munneypicks

2015 Zurich Classic

Tournament: The Zurich Classic is an often overlooked event on the PGA TOUR mainly because of scheduling. It sits right in between the Masters and the Players. Basically 2 of the top 5 tournaments all year, but it’s been one to kind of find out who’s next up in the world of golf. In 2011 Bubba won here and it helped springboard him to a great career so far. Dufner and Horschel won here for their first TOUR wins and subsequently went on to win the PGA Championship and the FedEx Cup respectively. So there is some reason to pay attention here. The event began in 1938 but didn’t arrive at TPC Louisiana until 2005. The winners circle is full of legends in the game including Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player. But for this week will focus on what has happened recently and what trends can point us to the winners circle. Winners from the past 10 years are below excluding 2006 when the even was moved to English Turn Golf & Country Club due to damage from Hurricane Katrina:

2014 – Seung-Yul Noh (-19)
2013 – Billy Horschel (-19)
2012 – Jason Dufner (-19)
2011 – Bubba Watson (-15)
2010 – Jason Bohn (-18)
2009 – Jerry Kelly (-14)
2008 – Andres Romero (-13)
2007 – Nick Watney (-15)
2005 – Tim Petrovic (-13)

Field: Not the strongest field here as we do have an early Wednesday start for next weeks WGC Match Play event. Jason Day, Justin Rose, and Dustin Johnson do highlight the field, along with past winner Billy Horschel. Former major champions Keegan Bradley, Lucas Glover, and Retief Goosen are in New Orleans this week as well.

What to Look For: After running some statistical analysis, some categories stood out to me for this event. They are Driving Distance, Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, and Birdie Average Par 5 average. By far, Dustin Johnson is the best fit for this course based on those stats. He ranks 4th or better in ALL THREE categories. He deserves his 9/1 price this week. Also, current form seems to be more important than course form. Excluding Petrovic, no player has entered this event with more than three missed cuts on the season. As mentioned before, this is not the tournament to be scared off from players who haven’t won before as the last 3 winner here picked up their first PGA TOUR victory at the Zurich Classic. So in summation, five stat categories are crucial. And while you don’t need to rank high in all five of them, you need to show a low average across the five. 

Free Pick:

Harris English to win:: English was not originally on my radar but a check of the weather changes that a bit. The forecast calls for high winds Friday afternoon which makes players playing in the Thurs/PM Fri/AM wave a bit more attractive. English has good stats for the course, he’s only missed one cut in 2015, and he finished 6th here in his last trip.

*If DJ can stumble a bit out the blocks and move higher into the 15/1 or higher range, I’d love to snag a bet on him as well.

Good Luck