2024 Zurich Classic Preview: Everything You Need To Know About TPC Louisiana

Another week of PGA TOUR action brings us to TPC Louisiana, with the 2024 Zurich Classic next on tap. Compare Zurich Classic odds at the best sports betting sites to increase your potential PGA TOUR golf betting payouts. Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Xander Schauffele, and Patrick Cantlay headline the project as the top groups for this upcoming tournament.

Time for a quick break from standard stroke play as the PGA TOUR heads to TPC Louisiana. The 2024 Zurich Classic is on tap, and we’ll attempt to navigate this two-man team event with all the info, trends, and stats you need to know about this nuanced tournament. It’s become polarizing, as golf fans either hate the change of pace and choose to skip watching and/or betting on it, or they enjoy seeing some of the game’s best pair up in a refreshing new format. I fall into the latter camp.

I really like this event, and it’s continued to attract some very competitive fields over its short history. The winning duo each receives $1.5M, 400 FedEx Cup points, and invites to the upcoming PGA Championship, Sentry Tournament of Champions, and THE PLAYERS Championship. It proved to be a life-changing week for 2023 champions Davis Riley and Nick Hardy, and it will hold every competitor’s full attention yet again in 2024. It’s also a great opportunity to find an edge in the golf betting market and in DFS, with many not knowing exactly how to approach research or handicapping Zurich Classic odds. That is (hopefully) where we step in!

ZURICH CLASSIC ODDS: THE FAVORITES

Find golfers priced lower than 15-1 below. Scroll to the bottom for complete outright odds at legal U.S. sportsbooks.

THE FIELD AT A GLANCE

There are 160 players in the field this week, technically the largest of the season. The field will be grouped into 80 teams of two, with the top 33 pairs and ties advancing through the 36-hole cut.

After having the Masters and the RBC Heritage Signature events in successive weeks, this quirky team play set up serves as a natural bye week for elite players like Scottie Scheffler. Even still, the field features four OWGR top-10 players, highlighted by Zurich Classic first-timer Rory McIlroy (alongside Ryder Cup teammate Shane Lowry), and the 2022 champion duo of Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele.

In addition, other marquee pairings at the top of the projected Zurich Classic odds board include Sahith Theegala & Will Zalatoris, Corey Conners & Taylor Pendrith, Collin Morikawa & Kurt Kitayama, and Adam Hadwin & Nick Taylor. The field also features a record three brother duos – the Fitzpatricks, Højgaards, and Coodys.

Notably absent this year is Louisiana-native, Sam Burns, who is expecting his first child. Burns and Billy Horschel have been a formidable duo at the event, finishing top-10 in each of the last three years. With big shoes to fill, Horschel partners up with Tyson Alexander.

Beyond the defending champions of Hardy & Riley, Schauffele & Cantlay are the only other past champion pair returning this week. Ryan Palmer, Billy Horschel, Nick Watney, and Scott Piercy are past Team Stroke Play winners of this event, who are back in the field with new partners this year.

TEAM STROKE PLAY FORMAT & FIELD OVERVIEW

• Thursday: Four-Ball (Best Ball)
• Friday: Foursomes (Alternate Shot)
• CUT: Top 33 Pairs & Ties Advance
• Saturday: Four-Ball (Best Ball)
• Sunday: Foursomes (Alternate Shot)

Here is the official explanation from the Zurich Classic website of how the format is broken down:

For Four-Ball play, the players on each team will each play his own ball throughout the entirety of the round, with the best score on each hole recorded. Example: On the first hole, both golfers on each team tee off. Player A pars the hole and Player B birdies it. The team will be credited with a birdie.

For Foursomes play, players will rotate tee shots. One player will hit the tee shots on all the odd-numbered holes, and the other will hit the tee shot on even-numbered holes. Example: Player A and Player B are partners. On the first hole, Player A tees off; Player B plays the second shot; Player A plays the third shot; and so on until the ball is holed. The total strokes taken will result in the team’s score for that hole.

Last year, Davis Riley & Nick Hardy won with a final score of -30. They separated from the field by playing the more challenging Alternate Shot format at -13 over two rounds and followed a rare formula of balanced play between Best Ball and Alternate Shot. Typically, we have seen championship teams with the greatest birdie-making upside separate themselves in Best Ball and tread water in Alternate Shot.

INTRODUCTION TO TPC LOUISIANA

TPC Louisiana is a Pete Dye-designed, 7,400-yard Par 72 located in Avondale. If TPC courses share an identity of fan-friendly, templated scoring holes – and Pete Dye Courses share a tendency for positional angles off-the-tee and around-the-green emphasis – this course definitely leans more towards the former. There are persistent bunkers and some fun, random hazards like trees in the center of the fairway that have Dye’s hands all over them. But, there are plenty of scoring opportunities on this course.

Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of players, both individually and in team play, find success here despite not being strong off the tee. I would view this as a glorified second-shot course that emphasizes strong approach play to avoid greenside water and bunkers.

The Zurich Classic was a standard Individual Stroke Play event from 1938-2016. Stuard won the 2016 Zurich Classic, and if Stuard wins an event, it needs to be gutted and reinvented completely to protect the TOUR’s integrity. He has not won a TOUR event since.

For TPC Louisiana course specs, hole-by-hole breakdown with yardages, and past Zurich Classic winners with their pre-tournament odds, visit our Zurich Classic odds page.

Editor’s Note

EVENT HISTORY AND COURSE COMPS

Since 2017, the Zurich Classic has been contested as a team event. There are 20 individuals who have multiple T15 finishes over the last five years: Billy Horschel, Ryan Palmer, Charley Hoffman, Nick Watney, Jason Dufner, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Hadwin, Nick Taylor, Martin Laird, Troy Merritt, Taylor Moore, Matthew NeSmith, Aaron Rai, David Lipsky, Scott Piercy, Davis Riley, Keith Mitchell, Kevin Kisner, and Scott Brown. 

Horschel, Palmer, and Cantlay are the only players in this year’s field with three career top-10 finishes in the team play format since 2017.

Billy Horschel was a winner of this event in 2018 with Scott Piercy and also won individually at the 2013 Zurich Classic. Horschel has played alongside Sam Burns each of the last three years, contending each time with finishes of T11, T4, and second. He hasn’t finished worse than T14 since 2018 and enters in sneaky great form, ranking No. 2 in SG: TOT over the last 36 rounds leading in. He’s always a consideration at the Zurich Classic on the merit of course history alone, but he will have his work cut out for him this week with a new and unproven partner in Tyson Alexander.

Course Comps

This is definitely a subjective week to use the good old-fashioned eye test over any hyper-analyzed start modeling. If we want to reference some recent courses that reward a similar style of play, I like TPC Twin Cities, Detroit Golf Club, TPC Sawgrass, Austin CC, TPC Craig Ranch, and TPC Scottsdale as a collection of TPC-style and/or Pete Dye Courses that favor plus-distance and reward the best iron players that given week.

The 3M Open leaderboard continues to jump out from a correlation standpoint. Martin Laird, Sam Ryder, Billy Horschel, Beau Hossler, Garrick Higgo, Cameron Champ, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Keith Mitchell, Brandt Snedeker, Pat Perez, Tony Finau, and Scott Piercy all finished top 20 at both over the last three years.

KEY STATS TO CONSIDER

• Recent Form (SG: TOT, SG: T2G)
• Birdies or Better Gained
• SG: T2G (>7,400 Yard Courses)
• P4: 450-500
• SG: P – Bermuda
• Comp Course History

I’ll be ditching the advanced metrics and taking a subjective route this week. I’m mainly focused on comfortable pairings that are comprised of the players with the best total form (SG: TOT L36). I’m also looking for players who are aggressive enough to generate the most birdie opportunities (Birdies or Better Gained), as this will help teams create separation on the Four-Ball days.

The top 10 teams in terms of average SG: TOT rankings are:

• McIlroy & Lowry
• Hoge & McNealy
• Theegala & Zalatoris
• Schauffele & Cantlay
• Conners & Pendrith
• Morikawa & Kitayama
• Hadwin & Taylor
• Mitchell & Dahmen
• Griffen & Montgomery
• Malnati & Knox

The top 10 teams in terms of Birdies or Better Gained are:

• Schauffele & Cantlay
• Conners & Pendrith
• Morikawa & Kitayama
• McIlroy & Lowry
• Hoge & McNealy
• Hadwin & Taylor
• Piercy & Hall
• Hossler & Ryder
• Ramey & Trainer
• Yuan & Dou

With this being a team format, there is merit to the thought that you are only as strong as your weakest link, as you cannot excel in alternate shot on Friday and Sunday single handedly. With that in mind, the top 10 players who represent the second-best combination of SG: TOT + Birdie or Better Gained on their teams are: Shane Lowry, Maverick McNealy, Will Zalatoris, Taylor Pendrith, Kurt Kitayama, Patrick Cantlay, Taylor Montgomery, Adam Hadwin, Andrew Novak, and Joel Dahmen.

Team Reshuffling

This is not your average week on the PGA TOUR schedule. Standard strokes gained stats go by the wayside in favor of more subjective metrics like team chemistry. While the list of individuals who found success here doesn’t favor one type of player in particular, there seems to be a stronger trend of duos who have played well before. The following groups have played together multiple times at this event with at least one top-10 finish together:

• Cantlay & Schauffele
• Hoffman & Watney
• Hadwin & Taylor
• Hardy & Riley
• NeSmith & Moore
• LIpsky & Rai

Putting team camaraderie to the test, these groups have each had individual success, but will be playing the event as a team for the first time:

• Dahmen & Mitchell
• Morikawa & Kitayama
• Horschel & Alexander
• Hoge & McNealy
• Theegala & Zalatoris

Correlated Stats

While I won’t be running a model this week, there is still historical Strokes Gained data available at TPC Louisiana from its individual stroke play days. Based on the correlation charts below, below we can see Bogeys Avoided and SG: OTT are less important on this track than TOUR average. On the other hand, SG: Ball Striking, SG: APP, and SG: Par 5 see the biggest boost in importance at TPC Louisiana.

TEAM SPOTLIGHT: RYAN FOX & GARRICK HIGGO

I couldn’t find a picture of Garrick Higgo and Ryan Fox together, so we’ll have to settle for the last time a South African and New Zealander battled for a trophy alongside each other. I knew next to nothing about the sport of rugby before watching the 2023 World Cup between the All Blacks and Springboks in New Zealand last October. But I learned the history of competition between these two countries runs as deep as any other in the world of sports.

That deep-rooted rivalry between two Rugby-first nations makes the Higgo and Fox pairing an unlikely one. But I’m drawn to a partnership between two players who constantly will try to one-up each other. In Team Match Play, being comfortable with your teammate – and not saying “I’m sorry, partner” when you miss a six-foot birdie opportunity – is the end-all, be-all. With Higgo and Fox, I expect both players to come in motivated to outperform the other, with no fear of letting the other player down.

As far as course fit goes, both players bring elite length off the tee, which should translate well on this long and soft course. Fox makes his debut, and he enters in promising form, contending for much of the 2024 Masters in his previous start. Higgo has also displayed a return to form lately in 2024, and he impressed with a T4 finish in his 2022 Zurich Classic debut.

All the Presidents Cup attention is on the Canadian hopefuls this year with Mike Weir tapped as captain. These two prospects have the talent to make the International Team roster, and have some work to prove that they can thrive in the Team Play format.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR AT THE 2024 ZURICH CLASSIC

I’m not going to attempt to bucket these team pairings into projected pricing tiers this week. In lieu of any short-listed player pools, I’ve pulled together the below ranker chart to evaluate each team based on average trending form and birdie making ability entering this event. When odds are released, I’ll compare against these rankings to identify where the greatest value lies. At a glance, I would anticipate Higgo & Fox, Montgomery & Griffin, Thompson & Novak, and Ryder & Hossler as being potential values on the betting board.

When Zurich Classic odds open, I’m eyeing a longer card centered around mid-tier pairings like Higgo & Fox, Taylor & Hadwin, Ryder & Hossler, and Detry & MacIntyre. While Cantlay & Schauffele and McIlroy & Lowry project as prohibitive favorites, this format lends itself to some surprise longshots catching fire, similar to what we saw with Riley & Hardy a year ago.

It’s a good week to take a step back from the stat modeling and just enjoy a fun change of pace format, hoping for the best that we can get a Sunday sweat to look forward to.

I’ll be back Wednesday with my official betting card. Best of luck navigating 2023 Zurich Classic odds!

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2024 ZURICH CLASSIC ODDS

With a Monday finish at the RBC Heritage, most books have not opened Zurch Classic odds, as of Monday morning. DraftKings Sportsbook was the first regulated sportsbook to do so. Here are the opening odds. This section will be updated as more sportsbooks offer odds.

Players	DraftKings Opening Odds
Patrick Cantlay / Xander Schauffele	+500
Rory McIlroy / Shane Lowry	+800
Will Zalatoris / Sahith Theegala	+1100
Collin Morikawa / Kurt Kitayama	+1600
Tom Hoge / Maverick McNealy	+2500
Matt Fitzpatrick / Alex Fitzpatrick	+2500
Taylor Pendrith / Corey Conners	+3500
Rasmus Højgaard / Nicolai Højgaard	+3500
Taylor Montgomery / Ben Griffin	+4000
Sepp Straka / Brice Garnett	+4000
Nick Taylor / Adam Hadwin	+4000
Keith Mitchell / Joel Dahmen	+4000
Brice Garnett / Sepp Straka	+4000
Thomas Detry / Robert MacIntyre	+4500
Doug Ghim / Chan Kim	+4500
Davis Thompson / Andrew Novak	+4500
Daniel Berger / Victor Perez	+4500
Kevin Yu / C.T. Pan	+5000
Billy Horschel / Tyson Alexander	+5000
Beau Hossler / Sam Ryder	+5000
Andrew Putnam / Joe Highsmith	+5000
Aaron Rai / David Lipsky	+5000
Thorbjorn Olesen / Matt Wallace	+6500
Taylor Moore / Matt NeSmith	+6500
K.H. Lee / Michael Kim	+6500
Greyson Sigg / Chesson Hadley	+6500
Gary Woodland / Lee Hodges	+6500
Garrick Higgo / Ryan Fox	+6500
Austin Eckroat / Chris Gotterup	+6500
Steve Stricker / Matt Kuchar	+8000
Nate Lashley / Rafael Campos	+8000
Luke List / Henrik Norlander	+8000
Kevin Streelman / Martin Laird	+8000
Harry Hall / Justin Lower	+8000
Dylan Wu / Justin Lower	+8000
Davis Riley / Nick Hardy	+8000
Chandler Phillips / Jacob Bridgeman	+8000
Carson Young / Ben Martin	+8000
Ben Silverman / Kevin Dougherty	+8000
Zach Johnson / Ryan Palmer	+10000
Vincent Norrman / Jorge Campillo	+10000
Nico Echavarria / Max Greyserman	+10000
Alex Smalley / Matti Schmid	+10000
Thriston Lawrence / Aldrich Potgieter	+13000
Ryan Brehm / Mark Hubbard	+13000
Justin Suh / Rico Hoey	+13000
Jhonattan Vegas / Bronson Burgoon	+13000
J.J. Spaun / Hayden Buckley	+13000
Erik Barnes / Harrison Endycott	+13000
Chad Ramey / Martin Trainer	+13000
Carl Yuan / Zecheng Dou	+13000
Sam Stevens / Paul Barjon	+15000
Peter Malnati / Russell Knox	+15000
Mac Meissner / Austin Smotherman	+15000
Hayden Springer / Tom Whitney	+15000
Eric Cole / Russ Cochran	+15000
Cameron Champ / MJ Daffue	+15000
Ben Kohles / Patton Kizzire	+15000
Vince Whaley / Adam Long	+20000
Troy Merritt / Robert Streb	+20000
S.H. Kim / Sangmoon Bae	+20000
Robby Shelton / Wilson Furr	+20000
Pierceson Coody / Parker Coody	+20000
Kelly Kraft / Kevin Tway	+20000
Jimmy Stanger / Adrien Dumont de Chassart	+20000
Zac Blair / Patrick Fishburn	+25000
Roger Sloan / Josh Teater	+25000
Luke Donald / Francesco Molinari	+25000
Callum Tarren / David Skinns	+25000
Brandon Wu / James Nicholas	+25000
Trace Crowe / Harry Higgs	+30000
Scott Gutschewski / Jonathan Byrd	+30000
Norman Xiong / Ryan McCormick	+30000
Kevin Chappell / Jason Dufner	+30000
Chez Reavie / Brandt Snedeker	+30000
Charley Hoffman / Nick Watney	+30000
Alejandro Tosti / Ted Potter Jr.	+30000
Raul Pereda / Austin Cook	+40000
Kevin Kisner / Scott Brown	+40000
Ben Taylor / Sean O’Hair	+40000
Blaine Hale Jr. / Paul Haley II	+50000