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Zurich Classic Golf Tips
Im & Mitchell - 16/1 2pt win
Theegala & Suh - 25/1 1pts EW (6 Places)
Kitayama & Montgomery - 22/1 (1pt Win)
Hall & Bhatia - 70/1 1pts EW (6 Places)
Mcgreevy & Stevens 125/1 0.5pts Ew (6 Places)
Fitzy’s 9 Iron does it again…
Well, I want to start this week’s preview with a look back at last week and what a week we had in the end. I think a lot of people came into the week after what felt like a bit of a golf hangover, and not only we were feeling it, but looks like Rory was too. Anyway, after what seemed a long Masters weekend I came into the week wondering if I was really interested. How that changed, my word, what a great venue Harbour Town Links is and what a weekend of golf we have just witnessed. The holes are fantastic, imagine there was a Ryder Cup there, it was an intriguing week and the elevated status really played dividends in the end. The coverage is always fantastic, but the strength of field isn’t, and I really enjoyed it with a full field. I can’t look back without mentioning I managed to land Fitzy at 28/1 and I had Jordan in the play-off as well who we put up on my card, it was just all round a really really good week. I want to know how many more of those stiff Fitzy 9 irons we are going to see in the future, they are just great and it’s good to land another outright this season.
Zurich Classic time…
So onto a bit of a different week this week and as you may know it’s a team event. The event is always played with mixture of either for Ball or foursomes format. Format as this below;
Thursday: Four-Ball (Best Ball)
Friday: Foursomes (Alternate Shot)
CUT: Top 33 & Ties Advance
Saturday: Four-Ball (Best Ball)
Sunday: Foursomes (Alternate Shot)
There are 80 teams which is actually one of the biggest fields for a PGA event, but of course through the schedule and the structure of the tournament, it works quite well with them playing foursomes onto two of the days and then they cut the field down to 33 teams by the weekend. This year, we’ve got some different teams as well as some similar teams to previous years return as well as some new teams like the Kim’s and Sungjae with Keith Mitchell, looks like we could have another action-packed weekend.
Previous Winners: 2022; Patrick Cantlay & Xander Schauffele 2021; Marc Leishman & Cameron Smith 2019; Ryan Palmer & Jon Rahm 2018; Billy Horschel & Scott Piercy 2017; Jonas Blixt & Cameron Smith.
Quick look at the data
So, let’s look at this event at TPC Louisiana which is around 7,400 yards, and back-to-back Pete Dye designs. Once again, positioning your ball on this golf course will be paramount. There will be though, plenty of strong birdie opportunities throughout, as we seem with previous teams going very very deep and shooting very low scores, you shouldn’t see anything different in this renewal. You can put up some comparisons here to the likes of Sawgrass, Twin cities, even TPC Scottsdale where we see the waste management.
So let’s have a little look at some of the core specs and dive into a bit of a breakdown of how a team is going to win this event. We’ve seen plenty of low scoring individually in the past, but sometimes from that scoring as a team it doesn’t quite add up, so what are you really looking for here is a team that consistently plays well together. Or a team that would fit well as a team Dovetailing and scoring well when your partner is in trouble. Existing or new, whatever the team, they must been shooting low in both foursomes and fourballs, and you cannot get away with only 50% of the team performing well here.
The course offers lots of different challenges, there are lots of trees such as, that prop up in weird places. The bunkers are always tough, and I definitely can see this week, some more around the green emphasis and positives needed. Getting up and down is vital to your team and also in effect vital to keeping yourself in a tournament.
The main area we should be emphasising on is approach play which feels like a broken record, but TPC Louisiana really is a second shot golf course. Much like we see with TPC Sawgrass and the waste management two guys here that consistently hit their irons well is what you need, that’s the ideal recipe. We also can look into some recent form, it’s always a good tester on a birdie gold course to see some form on the greens and birdie or better percentages in last few weeks which will really stack up against those who have just not gained strokes recently.
So all in all, quite short and punchy this week with it being a team event, but still plenty of analysis to look out for and once you’ve narrowed your list down, just close your eyes and be confident.
If you want to play my new weekly fantasy competition, look out for my updates on my twitter @fordysgolfpicks and my site www.drawshankgolf.com .
Also have a listen to my appearance once again on @waggleduff podcast golf show where I talk through all my picks.
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