The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2022 Zurich Classic. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic will be a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams will play fourball, and on Friday and Sunday, the teams will play an alternate shot format.
TPC Louisiana is a par 72 measuring 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, making for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for the competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.
This week’s field is excellent, and many of the world’s top players will be teeing it up in New Orleans. Some of the notable teams include Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman, Scottie Scheffler and Ryan Palmer, Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Billy Horschel and Sam Burns, and Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel.
$10,000+ Picks
Billy Horschel and Sam Burns ($10,000 DraftKings)
Horschel and Burns feel like the safest play above 10K this week. The pair finished in a tie for fourth place in the 2021 edition of the tournament and seemed like one of the teams to beat going into Sunday’s alternate shot. Horschel got his first PGA TOUR victory at TPC Louisiana in 2013 and then won the team event here in 2018 alongside Scott Piercy.
Sam Burns also is a great fit for TPC Louisiana. He is an outstanding putter on Bermudagrass and won at the Country Club of Jackson, just a bit north of this course. Burns won just two starts ago at the Valspar Championship, so he is in excellent form coming into the event.
$9,000+ Picks
Tommy Fleetwood and Sergio Garcia ($9,400 DraftKings)
Tommy Fleetwood is amidst one of the best stretches of PGA TOUR golf in his career. In his past six starts, he hasn’t finished worse than 22nd and finished in a tie for 10th at the RBC Heritage. His top-10 finish was fueled by a Saturday 64, which encapsulates why I am so fascinated with the Englishman in this format. It’s going to take low rounds and birdies in bunches in the Thursday and Saturday fourball format, and Tommy can go low with the best of them.
Sergio Garcia has also shown some encouraging signs of late. After missing the cut at The Masters in three consecutive tries, he bounced back this year with a 23rd-place finish. Perhaps more impressively, the Spaniard was third in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach (+6.8). If his elite iron play is indeed back, TPC Louisiana should be a great fit for him. The course is just a bit south of where he won his last PGA TOUR event (Country Club of Jackson), and he’s also played well here in the past.
Fleetwood and Garcia had a close call in this event back in 2019, when they finished in 2nd place to Jon Rahm and Ryan Palmer. Both have been parts of two of the best duos in recent Ryder Cup History (Fleetwood and Molinari at Le Golf National & Garcia and Rahm at Whistling Straits) which shows that they have what it takes to thrive in this format.
$8,000+ Picks
Keegan Bradley and Brendan Steele ($8,500 DraftKings)
The most intriguing aspect of this pairing is how similar their skillset is. In team play, I always look to target duos that have similar strengths. Bradley and Steele are both excellent ball strikers who will hit a bunch of greens in regulation. Their comparable style should allow them to play from comfortable spots on the course in the alternate shot format where they’d usually be playing if they were playing alone.
They finished in a tie for fourth last year and now come into the event in very solid form. Both players have at least a top fifteen finish in their past three starts.
$7,000+ Picks
Tyler Duncan and Adam Schenk ($7,100 DraftKings)
I don’t feel comfortable dipping into the 6K range this week, and I don’t believe it to be entirely necessary with all of the question marks for each team. Instead, I’ll take a shot on a team in the low 7K range in Tyler Duncan and Adam Schenk. Duncan rode a low Sunday round into a 12th-place finish at last week’s RBC Heritage, so it stands to reason that he may be able to carry the momentum into this week.
Schenk isn’t in the best of form, but when he is, he tends to play well on shorter bermudagrass tracks such as this one. The pair finished in a tie for 11th at this event last year, so they are worth taking a chance on again in 2022.
