putting consistency to instill confidence that he can win a birdie-fest at 30-under par. The next four players on the betting board, however, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Sungjae Im, and Tom Kim, definitely fit that mold. I’ll have more on Cantlay below in my selections, but I could not pass on him this time around. I actually expected his odds to be worse than +1000. While Im is not far behind, Cantlay is the perfect fit this week from whatever angle you are analyzing.
When looking back at past results, all types of players can thrive here. However, there has been more of a pattern for accurate ball-strikers and players who can have a career-best week with the putter. With ten of the last 14 winners at this event coming from odds of +5500 or higher, spraying the outright board with long-shot values would seem to be the prudent course of action. However, this is the most top-heavy this field has ever been with 22 of the top 50 players in the world in attendance,
While all three courses in the rotation this week have overlapping similarities, each of the three also seem to cater to different types players. Accurate “bombers” and wedge-game specialists have the edge at the Stadium Course. Accurate driving along with mid-irons and around the green play is vital at the Nicklaus Course, and getting hot with the flat stick appears to lead to success at La Quinta.
Not only is it smart to target golfers who have a quality all-around game, but it’s also important to focus on the unique splits from the model this week. “Western” golf definitely has its own feel. Whether it’s the familiar grass, cooler air or a desert backdrop, certain golfers perform better out west. Also, with each course being under 7,200 yards, certain players perform much better on shorter courses compared to their baseline.
The split that I value the most this week in “The Rabbit Hole” is SG: Easy Scoring conditions which analyzes performance on other courses that feature an extremely high birdie or better rate. There are certain golfers this week such as Will Zalatoris or Shane Lowry who simply do not make enough birdie putts to contend in these high-scoring “putting contest” events. Players who perform better at more challenging tournaments or who don’t have the scoring firepower to shoot 7-under each day will be mostly a fade for me this week. Each of the unique splits (SG: West Coast, SG: Short Courses and SG: Easy Scoring has a much higher weight for this week and was also incorporated into the “Core 4” metric along with SG: Approach, SG: Putting and my “Scoring” model. The rankings for each is available in my full model below.
Most Important Stats For Success at PGA West
*In order of importance
- Birdie or Better %
- SG: APP
- Par 5 Scoring
- SG: Putting
- Scoring Chances Inside 15 Feet
- Proximity 125-200 yds
- SG: Easy Scoring Courses
- Par 4: 350-450
- SG: ARG
- Bogey Avoidance
Weather Forecast – La Quinta, CA
American Express – Final Model
In each preview article and on Discord, I present my final model, which gives a detailed player ranking of the most important stats and splits for the week. My modeling is built around the PGA’s Strokes Gained data, which is divided into SG: Off the Tee (OTT), SG: Approach (APP), SG: Around the Green (ARG), and SG: Putting (P). Learn more about Strokes Gained and why it can be so useful in analyzing the past and predicting future performance. Many of these specific metrics and conditions can be found in “The Rabbit Hole“, with my final model exclusively published here and in the Discord for subscribers.
Outright Betting Selections
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*Lines accurate at the time of publication.
Patrick Cantlay +1000
Yep. It’s another Cantlay week. While he typically leaves us empty-handed, he quite literally checks every box this week. He’s the second best-striker (behind Scheffler), has the third-best short game, ranks third in course history, third in scoring, first in “birdie-fests”, first on short courses, first on “West Coast” courses, and first in my “Core 4” model. And when you narrow the search to “Very Easy” courses (which you can only do in “The Rabbit Hole), Cantlay is the best player by almost a full stroke per round over the past three years.
(2u) BetRivers
Tom Kim +3000 (currently +2500)
Similar to Cantlay, Tom Kim has had his best weeks on easy scoring courses. He has multiple wins at a similar desert track at TPC Summerlin where, similar to these courses, putting from inside of 15 feet and short-iron play are strongly emphasized. He finished 6th here last year and his accurate approach game on these (mostly) small greens should give him birdie looks on almost every hole.
(0.80u) BetMGM
Wyndham Clark +5500 (currently +4500)
While Clark has struggled recently after his hot summer, he is way too talented and with too high of a ceiling to open with odds this far down the board. He tends to thrive on “scoreable” par 72 courses where he can take advantage of the full complement of par 5 holes and can use his putting skill to go on birdie streaks. Throw in his drastically improved iron play and his past success in the desert and you have someone very live to win this week.
(0.45u) BetMGM
Si Woo Kim +6600 (currently +5500)
Though course history doesn’t matter much this week, there are few who have played better than Kim on this trio of courses. Kim is also one of those players who continually plays well on courses that he loves. Along with a win in 2021, he has also has three other top-22 finishes. Over the last year, he is the 8th best in this field in tee-to-green play, and in his five career American Express starts, he has gained 13.4 total strokes putting at the Stadium Course. He also arrives in excellent ball-striking form having gained over strokes last week at Waialae.
(0.40u) BetRivers
Other Outright Bets
Finishing Position Picks
Top 10
- Patrick Cantlay +120 (1u) – DraftKings
Top 20
Top 30 – BetRivers
- Sam Burns -110 (1.1u)
- Tony Finau -106 (1.1u)
- Eric Cole -106 (1.1u)
- J.T. Poston +105 (1u)
- Min Woo Lee +110 (1u)
- Wyndham Clark +125 (1.2u)
- S.W. Kim +138 (1u)
- Andrew Putnam +140 (1u)
- Adam Hadwin +150 (1u)
Top 40 – BetRivers
- Cam Davis +110 (1u)
- Taylor Montgomery +110 (1u)
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Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images