American Express Quick Preview + Guess The Odds
But first…
While Grayson Murray became the second straight triple digit winner to open the year (thus meaning everyone who bet outright this week lost), twas a good week for me in the DraftKings streets.
To celebrate, since I’m cash positive at the moment, I’m drawing two names on Monday morning’s show to give $100 a piece to. You want in? Just retweet my screen shot tweet and sub to this FREE newsletter.
Probably not a terrible time to subscribe to Fantasy National as well. I did my walk through last week to show you how I landed on these guys using the tools on the walkthrough show so you can get a good sense of how to dig through the numbers.
20% OFF TOOLS, STATS & LINEUP BUILDER AT FANTASY NATIONAL
Sony Quick Recap
ou didn’t really miss much from the Sony. Everyone we bet on lost. Glover missed an 18” putt and missed the cut on the number. But, THIS? This was the one of the funniest things I’ve seen on a TV broadcast in golf ever…
Keegan had no clue what was going on behind him.
American Express Quick Info
The full breakdown is coming Monday afternoon, but here’s the basics of what you need to know. If you have more time, you can watch/listen to the research show where I go in-depth on all this stuff.
WATCH: American Express Picks, Research, Course Preview
Field: 156 Players
Cut: Top 65 and Ties after 54 Holes
Lineup Lock: Thursday, January 19
Defending Champ: Jon Rahm
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is joined by Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Wyndham Clark, Tom Kim, Tony Finau, Sam Burns, Sung-jae Im, Rickie Fowler, and Jason Day. Shane Lowry, Justin Thomas, Min WOO Lee, and Daniel Berger (!!!) are all in the field too. Pretty solid for PGA West.
14 of the past 15 champions have played at least one of the first two Hawaii events to start the year. Since 2007, six of 17 American Express winners made this event the site of their first win, with Adam Long the last to do it in 2019.
Each player gets a crack at each of the three venues the first three days, then the cut will be best 65 scores (and ties) among the 156-player field. Expect the more notable players to have their Stadium Course round in round three for Saturday TV window.
Key Stats
Strokes Gained: Approach
Opportunities Gained
Good Drives Gained
Eagles Gained
Mayo’s Key Stats Rankings powered by FantasyNational.com
(Note: These are Pre-Sony Open numbers. I’ll have fresh rankings Monday once Shotlink gets the offical number into the system)
Course(s)
Course: Stadium Course at PGA West (SC)
Par: 72
Yardage: 7,187
Greens: Poa overseed
Average Green Size: 5,000 sq. ft.
Number of Sand Bunkers: 90+
Number of Holes Water is in Play: 7
Shotlink: Yes
Course: Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West (TC)
Par: 72
Yardage: 7,147
Greens: Poa overseed
Average Green Size: 7,000 sq. ft.
Number of Sand Bunkers: 90+
Number of Holes Water is in Play: 5
Shotlink: No
Course: LA Quinta CC (LQ)
Par: 72
Yardage: 7,060
Greens: Poa Trivialis /Perennial ryegrass overseed
Average Green Size: 4,773 sq. ft.
Number of Sand Bunkers: 82
Number of Holes Water is in Play: 7
Shotlink: No
2023 Smallest Avg. Greens by sq. ft.
3,500 – Pebble Beach (AT&T Pebble Beach)
3,700 – Harbour Town (RBC Heritage)
4,300 – TPC Southwind (FedEx St. Jude)
4,500 – Albany (Hero World Challenge)
4,500 – Oak Hill (PGA Championship)
4,773 – La Quinta CC (American Express)
5,000 – PGA West Stadium (American Express)
5,000 – Torrey Pines (Farmers Insurance)
Past Winners
2023: Jon Rahm -27
2022 Hudson Swafford -23
2021: Si Woo Kim -23
2020: Andrew Landry -26
2019: Adam Long -26
THE CUSTYS
Voting is now OPEN for the 2024 Custy Awards. And there are some jaw dropping nominees…
VOTE IN THE 2024 CUSTY AWARDS
I dare you to try and pick one of these…
And that’s only half of them.
GUESS THE ODDS
Scottie 5
Cantlay 9
Xander 10
Sungjae 18
T. Kim 20
Clark 25
Kirk 25
Finau 28
Burns 28
JT 30
Fowler 30
Lowry 33
Day 35
Min WOO 35
An 40
Cole 45
Si WOO 45
Poston 50
EXTRA!!!
Zalatoris 75
Berger 200
— PM