Zurich Classic: Team/Player Pool

How many golfers are going to be hungover from Bourbon Street?

Here’s where I’ll repeat myself from the trend table!

“This week, we head to TPC Louisiana and the Zurich Classic. It’s the only team event the PGA Tour hosts in which two golfers team up to tackle the field of 160 players combined in to 80 teams.

The teams start round one on Thursday with Best Ball (best score of the two goes on the scorecard) and plays round two Friday with Alternate Shot (alternating shots until the hole is complete). 

After the cut (top 33 teams and ties after round two), the teams repeat Best Ball on Saturday and finish the tournament with Alternate Shot on Sunday.”

So what I’ve done below is tally up the entire field on total score, as I normally do, but the twist is that I paired every team together and inputted each golfers total score next to their name, as well as each of their trend rank.

I then summed the total score together to give us the strongest teams based on each individual golfer and averaged the trend rank so we have a better understanding of where the team is trending as a whole.

You’ll see each individual score as well as each individual trend rank below but you’ll also see the full total score and averaged trend rank for the team itself.

I then whittled down the actual pool to 35 teams given the cut rules and away we go.

As a quick reminder for Draft Kings scoring purposes, you can only select one team member and that gives you the team score. You can’t, for instance, take both Patrick Cantlay & Xander Schauffele and double up their team points. You have to select 6 separate teams.

I am in no way shocked to see as many high value teams up at the top of our board here.

The volatility of this week due to format alone is going to make it to where we need to absolutely nail our value picks in order to achieve high cashes. This is a tournament that historically gets a minuscule amount of 6/6 through, so if you do, you’re golden. And that’s where the value plays come in.

You can pick any one of the McIlroy/Lowry, Cantlay/Schauffele, Morikawa/Kitayama & Theegala/Zalatoris teams and feel pretty confident that they’ll make the cut and all score relatively around each other unless one team goes nuclear and wins. Your likely winner is coming out of that group, but stranger things have happened.

As mentioned in the trend article, I really love the Straka/Garnett pairing. I was high on both of them last week at Heritage and it paid off with a top 10 from Straka & a top 20 from Garnett. TPC Louisiana is a much easier course, but the fairways are just as narrow as Harbour Town and both of these guys have elite accuracy so they’ll be constantly giving each other chances from the short grass, especially when alternate shot comes on Friday. I’m very high on this team.

Hoge/McNealy is a very solid pairing.

I think Brehm/Hubbard is a terrific value at $7,000. Hubbard has more name recognition, but Brehm is a fringe cut maker and plays exclusively on the PGA Tour. He has a solid enough score and his trend and score are accurate to most recent Shot Link data, so you can feel comfortable knowing that’s an accurate picture of where his game is at.

I love both the Putnam/Highsmith & Ghim/Chan Kim pairs. I think Ghim/Kim is going to get a lot of attention (for good reason) but Putnam/Highsmith will potentially be overlooked. Highsmith has flashed potential, making 50% of his cuts this season, logging a 6th at Puerto Rico, a T-21 at Houston & placing two other top 40’s on the year.

Eckroat has a lot of name recognition, so his team will probably steam a little bit. Good play, though.

Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith probably steams, too, but I like them.

Horschel just won at Corales and is playing with fellow Gator alum Tyson Alexander. They’re probably fine, but I’m not rushing to jam them in, but Horschel has definitely been playing much better of late.

I’m lukewarm on the Hojgaard boys.

I am extremely cautious and wary of the Gutschewski/Byrd pairing. Gutschewski has only made two cuts this season and finished near DFL of the cut makers and Byrd’s sample is incredibly noisy because he doesn’t have true data this season besides a couple of Korn Ferry starts and bombing out of both the Puerto Rico & Corales tournaments.

I really like Carson Young/Ben Martin - Carson has been mediocre, but Ben Martin has come alive, logging five straight made cuts and a top 10 at Valero.

Sigg/Hadley is a pairing I really like. Sigg has been playing better than Hadley on the season as a whole, making seven of his 11 cuts and coming off a 9th place finish at Corales last week and carding two additional top 20’s on the season. He ranks 7th on Tour this year in bogey avoidance, and while Hadley is at 73rd, he is still above Tour average and well inside the top 40% on Tour. Hadley’s top 30 rank in putting will certainly offset Sigg’s biggest weakness (his flat stick) especially in the alternate shot format. They are both above Tour average in greens in regulation, as well, with Sigg placing in the top 25.

I like Dylan Wu/Justin Lower a lot. Wu has played exclusively on the PGA this year and made 7/10 cuts, including his last four and Lower has made 9/12 cuts, logging a 4th last week in Corales and had two top 30’s just prior to that as well as a 3rd in Mexico in February. I’m extremely encouraged by Wu’s trend line and the positive aspect both games have, even with Lower’s “dip” (last week wasn’t tracked in Corales, so his trend likely isn’t as bad as it appears.)

Kraft/Tway seems like a decent shot at extreme value. Tway finished 32nd at Puerto Rico and 3rd last week in Corales. Very volatile play, though, so buyer beware.

List/Norlander is in play. List has been up and down this season, but did just place a 38th at The Masters & is an elite T2G player (he just cannot putt at all) and Norlander has only missed one PGA cut this year, conceding that he hasn’t played high end tournaments yet.

Really, really, really like the Phillips/Bridgeman pairing (13/20 cuts this year combined) and I’m incredibly annoyed they’re priced where they are.

S.H. Kim has been on a bit of a mini heater recently. Only question is if Bae will sink him (1/2 on made cuts, has played only two alternate events). Very volatile under $7K play.

Streelman/Laird is a kind of sneaky, crafty veteran type play. Laird is quietly 6/9 (nice) on made PGA cuts this year, and has actually made the cut at his last 6 events, so his game has come on. Streelman started similarly slowly, but has since made three of his last four cuts at events, so they’re both rounding completely into form at the right time.

I feel like a lot of people will play Eric Cole/Russ Cochran because of price and Cole’s name recognition, but Cochran is a Championship (senior) level player. I think I’ll let everyone else chase that.

Lastly, I think Lashley/Campos is ok, but they’ve both been volatile. Lashley really came on strong recently, but did completely bomb out last week at Corales. Still, you’re going to have to take some chances this week.

Good luck - let’s get 6/6 through, because if we do this week, it has a chance to be a mega profit.