The Tour heads to Louisiana this week for the Zurich Classic. This is back-to-back Pete Dye courses, the third in the past six weeks, so there’s some continuity around profiling the style of golfer that’s likely to find success this week. The major curveball to the week is that this is a team event.
Breaking up the regular season grind, this will be year five of The Zurich Classic as a team event. We’ll begin with 80 teams of two playing a best-ball round on Thursday, followed by a round of alternate shot play on Friday before the field is cut to the top 33 duos and ties for the weekend. Cut makers will go back to best-ball on Saturday before the event finishes with a final round of alternate shot on Sunday.
I’m all for wrinkles in the schedule to break up the monotonous stroke-play format we’re accustomed to. However, the combination of a Pete Dye track, notorious for leveling the playing field, no shotlink data, and two rounds of alternate shot makes this a better watch than a betting event, so I’ll have a light card this week.
For more course details, check out Ron’s course preview. It’s the best in the business, bar none. Here’s an important tidbit about TPC Louisiana:
As is typical, Dye created a “thinking man’s course” that demands precision around the water hazards and bunkers. Many holes, such as the par-4 16th, present a risk/reward option. It challenges players to determine how much they are willing to risk to have a better scoring opportunity. It’s a very scoreable course, as evidenced by last year’s record winning score, along with each of the prior four winning pairs reaching 20-under or better.
Statistically, off the tee seems not to matter as much here. Fairways are over 34 yards wide on average, and the rough is non-penal. The average driving distance ranking for the first 11 winners here at TPC Louisiana was only 32nd, while for driving accuracy, it was only 38th.
Before the format change to the team event, Strokes Gained Approach and Greens in Regulation were important for success here as seven of the 11 winners ranked inside the top-10 for GIR%. TPC Louisiana regularly ranked inside the top 10 easiest approach courses on Tour. Including the four par 3s that are each between 200-225 yards, over 30% of approach shots will come from over 200 yards making quality long iron play paramount to success.
Players can get away with shaky around-the-green play here as it consistently ranked among the easiest short-game courses on the PGA Tour. Six of the last seven winners before 2017 ranked inside the top 10 for putting average, and each of the last four gained at least 4.2 strokes putting.
My goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting this week, though again, my card will be lighter than usual.
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There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game, so I’ll share my opinion on the best way to bet on each golfer in my player pool at this week’s event. When pricing out finishing position bets (T5, T10, T20s, etc.), I’ll often lean towards BetMGM even if there’s a better number elsewhere because of MGM’s advantageous dead-heat rules. So know the rules of the books that you’re betting on!
Please take advantage of the Discord feature and community. It’s the best way to get up-to-the-minute lines and advice, and if you need help getting started, please reach out. That’s where my full card will be posted, along with any live in-tournament bets from myself or other contributors. Betting markets are fluid, but I’ll note the best number available at the time of this writing.
*Betting lines are accurate when posted in Discord.
Noonan’s Zurich Classic Betting Targets
Taylor Montgomery & Kurt Kitayama
The top teams in this field are extremely enticing, but personally, I can’t stomach the prices. We’re still dealing with a highly variant sport on a course that can bring the field closer together, so I’m going a bit down the board for my first selection of Montgomery and Kitayama.
Both have plus-distance and rank inside the top ten in birdie or better rate over the past 50 rounds. The key proximity range of 200+ yards bodes well for both plays, particularly Kitayama, who won at Bay Hill on the back of elite long iron play.
Trey Mullinax & Scott Stallings
It’s not difficult to talk me into Trey Mullinax when we’re in the southeast, and distance is a factor, so when I saw BetRivers open this duo up at 90/1, I was sold. The number has been beaten down closer to 50 now, but I’m still interested in this streaky duo.
Scott Stallings is a notoriously streaky player, highlighted by his insane finish to the 2022 season, where he ripped off three straight T10 or better finishes, with five of six T13 or better, including a solo second in the second round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs at the BMW Championship. He’s made four consecutive cuts, and while he hasn’t threatened the top ten, his T26 as a debutant at Augusta was impressive.
Trey Mullinax’s recent form is quite abysmal, but he did finish T8 at Bay Hill, where his distance advantage shined. He’s also been more of a course fit over form player. He won the 2022 Barbasol Championship after missing three of four cuts leading into the event, so I’m not overly concerned that he’s struggling of late. I am encouraged by his solid iron play last week at the RBC Heritage, and I’m hopeful he found something that can translate here this week.
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