New Orleans is not your typical golf destination, and the Zurich Classic of New Orleans is definitely not your typical PGA event.
Golfers skew their regular individual play for a rare team event. The first member of the team is chosen based on the Tour priority rankings, and then that person chooses a partner that must be either a PGA Tour member or someone who has earned entry into the tournament through an exemption.
The teams of two compete by playing fourball in the first and third rounds and alternate shot for the second and fourth rounds. And each member of the winning team gets $1 million, 400 FedEx points, and invites to the PGA Championship and THE PLAYERS Championship.
Pretty nice incentives.
Favorites to Win the Zurich Classic
- Hovland/Morikawa (+650)
- Cantlay/Schauffele (+800)
- Palmer/Scheffler (+900)
- Leishman/Smith (+1000)
- Burns/Horschel (+1200)
- Fleetwood/Garcia (+1600)
- Lowry/Poulter (+2200)
- Gooch/Homa (+2200)
- Neimann/Pereira (+2500)
- Varner III/Watson (+2500)
The best duo on paper is Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa, but this will be the first time they’ve ever played together as a team, and they really don’t complement each other. Neither is great at putting, and that could come back to bite the pre-tournament favorites.
Ryan Palmer is a wildcard, but it feels like anyone could team up with Scottie Scheffler and be in the mix on Sunday. Scheffler has won four of his last six starts, including back-to-back wins at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and a little tournament called the Masters.
Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith also deserve to be mentioned among the best bets this weekend. They won Zurich Classic as a team a year ago, Smith won it with a different partner in 2017, and Smith won THE PLAYERS Championship in March and just finished T3 at Augusta.
Best Value Bets
A solid choice that is paying +3500 is the twosome of Tyrrell Hatton and Danny Willett. Willet is excellent around the green, and Hatton is superb when he’s on the green.
As complements to one another’s game, no duo might be a better fit than these two. Hatton finished top-10 at the WGC Match Play in March, and Willett was just T12 at the Masters.
Paying +4500 should have you giving Keegan Bradley and Brendan Steele a closer look. They play together all the time, and they both know each other’s strengths and weaknesses better than any team in the field. They also finished T4 at this tournament last year, just two off the lead.
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