This article is part of our DraftKings PGA DFS Picks series.
THE AMERICAN EXPRESS
Purse: $8.5M
Winner's Share: $1.512M
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the Winner
Location: La Quinta, Calif.
Courses: Stadium Course at PGA West, the Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta
Yardage: 7,187
Par: 72
2023 champion: Jon Rahm
Tournament Preview
The PGA Tour has reconfigured its entire product -- in some ways, its entire business model -- to focus the schedule around the eight Signature events, four majors and PLAYERS Championship. It was not expected to leave much for the "regular tournaments, which is why we've seen the departure of a longstanding title sponsor in Honda, plus the impending exits of both Wells Fargo and Farmers Insurance.
But American Express is still around and, for the second straight year, somehow, the tournament with the least stature of any in the early part of the season will be flat-out loaded. In fact, it looks like the strongest Amex field ever. Bob Hope would be proud.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, plus fellow top-10ers Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and Wyndham Clark, along with Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler, headline the first 156-man field of the 2024 season. But it doesn't stop there. There's Tony Finau, Tom Kim, Jason Day, Sam Burns, Sungjae Im, Chris Kirk, Eric Cole and emerging Min Woo Lee, all of whom are in the top-40 in the world rankings. Adding another storyline, former top-15 player Daniel Berger is set to return after a 19-month absence (back injury). Will Zalatoris, himself on the mend from back surgery, will play for the second straight week. And, for the sheer novelty of it all, the darling of the 2023 PGA Championship, Michael Block, is back -- not as a sponsor invite but as the local section champ qualifier, continuing the longest 15 minutes of fame on record.
The Amexes of the schedule are supposed to be, in large part, paths for the lesser guys to qualify for the Signature events, with the next one coming at Pebble Beach in two weeks. After accounting for all the players listed above, there are well more than 130 positions open for the Tour's rank-and-file, but this turnout is still a surprise.
What may be happening is, with the Tour having switched to a more condensed, calendar-based schedule in 2024, the top guys are sensing more of an urgency to play earlier in the season. That theory may not be borne out until the summer months, but for now it seems a viable hypothesis.
For decades, this tournament was one of the, um, signature stops on the PGA Tour calendar, largely because of Hope, the A-list entertainer who pulled in a star-studded lineup of show business types to frolic in the warm California desert in the dead of winter, which in turn brought out the biggest players in golf. Fans back east in the shivering cold ate it up -- and back then it was 90 holes across five rounds. Eventually, as Hope and the show business types aged, the tournament lost its luster, and that was accelerated when Hope passed away in 2003 at age 100. His name was removed from the title eight years later. But people of a certain age still refer to this event as "the Hope."
The tournament drifted from sponsor to sponsor after Hope's passing: Chrysler, Humana, CareerBuilder, Workday and even a few years with no title sponsor. American Express came on board four years ago and, while the tournament is far from its heyday, things clearly are looking good.
The two PGA West tracks –- the Stadium Course and the Nicklaus Tournament Course (par-72, 7,147 yards) –- were introduced in 2016 to go along with venerable La Quinta (par-72, 7,060). All of them are pushovers for today's golfers, though the Stadium is the toughest. The golfers will rotate on the three courses before a 54-hole cut for 65 and ties, and then the 1986 Pete Dye-designed Stadium track will go it solo on Sunday.
We'll focus on the Stadium here, since it will be used for two rounds. It is short, so driver isn't always needed. With water on seven holes and more than 90 bunkers, there is at least some trouble lurking. And the bermudagrass greens are some of the smallest the golfers will see all year, averaging only 5,000 square feet. But they are simple and pretty slow. This is annually one of the biggest birdie-fests. last year, Jon Rahm's 27-under score set a record and made him a two-time winner of the event.
Interestingly, bermuda is the grass of choice on both PGA West courses, but poa is on La Quinta. That can't be easy for the golfers to switch mid-tournament. La Quinta's greens are even smaller than the Stadium track's, averaged about 4,800 square feet. Nicklaus is the biggest at 7,000 square feet.
Thirteen of the past 14 winners played at least one of the two Hawaii stops before coming here, including Rahm, who will not be back to defend, having forsaken the PGA Tour for LIV Golf. Since the tournament's inception in 1960, there have been only seven non-American winners.
As for the weather, conditions are no sure thing in Southern California in winter, but this week looks splendid. High temperatures will be in the 70s every day, with almost no chance of rain and minimal wind. In other words: Gentlemen, start your engines.
REMINDER: The Amex comes with a 54-hole cut after three days of pro-am play, so this might be a good week to consider a little added risk. If you don't get 6-for-6, you'd lose only 18 holes, and that might not kill your lineup. The top 65 players and ties will play Sunday.
Key Stats to Winning at PGA West
The most important indicators every week are current form and course history. "Key Stats" follow in importance.
• Strokes Gained: Approach/Greens in Regulation
• Ball Striking/Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee
• Strokes Gained: Putting
• Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green/Scrambling
• Birdie or Better Percentage/Par-5 Scoring
• Par-5 Efficiency, 550-600 yards
Past Champions
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
2015 - Bill Haas
2014 - Patrick Reed
Champion's Profile
There's little mystery this week. Getting on the green in short order will provide plenty of birdie of opportunities on some of the smallest and easiest greens the golfers will see all year. Last year, Rahm got it to 27-under, somehow with a terrible putting week -- he ranked 61st in the field. It was not a year for putters. The top-8 putters for the week could not crack the top-15 on the leaderboard. But approach mattered, as it always does. Rahm ranked seventh in SG: Approach and sixth in SG: Tee-to-Green. Thirteen of the past 14 winners played at least one of the two Hawaii stops before coming here. The over/under on the winning score at golfodds.com is 261.5, which is a big number -- 26.5 under par.
DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS
Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap
Tier 1 Values
Patrick Cantlay - $10,800 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +1000)
Cantlay has three top-10s in five Amex starts, including runner-up Kim in 2021. He opened this season with a tie for 12th at the Sentry. Despite mediocre putting going back to the last summer, Cantlay takes the top spot in our model, excelling in every other area.
Sungjae Im - $10,100 (+2000)
Im has played the Amex five years running, finishing between 10th and 12th four times. That won't be enough to justify his five-figure price, but there's more to consider. Im opened 2024 with a tie for fifth at the Sentry, and in his one PGA Tour event of the fall he tied for 12th at the ZOZO. He lands at No. 3 in our model, highlighted by ranking sixth in the field in BOB percentage over his past 24 rounds.
Tom Kim - $9,900 (+2500)
Kim might be a perfect fit for this tournament, a highly accurate tee-to-green player aiming at some of the smallest greens the golfers will see all year. It's just a question of whether his middle-of-the-road can tick upward this week. It did last year, when Kim tied for sixth here.
Min Woo Lee - $9,500 (+2500)
The Australian is now a PGA Tour member, and he's coming off a scorching-hot fall season in which he won twice worldwide. Lee captured the Australian PGA against a stout field, then was third the next week at the Australian Open. An aggressive player with top-10s last year at THE PLAYERS and U.S. Open, Lee will be making his Amex debut. The challenge for him will be negotiating the three different courses, plus the 54 holes of pro-am play. This format is not for everyone.
Tier 2 Values
J.T. Poston - $9,100 (+3000)
Other than the two winners in Hawaii, has anyone been hotter to start the year than Poston? He tied for fifth at the Sentry and sixth at the Sony. Now there's another birdie-fest right up this premium putter's alley. Poston ranks fourth in model thanks to the strength of his putting and elite BOB efficiency. No surprise, Poston finished sixth here last year and was seventh a few years back.
Eric Cole - $8,800 (+3000)
Cole is going to have a bad result one of these weeks. But until then, he's a consideration in every tournament. The newly named PGA Tour Rookie of the Year has finished top-15 in the first two tournaments of 2024. He made his Amex debut a year ago, when he tied for 36th, shortly before announcing himself by making the Honda playoff. Cole leads this field in birdie or better, is ranked 10th in putting and 13th in tee-to-green. That pretty much covers everything.
Shane Lowry - $8,700 (+8000)
PGA Tour followers have not seen Lowry since the Wyndham last August. And he wasn't exactly busy on the DP World Tour in the fall, either, though he did have a top-20 at the season-ending tournament in Dubai. Lowry will be making his Amex debut, so there's surely not a ton of data to go by. But his elite tee-to-green numbers make him a good candidate for a good week, and even his putting his better than average in this field.
Akshay Bhatia - $8,200 (+6000)
Bhatia has shown he clearly belongs on the PGA Tour. Now it's just a question of how far he can go. The answer likely will center around how far his putting can take him. So far in 2024, so good, with a pair of top-15s in the two Hawaii events. Just a couple of weeks shy of turning the ripe old age of 22, Bhatia has already played this tournament twice. He missed both cuts in 2019 and 2020, but he did experience the uncommon format not seen anywhere else on Tour.
Tier 3 Values
Stephan Jaeger - $7,900 (+6500)
Jaeger had his best year on Tour in 2023, then opened this season with a top-20 at the Sentry. He is ranked in the top-10 in this field over his past 24 rounds in SG: Tee-to-Green, Around-the-Green and par-5 550-600. He is ranked 13th in our model. Jaeger tied for 36th here last year, but he has improved significantly over the past 12 months.
Ryo Hisatsune - $7,500 (+13000)
One of the 10 DP World Tour players to secure PGA Tour cards, Hisatsune is someone to keep an eye on. He's only 21 and is already inside the top-80 in the world with a win on the European tour. After winning that tournament in France in September, the Japanese star-in-the-making continued to rack up worldwide top-10s, including a T6 at the ZOZO. Hisatsune tied for 30th last week at the Sony.
Nick Taylor - $7,500 (+11000)
It's hard to look at what Taylor has done in the past in his career as a guide for the future, because he's become a completely different player in the past six months or so. He has one top-20 in nine years at the Amex, and that was a T20 six years ago. But after winning the Canadian Open in June -- his national championship -- Taylor has kept his foot on the gas, with five more top-25s to close the year. He opened 2024 with a T7 at the Sony.
Grayson Murray - $7,100 (+13000)
Sure, this looks like some knee-jerk recency bias pick after Murray won the Sony Open on Sunday. And that might not be without merit. But he actually has a good course history here, and there's probably no other place you can say that about him. Murray had a top-10 here in 2020, and two top-15s before that. Of course, it would be a minor miracle even for Murray to make the cut just four days after his life was changed forever. Let's see how he handles his new-found success.
Long-Shot Values
Maverick McNealy - $6,900 (+20000)
McNealy is close to meeting the terms of his major medical extension. Even though he has nine more starts to recapture his card, a tie for 40th this week would do it. He has not looked great in three starts back, with last week's T57 at the Sony the best of the bunch. But he is one of the best putters in the field and finding him in the $6,000s can be a real bargain. At some point, his injury-induced rust will wear off.
Alejandro Tosti - $6,800 (+18000)
Tosti isn't the most well known of the 28 PGA Tour rookies playing this season. That's probably shared by the Coody brothers. But the 27-year-old Argentine might be the best. Tosti won a Korn Ferry tournament last August, then had a top-10 at the KF Tour Championship. He played three PGA Tour events last season and made all three cuts, and even had a top-10 at the Mexico Open. Tosti has a better-than-average tee-to-green game highlighted by his good touch around the greens.
Scott Stallings - $6,700 (+25000)
After reaching the TOUR Championship in 2022, Stallings took multiple steps back in 2023. Toward the end of the year, he had his best week of the season -- a co-runner-up to Luke List at the Sanderson Farms. And now Stallings has opened 2024 with a made cut at the Sony -- nothing great, a T42, but he played the weekend. Our model puts Stallings just inside the cut line.
Justin Lower - $6,400 (+40000)
We turned to Lower last week hoping for the cheap option to make the cut. He did. But didn't do much else. As we noted last week, Lower hits it straight and putts very well, and can compete on shorter tracks. That's why we like him again at the Amex. Lower tied for 41st here last year.
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