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 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.
All of the courses being utilized do share some of the same characteristics. Each has four scoreable par-5s and is under 7,200 yards. Each has poa trivialis greens and ryegrass fairways surrounded by non-penal dormant Bermuda rough. Each is also amongst the easiest annual courses in the PGA Tour rotation.
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
Ten of the top 19 players in the world rankings are set to tee it up in the California desert at the American Express in what might be the best field ever assembled here. The headliners include #2 Scottie Scheffler, #4 Patrick Cantlay, #5 Jon Rahm, #6 Xander Schauffele and #7 Will Zalatoris. Also in attendance are a pair of three-time winners from last season, Tony Finau and Sam Burns. Other notables include Tom Kim, Cameron Young, Sungjae Im, Aaron Wise, Taylor Montgomery, Jason Day, Sahith Theegala and Taylor Pendrith.
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. The main reason for this is how long rounds tend to take with an amateur basically tagging along and hacking their way around the course.
American Express Betting Narratives and Strategies
Unique Model Weights
- SG: Short Courses
- SG: Easy Scoring Courses
- SG: West Coast
There is definitely no need to overanalyze and get complicated this week when looking for the right type of player. We should be looking for “birdie-makers” with high upside who are solid on approach and can get hot with the putter. The two highest players on the betting board, Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm, 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 higher than +1100. With favorites overwhelmingly winning most events over the past year, I think we all have to adjust to that trend. 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 13 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 ten of the top 19 players in the world in attendance,
All three golf courses seem to cater to different 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 is SG: Easy Scoring. There are certain golfers like Will Zalatoris who simply do not make enough birdie putts to contend in these high-scoring “putting contest” events. While he did finish sixth here last year, he is a player that I am fading in all formats this week. Each of the unique splits has a much higher week 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.
Weather Forecast – La Quinta, California
The 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 the individual splits will be posted on my Twitter feed, with the final model exclusively published here for subscribers.
Outright Betting Selections
*Lines accurate at the time of publication.
Patrick Cantlay +1100
Cantlay ranks first in my model this week, and by a sizeable margin. He has been so close to winning this event (which he calls one of his favorites) with three career top-10s including a runner-up in 2021. He blows away the field in gaining strokes on “easy scoring” courses, averaging 2.50 in 48 career rounds. This number is also 1.36 strokes above his baseline average. The California native thrives out west in environments such as we will see in the desert this week. Since 2016 he ranks first in birdies or better per round here. His all-around game combined with his ability to catch fire with his putter make him a perfect fit for this course.
(2.18u) BetMGM
Cameron Young +2800 (currently +2200)
Though seemingly a better fit on longer courses, the lack of any penal rough at PGA West should allow Young to remain aggressive off of the tee and position himself for shorter wedges into most holes. Still looking for his first Tour victory, he was in contention last year until the hazards at the Stadium Course derailed his chances. His approach game is very underrated as he finished 10th best in the model. He is a steaky putter who should thrive on these pure “carpet-like” greens that are very similar to his preferred bentgrass surface.
(0.85u) DraftKings
Taylor Montgomery +4500
Montgomery continues to produce week after week. He has played in eight Tour events this season. He has finished in the top-15 in seven of them. And this is with losing on approach in half of these. He has taken over the mantle of “best putter in the world” gaining an average of 1.23 strokes in his last 28 rounds. And with the American Express being a putting contest, there is no golfer who can sink as many as he has proven. Finally, in his young career, he has thrived on many of these courses that have easy scoring conditions, ranking 4th best in this field by gaining 1.91 strokes per round.
(0.53u) BetMGM
Cameron Davis +6600
Though Davis struggled with short game at last week’s Sony Open, losing 3.9 strokes, his ball-striking was brilliant as he gained 7.4. He has had great success at this venue with a third-place finish in 2021 and two top-30s before that. Similar to Young, he likes to be aggressive with his driver which has little downside at these courses. Davis ranks in the top-10 in birdie or better rate and is excellent in the short to mid-iron approach ranges. I would be very surprised if he wasn’t in contention on Sunday.
(0.36u) BetRivers
Finishing Position Picks
Top 10
- Patrick Cantlay +120 (1u) – DraftKings
Top 20
- Cameron Young +110 (1u) – DraftKings
- Sungjae Im +110 (1u) – FanDuel
- Tom Kim +125 (1u) – FanDuel
Top 30 – All BetRivers
- Sam Burns -115 (1.2u)
- Cameron Davis +110 (1.2u)
- Tom Hoge +110 (1u)
- Taylor Montgomery +110 (1.3u)
- Andrew Putnam +138 (1u)
Top 40
- K.H. Lee -105 (1.1u) – FanDuel
- Sahith Theegala -105 (1.1u) – FanDuel
- Adam Hadwin +110 (1u) – BetRivers
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Photo by Harry How/Getty Images