Breaking up the regular season grind, the Tour heads to Louisiana this week for the Zurich Classic. This will be year six 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. 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. Unfortunately, the format makes it a tricky week to handicap things.
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.
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Remember to check out the Rabbit Hole, our customizable stat database that can help you pair down your player pool each week.
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f684b2f3d4218ee06dad551b3bb2074bNoonan’s Zurich Classic Betting Targets
Nick Taylor/Adam Hadwin
Last year’s runners-up are going to seal the deal this season. The Canadian duo complement each other well in terms of overall skill set, and both have the ability to go low in scoring conditions that require it.
Hadwin, in particular, thrives when birdies are required. Per The Rabbit Hole, he ranks ninth in this week’s field in strokes gained total in easy and very easy scoring conditions, while Taylor ranks 10th in putting in the same split. Taylor has two wins on Tour since last year’s event, winning a low-scoring WM Phoenix Open along with his iconic win at last year’s Canadian Open.
Hadwin hasn’t found the winner’s circle since 2017, but his baseline strokes gained output this year is the best since that 2017 season. He’s added distance, and it’s paying off with three T6 or better finishes in 11 starts this season. Taylor’s approach numbers and putting splits are the best of his career as well.
- To Win: 40/1 DraftKings