American Express

American Express

It was another week of treading water for us at the Sony Open as a full place for JT Poston saw us all but recoup our investment on the week.

Heading in to Sunday it looked like we were going to draw a blank, however JT and his playing partners, which included another of our selections Harris English produced a scintillating final day charge with Poston posting a 61. Unfortunately English finished one shot shy of the places but allowing for where we were heading in to day four I can’t complain too much!

The event itself was won by Grayson Murray who saw off Ben an and Keegan Bradley in a play off. Murray who had only returned to the PGA Tour this year after a successful 2023 on the Korn Ferry now gets access to all the riches the PGA Tour offers including entry to Signature events and a spot in the Masters.

Murray of course has rubbed plenty of people up the wrong way over the years, however after battling off course demons he finally appears to be at peace with himself now and as is often the case that seeped in to his golf game allowing his undoubted talent to shine through.

So after its two week stint in Hawaii the PGA Tour moves across to Palm Springs, California for the start of the traditional ‘West Coast Swing’ played at this time of year with the first event of this stretch being the American Express.

This event is the first of two Pro Am events in a three week stretch [The other being the AT & T National] with both events played across three courses.

As has always historically been the case the event rotates over three courses with the players playing one round each on The Stadium Course, The Nicklaus Tournament course and La Quinta over the first three days with The Stadium Course then hosting the final round.

The American Express first debuted on tour as the Palm Springs Classic in 1960. Since then it has gone through many guises and course changes and is most synonymous with the late Bob Hope who was the tournament host for many years, with the event being known as The Bob Hope Desert Classic and then the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic for many a year.

Over the more recent years the tournament has struggled to find a long term lead sponsor and after stints from Humana and CareerBuilder it found itself without a title sponsor in 2019 and with its future in real jeopardy.
Fortunately however it was announced at the back end of 2019 that American Express had signed a ‘multiyear’ deal to take over as lead sponsor of the event and initially Phil Mickelson was installed as tournament host with the aim of helping the event regain a profile more akin to its previous heyday. Now though of course Mickelson is no longer in that role for obvious reasons.

Despite the absence of last years winner Jon Rahm the event has attracted a strong a field this year with the market headed up by Scottie Scheffler. The Texan is then followed by Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Sungjae Im and Tom Kim.

COURSES

The courses used this year will be as follows;

The Stadium Course
The Nicklaus Tournament Course
La Quinta

The Courses used for the event have changed over the years and the current rotation has been in play for the last four editions.

The Stadium Course is the current host course and having had a brief stint in the rotation in the mid 1980s was reintroduced in 2016, so this will be its fifth year in use of late.

The Stadium Course is a Pete Dye design so it is certainly worth looking at form across other Pete Dye courses used on tour with TPC Sawgrass being an obvious point of reference.

The Nicklaus Tournament Course was also added to the events course rotation in 2016 replacing the PGA West Nicklaus Private Course. Prior to 2020 the Nicklaus Tournament Course greens were changed to Tiff eagle Bermuda. In addition they were also expanded in size.

La Quinta Country Club has been the staple diet of the event for 50 years and, up until last year had been used with no breaks since 2010.

All players get to play one round on each course over the first three days before a 54 hole cut is made. The players who make the cut then play the final round at the Stadium Course.

Those betting in running should note that of the 3 courses La Quinta yields the lowest scoring average, whilst The Stadium Course is the toughest nut to crack.

The greens on all 3 courses are Bermuda.

While the current course rotation [with the exception of La Quinta missing out in 2021 due to Covid]] has only been in play for the last seven editions of the event it is worth noting that the now defunct PGA Tour Q School used to be played at the Stadium Course every other year and it is certainly worth cross referencing results from this event which was last played in 2012.

HISTORY

With the courses used for the event having undergone such a radical overhaul since 2016 it is probably not worth looking back further than that year.

The winners of the seven editions from 2016 have been as follows;

2023 Jon Rahm
2022 Hudson Swafford
2021 Si Woo Kim
2020 Andrew Landry
2019 Adam Long
2018 Jon Rahm
2017 Hudson Swafford
2016 Jason Dufner

With still fairly limited data to go on it is perhaps too early to say whether patterns in relation to these winners are coincidence, however in 2019 I noted that all of the first three winners had performed well on their previous start, which was their first one of the new calendar year.

In Dufner and Swafford’s case they had finished 9th & 13th respectively at the Sony Open the week before, whilst in Rahm’s case he finished 2nd at the Sentry ToC in 2018 before skipping the Sony Open.

2019 shock winner Adam Long though blew this blossoming trend out of the water completely as he had missed his previous three cuts on tour including at the Sony the week prior and 2020 winner Andrew Landry continued things in the same vein as he arrived here on the back of five straight missed cuts stretching back to the previous fall and was whatever price you liked!

Moving on 2021 winner Si Woo Kim, whilst not really threatening the top of the leaderboard at the Sony Open the week before had posted a solid 25th place finish in Honolulu, which had put him on a lot of peoples radar’s, including I’m pleased to say ours! Next up 2022 champion Swafford produced an under the radar 48th place at the Sony in his first start of 2022 the week before winning here, while last year Rahm won here on the back of his win a fortnight before at The Sentry.

Despite the lack of form coming in from the 2019 and 2020 winners one constant does remain though in that the last eight winners had all tee’d it up once previously in the calendar year, giving them a crucial ‘warm up’ edge over those who were dusting down the clubs for the first time that year.

Moving on and one trend, which has developed since the change in course roster in 2016 though, and which I can’t help thinking is not a coincidence, is that since the introduction of a Pete Dye course as the host course we have seen players more renowned for their prowess from tee to green and as ‘Ball strikers’ come out on top.

This is particularly the case with Dufner and Swafford, however Rahm is of course strong in all departments including this area, while if we look at the end of year stats for 2019 winner Adam Long it is the long game [if you pardon the pun] that he had flourished in that year rather on or around the green.

Looking at the 2020 leaderboard champion Andrew Landry’s strength comes in his accurate driving while Ancer, Scheffler, Straka and Burns who all finished prominently are all high quality ball strikers.

As for 2021 Champion Si Woo Kim in the Korean we of course had an out and out Pete Dye specialist who no doubt flourished here further due to the extra round on the Stadium Course that year.

Another point to note is that although this is a ‘West Coast’ event if we look at the final leaderboards over the past five years this is not an event dominated by players who hail from/are based in California or the surrounding states, in fact it is players from the Southern/Eastern states who have dominated here.

To back this up we can see that both Si Woo Kim and Landry are Texas based, as are Ancer and Ghim who finished top five in 2021 and Scheffler, who along with Ancer again finished in the top three in 2020.

Last year meanwhile Sea Island resident Davis Thompson chased home Rahm while Georgia and Carolina guys Chris Kirk and JT Poston featured prominently.

Adam Long hails from Louisiana and is based in the golfing mecca of Jupiter, Florida. Dufner is an Auburn man and Swafford is a Georgia man. In fact aside from Phil Mickelson the only other recognised Cali guys to make the top six here over recent years are Schauffele, Cantlay, Na, Steele and Lovemark. Something, which we can probably put down to the Bermuda greens.

From the point of correlating courses while we need to bear in mind Pete Dye tracks it is also noticeable that players who have performed well at the two Jack Nicklaus layouts used on the Tour have shown up well here.

To delve in to this further and of course two time winner here Jon Rahm is a specialist at Muirfield Village while 2021 champion here Si Woo Kim has an excellent Memorial record over recent years. Delving further and Denny McCarthy who came close to victory at the Memorial last year was sixth here in 2022. Meanwhile Chris Kirk triumphed at The Honda last year not long after finishing third here, 2022 Honda Champion Sepp Straka has a top five here and Lee Hodges posted top tens both here and at the Honda that same year.

Go further back and Jason Dufner and David Lingmerth who battled out the finish here in 2016 are both former champions at the Memorial.

Finally on this front one event on the Korn Ferry Tour has historically caught my eye, The Ellie Mae Classic At TPC Stonebrae, also in California.

To explain further if we look at the history of this event from 2015 to 2020 we will see that 2021 winner Si Woo Kim is a former champion at TPC Stonebrae while 2019 champion here Adam Long, finished fourth at the Ellie Mae Classic the year before, delve back a year further we will see that the players who finished first and second at the Ellie Mae in 2017, Martin Piller and Brandon Harkins, finished third and eighth respectively at the Amex a year later. Finally, 2015 Ellie Mae runner up Jamie Lovemark finished sixth here in 2016.

In 2021 with three of the four rounds played on the Pete Dye designed Stadium Course as opposed to two in previous years it made sense to focus more on form on other Dye tracks particularly TPC Sawgrass, which bears a lot of similarities to this weeks venue and was an obvious pointer and this lead us to Si Woo Kim. Even though the Stadium Course has reverted to hosting only two rounds again it is still worth of course cross referencing other Dye tracks.

With regards to previous course form and until 2020 there had been no pointers to any of the winners since changes to the course rota’s in 2016 as the best any of the four winners had managed previously on the current rotation was a 34th place from 2018 winner Jon Rahm. In 2020 though this changed as Landry had placed second here two years prior to his victory.

2021 winner Si Woo Kim had managed nothing better than 40th in two visits since 2016 however again we need to note that last years tweak to the rotation favoured him. For the last two years though we have had champions here who were bagging their second American Express trophies in the shape of Swafford and Rahm.

Whilst the addition of the Stadium Course to the rota has toughened things up slightly in terms of scoring this event is still basically a birdie fest and this can be seen by the fact that the winning number over the past seven years has been -27 -23 -26, -26, -22, -20 & -25 respectively.

WEATHER FORECAST

While there is a possibility of some rain on Sunday as a whole we look set for a week of sunshine with temperatures in the high 70s.

The wind, which occasionally can be an issue here does not look to be a factor this week with nothing over 10mph in the forecast so all in all conditions look perfect for low scoring.

As I always so though this could all change!

PICKS

I have gone with five players this week as follows;

JT POSTON – 33/1 – 2pts E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8 - FINISHED 11th

I shall start this week by going back to the well with Sunday’s Sony hero JT Poston.

Poston had started round four in Honolulu way off the pace on 6- under and heading for a mid-division finish. The rest though was history as JT scorched through the field with a round of 61 to post a sixth place finish to back up his fifth place the week before in Maui.

A great fortnights work for JT then and one that his bank manager will no doubt be delighted with.
Interestingly though rather than bank his dollars and rest up for his next big payday signature event JT has chosen to tee it up for the third week running in an event that he finished sixth in last year on the back of two solid if far less spectacular weeks in Hawaii. That tells me something in itself, that JT feels he is close to a win and wants to keep rolling while he is ‘hot’ on a set of courses he likes.

A two time winner on tour Poston’s second win came on another TPC Course at the John Deere Classic and interestingly for this week that victory was telegraphed after a runner up on a Pete Dye track at TPC River Highlands on his previous start.

A further look at Poston’s CV also gives us plenty more encouragement. Firstly his maiden tour title came at the Wyndham, which links nicely here through Si Woo Kim, while a third place in the desert at The Shriners last Fall gives us more form on a TPC track.

In addition in reference to Poston’s maiden win it is notable he shot 62 in the opening round of his previous start to again alert us to his strong form.

Finally on a week where conditions are expected to be ideal for scoring I am keen to have onside players who can go low and hole more than share in what may well turn in to a putting contest.

To sum up the case for Poston is right there in front of us and as someone who clearly knows how to stay hot when he gets hot I am happy to stick with him this week.

ADAM HADWIN – 55/1 - 1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8 - FINISHED 6th

Next cab off the rank this week is Adam Hadwin.

The Canadian had a spell from 2016 – 2019 in this event where he did everything here but win, posting four straight top ten finishes including two runner up’s and a third place. In addition in that run he memorably posted a 59 in 2017 at LaQuinta CC. More recently after missing the event in 2020, while Hadwin has cooled off here to a certain extent he has continued to perform solidly in the event posting finishes of 32, 25 and 18th last year.
Clearly then an event that will be circled on Adam’s calendar every year but what of his form of late and coming in to this week?

Well, looking back at Hadwin’s 2022-23 campaign and he did pretty much everything bar post that elusive second tour win, posting five top tens and two runner up finishes, including a play off defeat at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. More than enough to secure his spot in that all important top 50.

Having finished off his 2023 with a runner up spot at the Shriners, an event, which certainly links well here from a desert form point of view, Adam started off his 2024 with a strong week at The Sentry, finishing 14th and ranking second on the greens and 14th off the tee.

At the Sony however things went wrong for Hadwin on Friday as after ranking seventh in approach play on day one, he had a really poor day in all departments, with three dropped shots on his back nine causing him to miss the cut.

Frustration for the Canadian no doubt then as he left Honolulu. If we look though at his efforts in Hawaii in the four years he posted his top six finishes here we will see that on two of those occasions he finished well down the field, on one he had only played the Sentry finishing 32nd, while on another he was teeing it up for the first time in the calendar year. Clearly then, while it is nice we have the positive week at The Sentry to go on, what Adam does in Hawaii appears to have very little bearing on the player that will pitch up at the Amex.

Instead then I will focus on the fact that we have a player who produced arguably his most consistent season on the PGA Tour to date last year and with the comfort levels the top 50 spot gives him, will now be focused on bagging his second tour trophy.

Furthermore with this year’s Presidents Cup taking place in Canada I expect Adam to be really motivated to produce the big results needed to automatically qualify for the team.

All in all then Adam ticks all the boxes for me this week and he is a ‘must’ for my team.

JUSTIN SUH – 100/1 - 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1st 8 - FINISHED MC

Next up I will give a chance to another player I had on side last week, Justin Suh.

I made the case for Justin last week based on his strong finish to 2023 and that he is clearly a player on the up on the verge of a big breakthrough.

Unfortunately though after a poor Thursday even though the Californian rallied on Friday to shoot 67 he was packing his bags after two days.

On to this week then and why risk Suh again? Well in simple terms I can’t get away from the correlating course performances that are leaping off the page at me.

To expand further and firstly Justin’s initial big result on the PGA Tour last year came when he was fifth at the Honda, which as noted earlier ties in really nicely here. Then following on from this he was sixth at TPC Sawgrass soon after, which again is a massive pointer to here.

Finally I am drawn to Justin’s effort here last year where he shot 66 on Saturday at the Stadium course and ranked second in accuracy and 18th in putting on the two measured rounds on the Dye design. Unfortunately though a sluggish 72 at La Quinta on Thursday put him behind the eight ball.

All in all then there is enough catching my eye for me to think Suh is worth chancing again and the hope is last weeks 2024 curtain raiser will have blown the cobwebs off.

BEN KOHLES – 150/1 – 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1st 8 - FINISHED 47th

Next up I will chance Ben Kohles.

Kohles has bounced on and off the Tour over the years, however after his unsuccessful stint in 21/22 he returns this year having produced a stellar 2023 on the Korn ferry Tour, which saw him post two wins, six further top tens and finish the year number on the season long race.

Looking at Ben’s stats for last year on the Korn Ferry and while not the longest off the tee he ranked eighth in driving accuracy and second in GIR so he is exactly the type of neat and tidy solid ball striker who has performed well here over the years.

Kohles got an outing on the PGA Tour last Fall at the RSM classic and showed he is ready to make his presence count at this level as he notched a fifth place finish.

In a confident mood no doubt then as he starts out his 2024 Ben played steadily at the Sony last week on his way to 52nd place ranking 15th in Driving Accuracy, 30th in putting and 38th in GIR.

Hailing from Texas, which as noted earlier has provided many a successful participant here over the years, more interestingly Ben now resides in Jacksonville and practices regularly out of TPC Sawgrass so he should be very comfortable here at the Stadium Course.

To sum up Kohles looks like a player to keep on side this year and I am happy to chance him this week.

PATTON KIZZIRE – 175/1 - 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1st 8 - FINISHED MC

Finally this week I was pleasantly surprised to see the odds on offer on Patton Kizzire and I will happily take the bait.

A two time winner on tour Kizzire has struggled of late and last year despite some solid but unspectacular results in the Fall events he slipped from 122nd at the end of the regular season to 128th when the dust finally settled on the year.

Patton then headed to PGA Tour Q School but was unable to make any impact meaning he starts 2024 in that grey area of 125-150.

Rather than wallow in self pity though Kizzire came out last week and played really solidly at the Sony Open to finish 13th and a look at his stats for the week make good reading. Ninth off the tee, sixth in Driving Accuracy, 38th in approach play, 44th in putting and 35th around the green meant he had positive numbers across the board for the week.

A solid week to build on then and the 37yr old can take further confidence from the fact that he finished 11th here last year with four good days including back to back 67s at the Stadium Course and a 63 on the Nicklaus TC.

There is no doubt that consistency is not Kizzire’s strong point however as a proven winner who is clearly at a crossroads in his career I’ll take my chances at the odds that he can build on last week and his effort here last year, and produce the kind of big performance he is capable of at big odds.