The PGA Tour’s only official team event hits the Big Easy with the start of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Thursday.
The field includes three top-10 players, with Rory McIlroy making his event debut alongside Ryder Cup teammate Shane Lowry. Our golf experts preview the event and provide their favorite prop picks along with best bets to win this week.
ZURICH CLASSIC
Location: Avondale, La., April 25-28
Course: TPC Louisiana (Par 72, 7,425 Yards)
Purse: $8.9M (Winners: $1.286M each)
Defending Champions: Davis Riley, Nick Hardy
FedEx Cup Leader: Scottie Scheffler
HOW TO FOLLOW
TV: Thursday-Friday: 3:30-6:30 p.m. (Golf Channel); Saturday-Sunday: 12:45-2:45 p.m. (GC), 3-6 p.m. (CBS)
Streaming (ESPN+): Thursday, 8 a.m.-6:30 p.m. ET; Friday, 9:15 a.m.-6:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m.
X: @Zurich_Classic
PROP PICKS
–Daniel Berger/Victor Perez to Beat Davis Thompson/Andrew Novak (+115 at DraftKings): With the difficulty of projecting how most tandems will fair in this format, we looked for the best value and return. Berger has mostly struggled since returning from his long layoff due to a back injury, but he has made consecutive cuts and is teamed with the steady Perez, ranked 95th in the world. Thompson is 120th after a T18 at Corales last week, while Novak has dipped to 155th with a T58 and T53 in his past two starts.
–Nick Taylor/Adam Hadwin to Make Cut (-175 at BetMGM): Hadwin is coming off a T42 at the RBC Heritage, where Taylor finished T49. TPC Louisiana is a lengthy track and neither Canadian is exactly a bomber, but both are excellent ball-strikers who should make for a very consistent pairing. The Taylor/Hadwin pairing is the book’s second biggest liability to win this week.
–Patrick Cantlay/Xander Schauffele Top 10 (-190 at DraftKings): Not only are the good friends and Ryder Cup teammates the lone pairing of top-10 players, they’ve won this even before and were in contention to repeat last year until a disappointing final round. It’s difficult to see them not in contention, much less falling outside of the top-10 in the 80-team field.
2024 Prop Picks Record: 22-25-1
BEST BETS
–Patrick Cantlay/Xander Schauffele (+450 at BetMGM) followed their victory in 2022 with a T4 showing last year and are the only pairing of top-10 players in the field.
–Rory McIlroy/Shane Lowry (+750) have the top-ranked player in the field, with No. 2 McIlroy making his event debut along with Ryder Cup teammate Lowry.
–Sahith Theegala/Will Zalatoris (+850) are both winners on tour and young stars with the ability to go very low. This pairing is the biggest liability for the book as they lead the field with 16.3 percent of the total bets and 24.8 percent of the money since opening at +1000.
–Collin Morikawa/Kurt Kitayama (+1200) are led by Morikawa coming off a T3 at the Masters and a ninth-place finish last week. Kitayama, a fellow Las Vegas resident, has a high of T19 at the Players in making four consecutive cuts.
NOTES
–This is the seventh year the Zurich has been a team event. The field is comprised of 80 two-player teams that will play fourball in the first and third rounds and foursomes (alternate shot) for the second and fourth rounds.
–Each player from the winning team will earn 400 FedEx Cup points, a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour through 2026 and entry into the three remaining signature events this year.
–Horschel, who won his first stroke-play event in two years last week, teamed with Scott Piercy to win in New Orleans in 2018. He also won the Zurich Classic as an individual event in 2013.
–Hardy and Riley set the tournament record of 30-under 258 in each claiming their first PGA Tour titles last year.
–This is the second of three events that count toward the Aon Swing 5 for the next signature event, with the five players not otherwise exempt who earn the most points in those three events qualifying for the Wells Fargo Championship.
–Charley Hoffman/Nick Watney and Kevin Tway/Kelly Kraft are the only pairs who have competed together in all six previous editions of the team format.
–Field Level Media