This article is part of our FanDuel PGA DFS Picks series.
The American Express
Courses
- PGA West Stadium Course (7,187 yards, par 72) [Host Course]
- PGA West Nicklaus Tournament Course (7,159 yards, par 72)
- La Quinta Country Club (7,060 yards, par 72)
Purse: $8,400,000
Winner: $1,512,000 and 500 FedExCup points
Tournament Preview
The 65th edition of The American Express will feature arguably the best field in tournament history. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler leads 10 of the top 25 and 22 of the top 50 players in the OWGR in the field this week for the first event of the 2024 season in the continental United States. Both winners of the Aloha Swing, Chris Kirk (Kapalua) and Grayson Murray (Waialae), will also tee it up in the Coachella Valley this week in the first of five events on the PGA Tour's West Coast Swing.
The Bob Hope Classic as it is most famously known used to be unique on the PGA Tour as the only event that was played across five days on four different golf courses with some of the biggest celebrities in the world. As the years went on, however, that became a tougher sell to some of the top players in golf. In 2012 the tournament decided to go to a more traditional 72-hole format played across three different golf courses. The pro-am aspect still exists for the first three rounds, but most of the celebrities only play the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which is invite only. In fact if you have a $30,000 hole in your pocket, there's a chance you could tee it up with the professionals at The American Express for three days.
This terrific field that we have for the 2024 edition of the tournament has a lot to do with both those event changes as well as the return to a calendar-based schedule. There are less events to earn FedExCup points and fewer spots available to make golf's version of a postseason. It has forced some of the higher ranked players to add events like this to make sure they don't fall too far behind in the FedExCup Standings. The same courses will be in the rotation for the ninth consecutive year with the 156 professionals in the field getting one round at the PGA West Stadium Course, PGA West Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta Country Club before a 54-hole cut is made and the top-65 and ties play the final round at the Stadium Course.
Jon Rahm is the defending champion of The American Express but will not be in the field this year after deciding to join LIV Golf in the offseason. In fact half of the last 10 champions of this event are now current LIV Golf members with Rahm winning in 2018 and 2023, Hudson Swafford winning in 2017 and 2022, and Patrick Reed winning in 2014. Some names to keep an eye on this week include Daniel Berger who is making his first PGA Tour start since the U.S. Open in 2022 due to lingering back injuries and Justin Thomas, who is making his 2024 season debut after missing the FedExCup Playoffs last year.
Expect to see a lot of birdies and eagles this week in the Coachella Valley. It will be the return of "dome golf" with very little wind expected to blow this week, as is typically the case for this event. Since moving to a 72-hole format in 2012, every single winning score has been at least 20-under-par. There is also usually very little separation at the top with all 12 tournaments during that stretch being decided by two or fewer strokes.
Recent Champions
2023 - Jon Rahm (-27)
2022 - Hudson Swafford (-23)
2021 - Si Woo Kim (-23)
2020 - Andrew Landry (-26)
2019 - Adam Long (-26)
2018 - Jon Rahm (-22)
2017 - Hudson Swafford (-20)
2016 - Jason Dufner (-25)
2015 - Bill Haas (-22)
2014 - Patrick Reed (-28)
Key Stats to Victory
- SG: Approach
- GIR Percentage
- SG: Putting
- Par-5 Scoring
Champion's Profile
This week will feel like a sprint. While all three courses are among some of the easiest on the PGA Tour, that does bring its own challenges from a competition standpoint. If you go four or five holes without a birdie the pressure is really going to crank up because you are falling behind pace. As mentioned above, this is a hard tournament to separate because of the courses being short with little rough. There is going to be a lot of wedge opportunities for all players, and while the greens are not the biggest in size, pros aren't going to misfire too often from under 150 yards with no wind. It does to some degree turn this event into a putting contest, and with amateurs teeing it up the first three days the pin placements are going to be pretty conservative. Every year the players who rank highly in SG: Approach and/or SG: Putting for the week are going to be near the top of the leaderboard come Sunday afternoon. Par 5 scoring is one other stat I'd look at because each course features four of them which will be reachable by virtually every player in the field. It will be one of the rare occasions that you can stick a mid-to-long iron close and gain some strokes on the field with an eagle.
FanDuel Value Picks
The Chalk
Sungjae Im ($11,600)
You need birdies this week? Well how about start with a player that set a PGA Tour record for birdies in a 72-hole event at Kapalua with 34. Im loves to take it low and that's part of the reason why he has played so well in his short career at this event. In five starts Im has now finished worse than a T18 at The AmEx. There are no weaknesses across the board and Im also ranks top-5 in par 5 scoring. This is a very safe place to start your lineup in a hard event to handicap.
Tom Kim ($11,100)
Kim is a player who thrives in shootouts and despite his lack of experience in this event, he sits at a great number this week to come up and potentially picks up his fourth PGA Tour victory. Two of his first three wins came at the Shriners Open, conditions that will be very similar to what the players face this week in Palm Springs. Kim checks all the boxes at top-20 in driving accuracy, SG: Approach, putts per GIR and par 5 scoring.
J.T. Poston ($10,800)
Poston is looking to keep the vibes going in 2024 after going T5 at The Sentry and solo sixth at the Sony Open. It really has been a continuation of great play that we saw last year and the 30-year-old has seven top-seven finishes in his last 11 starts. His questionable driving at times will be masked this week and his improved iron play and always impressive putting will be able to shine. Poston has finished T6 and T25 the last two years at The AmEx.
The Middle Tier
Andrew Putnam ($9,900)
Putnam gives strokes away left and right off-the-tee, but that won't be something you have to worry about this week. His iron play and putting combination is fantastic as last season he ranked 25th in SG: Approach, 23rd in GIR percentage and 12th in SG: Putting. Putnam played both Hawaii events and after struggling early at Kapalua, he closed with a 64 and parlayed that into a top-10 finish at Waialae. He has a great history at The AmEx going 6-for-7 with four top-25s.
Adam Hadwin ($9,800)
Speaking of success in this event, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better record here than Hadwin, who has never missed a cut in eight starts and owns three podium finishes among six top-25s. Included in there is a 59 shot at La Quinta, one of just two sub-60 rounds ever shot in this event. Hadwin scored a top-15 at Kapalua before missing the cut by one at Waialae. Expect him to bounce back in the desert, where his putting alone can carry him to another high finish.
Rickie Fowler ($9,500)
This price on Fowler is simply too good for me to pass up. While he hasn't played quite as well since breaking back into the win column last July at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, this was still the 12th ranked player in terms of strokes gained per round of the PGA Tour last season. Fowler's strong putting returned and the iron play was as good as it has even been in his career. Those two things have the California native prime for success in his home state, an even he has made the cut three of the last four years with a pair of top-25s.
The Long Shots
Nick Taylor ($8,600)
This was certainly a price that jumped out at me right away. Taylor is coming off a strong T7 showing at the Sony Open where he ranked fourth in SG: Approach. That was his sixth top-25 finish in his last nine starts. Last season Taylor was pretty strong across the board outside of off the tee ranking 36th in SG: Approach and 12th in putts per GIR. The Canadian also has a ton of experience at this event with nine career starts.
Maverick McNealy ($8,100)
This is a great spot to take a chance on a player coming off an injury. McNealy led the PGA Tour last season in SG: Putting and was fifth in putts per GIR the season prior to that. I talked about how sometimes this tournament can turn into a putting contest and down this far there are a lot of names with a lot of question marks. Why not take a chance on another hot putting week and hope McNealy can ride it into a solid finish?
Adrien Dumont de Chassart ($7,600)
There were quite a few people that were excited about this upside of this rookie and decided to deploy him at the Sony Open. It completely backfired and as a result his price dropped dramatically. I think these courses in the desert will be a much better fit for Dumont de Chassart given his supreme putting ability. Last year on the Korn Ferry Tour he ranked second in putts per GIR and was also second in par 5 scoring.
Strategy Tips This Week
Based on a Standard $60K Salary Cap
There is a reason why we have seen so many long shots win here over the years. There is a rotation of courses all set up to be easy and very little opportunities to allow top ball-strikers to separate. Anyone in the field can have a hot putting week and it can carry them up the leaderboard. By the same token you can hit the ball great, but if you struggle to convert on the greens it is not that hard to miss a cut here. The good news is that because it is a 54-hole cut the damage for having one, or even two, of your players miss the cut is not as significant. It's possible to still cash should you have a couple other players near the top of the leaderboard.
The $7K range this week is massive and makes up close to half the golfers in the field this week. While picking one out of there is extremely difficult, I can promise you come Sunday afternoon there will be a few of them near the top of the leaderboard. Vince Whaley ($7,900), Harry Hall ($7,700), Nate Lashley ($7,500), Callum Tarren ($7,400), Adam Long ($7,400) and Ben Silverman ($7,400) are some that I would keep an eye on this week.
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