Zurich Classic Tips: Burns & Horschel to go well in New Orleans

The tour travels to the state of Louisiana, where they will compete for the Zurich Classic title at TPC Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans in the town of Avondale. Jamie Broadhurst returns with a preview and his best bets for the event. 

A bit of a change this week compared to the usual week on tour, the guys will pair up this week to play a team event, the second team event on the calendar to go with the unofficial QBE Shootout held in December.

The event offers good prize money and a ticket into some big tournaments for those that haven’t qualified for them already, like the PGA Championship and the Players Championship. So, the event always tends to attract a strong field year on year.

160 guys enter the field this week, which equivalates to 80 teams in total, the top 33 and ties of these 80 teams will advance through the 36-hole cut mark. The format of each round does differ which I will explain a bit later.

TPC Louisiana

• Par 72, 7425 yards
• Pete Dye design
• Bermuda Greens, overseed of Poa Annua
• 4 x Par 3s – ranging from 207-221 yards
• 10 x Par 4s – ranging from 390-490 yards. 6/10 par 4s under 450 yards, 4/10 are over this
• 4 x Par 5s – ranging from 548-585 yards – all reachable in 2 for most guys

We are faced again this week with a typical Pete Dye course, players will face; tricky bunkering around the greens and water hazards aplenty surrounding greens, especially on the tough set of Par 3s here which are typical to a Pete Dye layout. Fairways maybe tree lined here at TPC Louisiana but are very wide, so landing areas are categorically easier to hit that in regular weeks on tour.

The course is long and the wet conditions that are forecast over Friday/Saturday will make this week play even longer…

The Format

Thursday – Best Ball
Friday – Alternate Shot
CUT
Saturday – Best Ball
Sunday – Alternate Shot

We see these formats every 2 years in the Ryder Cup but here’s a little insight into how they both will play;

Best Ball (Four Ball)
In this format, each person in the group will play their own ball until the hole is complete. The player with the lowest score out of the pair will use their score on the scorecard.

Alternate Shot (Foursomes)
This format is literally what it is called. Each player will take it in turns in the pair to hit different shots with the one ball. For example, the first player will tee off, the second player will then hit the second shot and then this will carry on until the hole is complete.

The best ball format on Thursday and Saturday is where players need to make birdies/eagles as much as possible. The guys have 2 chances in their pairs to do this so the odds are always good that players will go low on these days.

Whereas on Friday and Sunday, each player in the group will need to be on their game with them both carrying a huge responsibility for the team. Players will need to grind on these days in they are to win the Zurich Classic.

The Field

With The Masters 2 weeks back, followed by the RBC Heritage last week being a designated event, we have a few of the top players missing out this week. However, we are still left with 4 of the World’s Top 10 and 9 of the World’s Top 20, so all in all it could be a lot worse.

Market favourites for this week is the team involving World Number 5 Xander Schauffele and World Number 4 Patrick Cantlay. These pair come here as defending champions after an absolute stellar victory last year where they hardly put a foot wrong all week. Xander finished 4th last week at the RBC Heritage and Cantlay finished 2nd, they are both having consistent years and their Strokes Gained stats are off the radar. This tournament has been won by teams 20/1 or under the last 3 years and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this team defend their title, at 4/1 however I think I will pass!

Second favourites in the market and the second pairing in single figures at 17/2 is Max Homa and Collin Morikawa who currently sit at World Number 7 and 13. 2 quality players whose approach play is their best assets which will very much come in handy this week. Collin has 3 top 30 finishes in his last 4 events and Homa has 2 top 10 finishes in his last 4 starts. Both enjoying some consistent golf, but with Homa missing the cut by 5 strokes last week, he may be showing some weakness in his game which I wouldn’t feel confident in backing in the alternate shot days of this tournament, especially at 17/2.

From a DP World Tour/European perspective, there are a couple of interesting duos teaming up this week. The two pairs that jump out at me are Victor Perez/Thomas Detry at 28/1 and Nicolai Hojgaard/Thorbjorn Olesen at 33/1. Perez, Detry and Hojgaard have been amongst the best ball strikers on the DP World Tour over the last few years, with Perez and Hojgaard picking up very creditable victories lately. They are both just dipping their toe in PGA Tour events this season for the first time with some decent results already, it will be interesting to see how they fair this week and ones I will keep an eye on for sure.  

Sam Burns/Billy Horschel – 22/1
Course Form (as a pair) – 2nd-T4th 

The first team I wrote down on my list as soon as I saw the prices. Course form, they have it ticked off and recent form is solid with Burns having a victory not so long back in the WGC Dell Match Play. 

Billy Horschel has not had the best of seasons that’s for sure, but he tends to be a horse for a course, and he definitely has an eye for it here as the last two years of results show with partner Sam Burns, plus the win he and Scott Piercy had in 2018. 

Billy also won this event in 2013 when the event was a standard stroke play one. Burns finished in solid fashion last week with a -6 round to finish -11, let’s just hope Billy used his missed cut opportunity to work on his game ready for a week he clearly loves! Out of the top 8 in the market, this is where the value is this week, the price will for sure come down so get on as soon as you can.

Kurt Kitayama/Taylor Montgomery – 22/1
Coure Form (as a pair) – Debut

A little short in the odds, yes, but what this pair will bring this week has the ingredients to shoot some really low numbers, especially in the alternate shot format. With Kurt’s unreal Off the Tee game and Montgomery’s clutch putting, I can see a good week for these guys.

I am taking a risk with Montgomery coming here for the first time in his career, but Monty is fresh off the Korn Ferry Tour with a bunch of prospect and Kitayama made the cut at his sole attempt here last year with Kiradech Aphibarnrat and is enjoying a rich spell of golf which saw him claim victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational a few weeks back, I think they are well worth the punt this week.

Sahith Theegala/Justin Suh 22/1
Course Form (as a pair) – Debut

Justin Suh has an 11th place finish in 2021 where he played with Doug Ghim where they shot a brilliant -9 on their third rounds. Sahith on the other hand has never competed here. However, his recent form is impressive and really consistent on some really tough golf courses.

He ranks in the top 5 for total birdies this season on the PGA Tour and is a mammoth from Tee to Green. His long game and scrambling mixed with Justin Suh’s red hot putter just like the above pair look to compliment each other perfect