The American Express 2024 PGA Picks and Preview | Betting Tips, Course Preview, DFS and Predictions!

Buckle up, because the PGA Tour heads west for a desert delight – The American Express, unfolding this week from January 18th to 21st in the sun-drenched Coachella Valley of La Quinta, California. The action starts promptly at 9:00 AM PST each day, promising four sun-kissed rounds of birdies, eagles, and maybe even a hole-in-one under the Californian sky.

Who’s Favored to Claim the Cactus Crown?

The field brims with talent, but the oddsmakers have a few frontrunners vying for the coveted trophy. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler sits atop the leaderboard at +500 followed by Patrick Cantlay at +1000 and the ever-consistent Xander Schauffele at +1200.

Tune In and Be There (Virtually):

TV: Coverage kicks off on Golf Channel at 9:00 AM PST on Thursday and Friday, then switches to CBS for the weekend rounds at 1:00 PM PST.
Hashtag Your Heart Out:

Join the online conversation and share your excitement using the official hashtags:

#TheAmexGolf
#DesertClassic
#GolfTwitter
For live updates, player insights, and behind-the-scenes shenanigans, follow these official Twitter handles:

@TheAmexGolf
@PGATOUR

Introduction 00:00
The American Express Preview 00:59
Course Preview 03:00
Total Strokes Gained Chart 04:55
Players That Can Trip You Up 09:35
Outright Winner Pick 12:35
Draftkings Darlings 14:40
Top 20 Leaderboard Pick 17:00
Betting Notes 20:10

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Welcome everyone to Tea Time Chris Kirk was your 125 to One Long Shot Two tournaments ago Grayson Murray was your 500 to one long shot last week all we got to do is find the next Triple digit to One winner welcome to Tea Time everybody I am ad Lang from

Wagertalk.com being joined as always by Nick Borman who is fresh from the Cayman Islands who has a brand new phone unfortunately because he took his phone into the ocean with a swim with it we here to break down the American Express tournament and Nick we were laughing a

Little bit before because this is a a goofy tournament I guess is one of the ways to to describe it so before you get into betting guys before you get into setting your DFS lineups and your seasonal fantasy league you have to understand the format of this tournament

Because Nick it is very different you want to give us kind of the bullet points as to how this tournament works this week yeah as is always the case this time of year uh this begins a three-week run where the PGA Tour will be utilizing multiple courses for the

Tournament uh this week in particular you have three different courses being used and the pros are playing alongside of amateurs for those first three rounds so this is a notorious sixh hour round uh definitely not the normal for a lot of these guys and how they play week to

Week and it’s a big reason in the past we haven’t seen you know a lot of huge names and not a huge field as far as being deep and very strong up at the top uh although this year arguably is one of the stronger ones that we have seen in

Quite a while uh but yeah they play three different courses for the first three rounds so 54 hole cut then happens after that and uh only that last 18 holes uh is played after the cut so it is definitely different and you probably want to take a look at you know

Tournament history it’s hard to look at course history because even if you look at Strokes gain data it’s only measured on one of the three courses so it’s kind of like if you just look at Strokes gain data it’s it’s a little bit you know

It’s only half of the field or excuse me half of the rounds but if you look at tournament history it might be a little bit more telling at least of guys that are used to playing in this kind of setup and again alongside of amateurs

Because for if you listen to some of the players and the reason people avoid this one and the Pebble Beach uh proam in in two weeks it’s because they just they just hate the length of how long it takes to play so definitely different um but still something bet on we can make

We can still make money here Andy so I’m looking forward to it yeah I’m glad that we have a lot a lot more bigger names than in years past but do not do not underestimate the amateur part of this we have seen some of the best in the

World get really frustrated with their amateur Partners just hacking out of the rough and putting it in the water and stuff so keep your eyes on that Nick mentioned the three different courses so the biggest defense that this tournament has is traditionally the wind if there’s

No wind they’re going low if there is wind it can be a little bit different and it does not look like there’s going to be wind in the forecast the weather has been beautiful in this area of to this point so look for beautiful Fairways and really receptive greens

Nick I think these guys are going really really low uh the the just a quick touch on the three different courses we got the stadium course this is where um you the last roundout will be on Sunday and this is where they’ll have another previous round so it’s the only course

Where they they play two um Waters in play on seven holes uh that’s a little bit different from uh the Hawaii courses I think the winner of this tournament is going to have to shoot minus 12 or better over two rounds on this course I think you’re going to have to get to

Minus 25 to have even have a chance over four rounds so I think you got to go minus 12 on this one the tournament course is only going to have one round probably the second hardest course Stadium course I guess you could say is the hardest tournament course um there’s

Five holes with water in play no wind I think the winner is going to have to shoot minus five and then uh La quenta will have one round it’s the easiest course they will play this week seven holes with water but the greens are very

Easy to putt on the rough is easy to hit out of Nick no wind I would not be surprised if we see a minus n or even a minus 10 on the course this week I think the eventual win of the tournament minus six at the worst you’re gonna have to

Shoot you’re gonna have to go low on every single one of these courses every single day agree yeah Rah won it 27 under last year and the tournament history here uh going back to when it’s been set up like this every Winter’s been in the at least 20 under par so yes

It’s going to be that way the weather’s perfect the rough is only two inches long greens are slow by tbj Sanders 11 11 and a half on the stim so it’s it’s throw darts make putts so these guys will go low and you’re going to have to

Be at least 20 under bar probably mid 20s like you said to to actually win this thing yeah absolutely it’s going to be a birdie Fest so if you like low scoring this is the tournament for you Nick let’s take a look at the total Strokes gained chart this is uh your

Holy Grail and you know this is interesting you can tell the percentage of how many uh golfers that win come from this chart and I would say we’re about due for one of the winners to come from this Chris Kirk uh Grayson Murray certainly we’re not we’re not anywhere

Near this chart so the odd say uh we’re getting close to getting a winner out of this so let’s walk through this total Strokes gained explain this chart and talk about uh who’s been looking good over the last 12 months yeah absolutely it is uh where I always kind of start

Looking for the outrights each year you can see on the top of the graphic 50 of 89 PGA Tour winners dating back to the start of 2022 uh so we’re talking full two full seasons now is have W from this top 10 graphic so you can see the list

Here it’s who you’re going to expect It’s usually the betting favorites right so it makes sense that the winners are coming from here but it’s also your indicator that these guys are playing very well I break it down to Strokes gained over the last 12 months then six months then three months because

Obviously it’s important to be playing well long term but if you see some sort of trend changing you know in the shorter term it may be an alarm or something to say you know what maybe I’ll hesitate on that person this week or maybe they haven’t been playing great

Over the last 12 months but in the last six or three months they’ve been spiking and and and somebody might want to back the only thing I’ll add on that Trend this week this particular week and probably for the next couple of weeks the last three month numbers probably

Not that important to look at maybe a little skewed and I say that because we all know that you know with the holidays and the November and December time frames as far as tournament golf it some guys might not even play or they might play one time and the tour is very

Regular at that time so you can see the volatility by looking at that and you can see some red numbers in there for guys like Ricky Fowler and Windam Clark I think they only played one time maybe two so you have one or two bad tournaments it really throws off the

Stats there um so maybe not as important in the last three months but generally that’s kind of high I look at this I want to see guys that are consistent over 12 months six months and continuing that in the short term uh also on the

Screen here I I try to find the best odds shopping you know five of the major books um we put that up here so helps you along the way but I also throw in some notables and these are guys that are either very close to the top 10 in

This case Poston Kim and Thomas are all like within the next four or five spaces but they’re also playing well in the shorter span um as well so I always start hereand you know I do uh I I’ve had very good success finding outright winners in this graphic uh I do worry

You know you look at the top three guys clear Head and Shoulders as far as ability over the last 12 months versus everybody else but it’s a major price you got to pay to get those three guys and and there’s a lot of value as you can see just below that in that

Mid-range where now they’re falling into the 30 31 uh excuse me 30 to1 range or 40 to1 range and I think that’s that’s where I’m starting a lot of my my uh week or excuse me outright betting this week because I just I don’t see a lot of

Value in those top guys but that’s the top 10 for this weekend yeah not when not when 125 to one and 500 to ones are taking home the trophy so uh absolutely uh we do have a really nice promo code available for everybody this works for

Either myself or for Nick the promo code is golf 49 golf 49 it gets you 30 days of golf for just $49 guys this is a smoking deal uh just one pack that Nic orai put up is going to be $25 or $29 so for just 20

Bucks more you can get 30 days of golf so if you’re looking at getting into golf this is just a perfect way to uh dip your toes in the water and get a month for $49 so it worked for myself or for Nick both of us are at wagertalk.com

Uh Nick is coming off just an absolutely insane legendary 2022 2023 season the amount of outright winners that he hit was was crazy and I’ve never had a losing season at wager talk in golf so two really good guys that uh listen I don’t want to brag but we do know what

We’re doing with golf batting so looking looking forward to keeping the profits rolling in here Nick how many outright winners did you have in that season 12 I’ll argue uh 13 because Xander Schley won the Tour Championship without starting strokes and it paid like an outright winner but I I didn’t Tech count

It% count one a month that is that that is absolutely amazing nice work from Nick all right we’re we’re going to talk about guys that could win the tournament I always do a segment called players that can trip you up these are players that I think are overvalued that you

Might be a little bit nervous about betting on putting in head-to-head matchups or putting in DFS I will go right to the very top and I will say Scotty sheffler is a player that can trip you up he is the highest price favorite kind of BU a wide margin and

Listen I’m sure he’s going to have a big week his te to Green numbers are nothing short of legendary but this is a guy that has not finished top 10 here in three straight tournaments and he is one of the worst Putters in the field this week whoever wins this tournament is

Going to have to be lights out with the putter for all four rounds Scotty schuffler is minus 0.47 Strokes gained putting the last six months he played really good at the Sentry but Nick he’s going to have to finish top two basically to return value I do not trust

His putting over all four rounds he could have three incredible rounds and with no wind with as easy as these at the as these uh these holes are if his putter goes south for just one round he’s going to be outside of the top five there’s going to be too many guys going

Low I just cannot trust a guy who’s struggling with putting on a course that is going to require lights out putting so Scotty Sheffer I believe is overvalued this week I will not be betting on him next is going to be Chris Kirk uh this is his third tournament in

A row I think this could be the big let down spot uh for him so he wins the sentury and then he finished 18th last week which is a respectable finish but that was not a great field last week and his numbers when he won at the sentury

Were insane plus 1.11 putting at the sentury but last week that drops to minus 0.70 and around the green he was plus 1.05 at the Sentry last week minus 0.80 we’ve seen his numbers regress really bad this is a better field than it was last week he wrapped up his win

For the season which does so much for these pro golfers uh I think this is a really big let down spot after a win and an 18th so I’m not going to be betting on Chris Kirk and finally Tom Kim he finished sixth here last year uh Nick he

Was terrible at the century his putting was absolutely awful and they have him as the fifth highest favorite in the field he won the Shriners in the fall but La uh two weeks ago putting min 1.12 at the century and I cannot roll the dice if his putting is even mediocre

He’s never going to return value as a top five priced guy so uh it’s just too much of a risk for a guy that looked terrible putting so Scotty shuffler Chris Kirk and Tom Kim are my three players that I think can trip you up this week all right Nick coming to you

And we’re going to talk about an outright winner this is a guy who has absolutely been a DraftKings darling he’s been great in your fantasy leagues uh let’s go ahead and talk about your first guy little bit it’s not a long shot but definitely love the odds on

This guy who do you like this week yeah the postman uh JT Poston but been as steady as they come recently and it’s really hard I just can’t pass him up at this price to just continue to bet on him the guy he’s just simply playing

Great Golf right now another top 10 last week at the Sony he finished solo six that followed a tie for fifth the week prior at the Sentry Andy going back to the John Deere Classic in July he’s got seven top 10 finishes in his last 11 starts I mean that’s that’s top 10

Player in the world caliber right there and he’s he’s quickly climbing those uh official world golf rankings when you’re when you’re looking for a profile that matters at a tournament that is expect to be lows scoring you hit it Andy putting is is probably the most important the other important one is

Approach you got to throw them darts and you got to make the putts right and both of those categories are exactly where Postman excels he gain he has gained Strokes in 11 straight events on the greens and in 10 straight starts with his approach he’s number two on tour

Over that Span in putting averaging plus 1.08 Strokes game per round the only guy ahead of him is Brian Harmon who’s playing uh in Dubai this week so he doesn’t have to worry about that so he’s number one in the field he also ranks number three and strokes gained approach

During that run behind only Sheffer and Schley who are both valued at 11 to1 or lower as you mentioned already with Sheffer so getting him at over 30 to1 hash value is what I say uh and finally Poston you got to have a little experience in this tournament because it

Is again we talked about in the beginning the distraction with the amateurs and the whole tournament uh course changes so he has played here each of the last seven years he’s familiar uh and he’s coming off a tie for six last year so playing well course

History he can putt I like poting at 33 to1 this week that is crazy Val like I feel like if you would just like not show the picture of the name and just read some of those stats you be like who is that shley is that sjm like let you

Know who is that so absolutely fantastic value at 33 to1 love that one uh let’s take a look at DraftKings Darlings Nick we’ve been doing well in DraftKings our our Darlings have been coming through uh at the senty I I think two of our three Darlings finished ahead of all of our

Big name guys so that’s why this that’s why this segment’s really important you got to nail those lower price guys and I will start start with Nicholas etaria this one I’m a really roll on the dice with but at 6,500 I cannot pass up etaria this price is just so low for a

Guy who’s made the cut um La made it last week uh played well for the first three rounds and then he just had a bad fourth round but he’s plus 0.77 Strokes gain putting last two weeks this is an easy course as we talked about you got

To have a a hot putter so um maybe his off the tea and approach isn’t fantastic but if he gets a hot putter he he’s going to make the weekend and he’s going to give us weekend points that’s what we’re looking for to guy at 6,500 up

Next Patton kazy he was a draftking darling last week and I’m going right back to him at 7,000 finished 13th last week he plays well at this tournament made the cut three years in a row finished 53rd 22nd and 11th the last three years he’s made five cuts in a row

In the fall and then a solid finish last week so I love this price it’s almost the same price as last week again I just need him to get through the weekend and then I’ll go with Eric Van Roy at 7500 he’s been playing good golf recently he

Won the worldwide Tech championship in the fall had three top 30 finishes before that it goes out finishes 22nd at the century and he made the cut last week and he finished sixth last year at this tournament so I think I can start my lineup with etaria Patton Kazar um

Patton kazy and Eric Van Roy and uh if you want to see the rest of my DraftKings line that article is available on my profile page at wagertalk.com we got some betting notes in there uh couple charts course overview things like that so those are my Draft Kings Darlings and Nick we’re

Going to a position finish and this is a guy you and I are fans of uh this guy actually won the it’s not an official War but the draft King darling of the year last year uh was this guy and uh he’s uh he’s legit I have a feeling we

Can make a lot of money off him uh this year so uh who do you like uh it’s your favorite finishing position this week yeah you mentioned going back to the well on kazy and I’m going back to the well on Eric Cole because I had him last

Last week for a top 20 finish at the same number he cashed that and it’s hard just not just like Poston it’s hard not to just want to get money on this guy he’s going to win it’s just a matter of time and anything you know his price is

Similar to POS it’s over 30 to1 I’m just going to keep betting that top 20 I love it he’s got five straight top 20s uh if you go back a little further he’s got eight of his last 10 finishes in the top 20 so his last five tournaments Andy TI

For 13th last week at Sony 14th at the sentury third at the RSM second at the zoo third at the Shriner he was that close to getting the win just couldn’t quite close the door but if he keeps putting himself in contention like this again that win is coming uh you know

Like Poston his skill set really fits what you’re looking for this week he is another very strong iron player he ranks fourth in the field and strokes gained approach over the last six months you can also roll the rock as he ranks number two in this field in Strokes gain

Putting dating back to June the only player ahead of him of course it’s JT Poston so you can see where I’ve loaded up this week you gotta make these putts these guys are number one and number two in being able to do that and they can

Both throw darts I like Eric Cole I think he’ll be in the mix if he doesn’t win again this week but I will have money on him at least I think we’ll cash at this top 20 price at plus 170 which I think is is great fantastic value we’re

Both big Eric Cole fans yeah we’ll be celebrating when he gets that first win it’s coming any day uh Nick can you tell everyone what you have up at wagertalk.com where we can find you at and uh give us that promo code one more time absolutely so uh golf tournament

Pack is up for this week you can grab this week’s tournament pack for 29 bucks or as Andy already mentioned the best value right now for both of us if you’re looking for golf uh the season just kicked off and there’s a lot of good

Golf coming up it’s 30 days 30 days a golf for 49 bucks so basically less than the price of two weeks because we’re always pricing the T at the same you’re going to get a full four weeks of golf so 49 bucks you can’t go wrong you know

I’m going to focus in a lot of outright leaderboard bets uh and he’s going to focus in a lot of matchup so we have a little bit of taste to both so at that price why not get us both um also have uh this week is quiet for for soccer is

The other sport I cover um but you know all the big major European leagues are in full action right now and MLS Andy right around the corner early kickoff this year mid-February we’re talking one month so I will have uh a promo up for full season package it’s five straight

Winning years in the MLS another awesome year last year so looking forward to that coming up in a couple weeks as well I love following you on Twitter uh all the soccer information you give out on social media is fantastic what you’re for for those of you following soccer if

You’re not following Nick you you have to Nick puts out like the best information in charts Nick what’s your Twitter handle yeah thanks Andy it’s Borman b r r m00 so at Borman 0000 and yeah I’d love to put up as much information Len we’re all in this together right we can all

Win together we can all take down those books and uh that’s all I’m trying to do is provide information for everybody to do that absolutely so make sure you follow Nick on Twitter and use that promo code I’ll go over just a couple of uh betting notes to get you ready for

This week’s event uh no golfer in this field has finished top 10 the last two years in a row it speaks to just kind of what a weird format it can be uh from year to year the last three months Windam Clark Nick is negative Strokes gain te to Green approach around the

Green and putting uh the last the last three months Cameron Davis is negative Strokes gain T to Green approach and around the green but plus 1.31 putting uh so Cam Davis can he can we saw last week he could just get so hot with the Putter and the rest of his

Game’s terrible uh but but man you get a guy that gets a hot Potter he can do damage here and Sun JM has played here five years in a row is finished 18th or better in all five tourneys so if you’re looking for steady steady Sun JM is your

Guy this week so all right guys that’s going to do it for us for tea time make sure you go follow Nick on Twitter and grab that golf promo pack and use the promo code golf 49 for 30 days of all golf plays for $49 that works on my page

Or Nick’s page at wager talk.com it’s a fun beautiful tournament look for low low scores let’s make it a profitable one and we will see everyone next week on tea time