Zurich Classic: PGA Tour betting preview & Predictions
Matt Fitzpatrick stole the show at the RBC Heritage after a tense playoff with Jordan Spieth, but the PGA Tour will give golfers a totally different challenge this week. TPC Louisiana plays host to the Zurich Classic, a pairs event that is bound to throw up some surprises.
Zurich Classic: Format overview
The field for this week is a pairs event and will see an 80-team field take to TPC Louisiana. The four days are split in half when it comes to scoring. Rounds 1 & 3 will be ‘better ball’, while alternate shot will take place on round 2, and crucially, round 4. In terms of betting, it can be compared to the WGC Matchplay to some extent in the way that: literally anything can happen. Picking the winning team is anything but easy here, making throwing darts at a board even more fun.
Zurich Classic: Field overview
| Xander Schauffele & Patrick Cantlay | +300 |
| Colin Morikawa & Max Homa | +900 |
| Sungjae Im & Keith Mitchell | +1200 |
| Si Woo Kim & Tom Kim | +1400 |
| Sam Burns & Billy Horschel | +1400 |
| Justin Suh & Sahith Theegala | +2000 |
| Taylor Montgomery & Kurt Kityama | +2200 |
| Beau Hossler & Wyndham Clark | +2500 |
| Victor Perez & Thomas Detry | +2800 |
| Nick Taylor & Adam Hadwin | +2500 |
Matt Fitzpatrick comes off of the RBC Heritage win by pairing with younger brother Alex this weekend. The duo is listed at +3500, but Alex is no stranger to competition. He plays on the DP World Tour and recently finished 9th in ‘The Challenge presented by KGA’. He has 10 DP World Tour appearances to his name and is of course playing with his older brother, so the chemistry should be incredibly strong. They could well be worth a punt or two given Matt’s recent form.
The partnership of Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay looks poised to run riot at the Zurich Classic. Being 3/1 in an 80-team field is wild but these are two of the best golfers on the planet. The pair won this event last year and unsurprisingly when playing as a team, have finished inside the top-25 in five consecutive events.
Max Homa and Colin Morikawa figure to be their closest competition. They are both elite ball-strikers who struggled last time out. If there’s ever a chance to ‘buy the dip’, it’s when you’re getting two for the price of one.
The pair of Billy Horschel and Sam Burns is an intriguing one. They finished second here in 2022 and 4th in 2021. Putting will be the name of the game for the two, but they should be in the conversation on Sunday.
As a wildcard, the partnership of Davis Riley & Nick Hardy could be fun at +4500. Both players have had spurts of showing real potential over the last couple of years and both are gaining around 0.4 shots on approach. Both also struggle around the greens, so having ‘two attempts’ at each shot in rounds 1 & 3 could be pivotal here at The Zurich Classic.
Betting prediction for The Zurich Classic
The Zurich Classic is an absolute wildcard of an event and it’s easier to simply back your favorites (if they’re playing) or place a wager on a random pair and let them become your new favorites with a Cinderella run. With that said, the duo of Thorbjorn Olsen and Nicolai Hojgaard look like statistical anomalies here, dominating nearly every metric in the two events they’ve played together. They’re gaining 1.4 strokes T2G on the field and +3500 feels like a steal for what could be an explosive tournament for this pair.
Zurich Classic betting offers
AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton
