The American Express Full Tournament Preview and Analysis
This week the PGA Tour begins its West Coast Swing with The American Express in beautiful La Quinta, California where Si Woo Kim is returns as the defending champion. While the tournament has been around since 1960 when it was originally called the Palm Springs Dessert Classic, most players refer to the event as its mainstay host, the Bob Hope Classic. The only thing that has changed more than its title name, is the rotation of courses used. This year’s version will mirror the rotation used from 2016–2020 where everyone will play La Quinta Country Club, PGA West Stadium Course, and PGA West Nicklaus Tournament Course before the 54 hole cut narrows the field to top 65 and ties to play the Stadium Course one last time on Sunday. This was the rotation that was supposed to be used last year but was altered due to the Pandemic. Instead, last year the event deleted the La Quinta CC round and replaced it with a third round at the Stadium Course. Last year’s version also deleted the PRO-AM portion of the event so last year the tournament played like a classic PGA event while this year returns to the traditional format.
To me the changes in last year’s event makes it much more likely to be an outlier in regards to the field play and ultimate results. When looking at the optimal lineups over the last four years, the outlier theory bears itself out when looking at the line up construction.
The most glaring difference between 2021’s lineup with the prior three years is the amount of salary left on the table. While it’s common for most optimal line ups to leave some money on the table, it’s usually rare to see more than $1000 leftover; from 2018–2020, the average amount leftover is $4300! It’s interesting to then see that last year the optimal line up instead used exactly $50,000. Another significant difference is that 2021 only used two players sub 7500 while in all three of the prior years, there were 4 players in this range in the optimal build. It’s my contention that the tournament’s unique format lends to opening the field’s range of outcomes dramatically. The use of three different courses in a 54-hole cut played along with amateurs is quite unique for the Tour and player’s relative comfort in adapting to this can vary their results. With this in mind, our line up construction assumptions will be weighted much more to the 2018–2020 versions.
While many factors determine our ultimate construction, our belief in how the top of the pricing tier will play, dictates how the builds must be made. If we do not like any of 10k+ players, we are able to build more balanced line ups focusing on the 8k-9k range. If we feel the winner will come from this top region, our construction needs to focus on the sub 7500 range. The first biggest decision we have to make is whether we believe the winner will be either Rahm & Cantlay, or somewhere else in the field. Let’s first analyze these two players before going forward with the rest of the slate.
10k+
Patrick Cantlay has now played this event three times and has a great record. While he missed the cut in his first try way back in 2013, he finished 9th in 2019 and 2nd last year. His 2019 showing was his first event of the new year following 3 straight top 10s during the fall. In 2021, this event was his second event after shaking the rust off at the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii with a 13th place finish. Patrick was able to do the same this year after playing solidly and finishing in 4th place at Kapalua so that bodes well for him repeating another podium finish at The American Express. The question then becomes will the format change back to 54 holes on 3 separate courses playing along amateurs revert his results closer to the MC & 9th place outcomes or will he repeat the Kapalua warm up to PGA West dominant play? My only concern is that for him to pay off his 10,900 Draftkings price, he has to finish in the top 3 so how you answer the prior question determines your build.
Jon Rahm played this event three years in a row from 2017–2019 finishing 34th, 1st, and 6th place. All three versions match this year’s format and obviously winning in 2018 brings even more confidence in him paying off his 11,300 salary. As great as Jon Rahm his, his 6 wins seems a bit underwhelming for a guy viewed as the best player on the planet but winning a major last year elevates his legacy. Something missing from Rahm’s resume is that he has yet to repeat as a winner at any of the events he’s played won at. Looking back at his 2021, he will undoubtedly feel disappointed that his DQ at Memorial lead to Patrick Cantlay winning which then lead to giving him strokes at the Fed Ex Cup Final where he fell one shot short to Cantlay. Two weeks ago he fell one shot short again after a stellar week where he shot 33 under par but lost to Cam Smith. Rahm has to feel he’s left too many wins on the table and I expect him to have a historical year and back up the 2nd place at Kapalua with a win here at The American Express.
OPTIMAL BUILDS
I made a commitment that I would build line ups matching the optimal builds of the past if I felt there was a strong enough connection threading through them. While this was absolutely the case for the events in Hawaii, the correlations are a bit more erratic for this event. The unique format of this event increases too many variables to feel confident about how to approach the build so I will be minimizing my buy-ins in GPPs. With that being said, I will only build one lineup to enter into all the Single Entry GPPs as well as entering it into a few of the MME’s. Since my exposure will be lower, I will monitor the Strokes Gained data from the Stadium Course to find possible leverage spots for Showdown GPPs as the week goes on. With that being said, here are my build specifications based on the three year sample of 2018–2020 Optimal Builds.
· Use Jon Rahm at the top
· 2nd Player will come from the 9k range and completely fade the 8k.
· The four final players will all be sub 7500
· Of the sub 7500 players, pick at least 2 who missed the cut at Sony
· Don’t use any player that finished in the top 25 at Sony
Since I already established that I’m using Rahm from the top skipping the 8k range. I’ll give my favorite plays from the 9k section and from the 7k and below.
9k
This range clearly has the most amount of talent and if the winner isn’t Rahm or Cantlay, it will likely come from this tier. Sungjae Im is returning after finishing 12th, 10th, and 12 in the last 3 years he’s played the event so clearly he’s comfortable here regardless of the format. The fact that he missed the cut last week may minimize his ownership may make him an enticing rebound play but I’m more concerned with how bad his irons. In the past, it usually takes him at least one tournament to get his irons back on track so I would begrudgingly stay away. Talor Gooch and Seamus Powers rate similarly in that both have been absolutely on fire since the Fall and have similarly good results at this event. There’s no real reason to dislike either of them but I am fading anyone that finished in the top 25 at Sony so that deletes Powers and Cory Conners at 9400. This leaves Wolff, Ancer, and Zalatoris to round out the top of our Draftkings Lineup. Zalatoris is playing his first event of the year and after having a mediocre fall, I’ll be using this week to see where his game is at and use him further down the road. As easy as these 3 courses tend to play, Wolff’s game is a perfect match for this birdie-fest and I fear not using him. Having said that, I’m going with the safer play in Ancer who has made the 54-hole cut every year he’s played with top-5 finishes the last two years. The fact that he missed the cut last week should lower his ownership enough to make it palatable even though he’s likely to still be a chalky play.
<7500
There are so many options in the lower tier but the four that I’m using to round out my lineup are KH Lee, Andrew Putnam, Tom Hoge, and Adam Schenk. I definitely went with a very safe route up top with Ancer and Rahm so I wanted to target players in the sub-7500 range who wouldn’t jump off the page as obvious picks.
KH Lee: The last three times he’s played the event he’s finished 32nd, 21st, and missed the cut in his first try. He went through the fall making 3 of 4 cuts and finished 48th at the Sony last week so while I’m not giving a very compelling case for using him, this pick is based on a feeling that people are going to jumping off of him one week too early. Si Woo Kim is the defending champion and I’m looking for another Korean to bring home the trophy.
Tom Hoge: Outside of a 4th place finish at RSM, his fall was also a bit mediocre and with a missed cut at Sony, I expect him to be another player that people jump off a week early. Hoge missed the cut here last year but in 2020 popped for a 6th place finish so while his floor can certainly hurt us, his ceiling is something that can push him into the optimal lineup.
Adam Schenk: Very much like Tom Hoge, Schenk had a mediocre Fall outside of a 3rd place finish at the Shriner’s Classic and as well as missed the cut at the Sony Open. Schenk has made the cut the last 3 years at The American Express and while the missed cut last week is not ideal, his 3rd place finish at the Shriners came directly after a missed cut.
Andrew Putnam: Unlike the other 3 at this price range, Putnam played well last week in gaining strokes in all categories in his 27th place finish and pairs that with solid course history at The American Express. He’s finished in the top 35 in all four tries here with a 10th place finish in 2020. If he can continue these trends, we have another potential optimal line up contender in a lineup that is very likely to be unique even with the Rahm/Ancer combination as the most used.
If you made it this far I appreciate it and hopefully you are chopping a GPP with me!
