Best bets
4pts win Cantlay-Schauffele @ 17/4
1pt each-way Horschel-Alexander @ 40/1
1pt each-way Theegala-Zalatoris @ 17/2
1pt each-way Taylor-Hadwin @ 28/1
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The PGA Tour’s only pairs tournament is something special this week – not only do we have Rory McIlroy making his debut in it but there’s the unique scenario of two sets of twins, Danish lookalikes Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard and the Coodys, Parker and Pierceson, the hot new kids on the block from Texas, among the 80 teams.
And if that wasn’t enough sibling revelry, Matt Fitzpatrick will be playing with kid brother Alex. So it’s happy families at the TPC Louisiana course at Avondale, just outside New Orleans, where Davis Riley and Nick Hardy, who sprang a surprise last year, are back to defend yet virtually written off in the betting.
It was over “a very drunken lunch” after the Ryder Cup that McIlroy and his Irish pal Shane Lowry decided to team up for New Orleans. Victory would be timely with the second Major of the year, the PGA Championship, only three weeks away – and a confidence boost is needed after the disappointments of Augusta and Harbour Town.
‘It was over “a very drunken lunch” after the Ryder Cup that McIlroy and his Irish pal Shane Lowry decided to team up for New Orleans.’
The format is two rounds of alternate-shot golf (what we call foursomes) and two of fourball golf (rounds two and four) where both balls come into play and birdies are easier to come by. Last year’s winners got to 30 under for the week on the 7425-yard par 72 in seeing off Canadians Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin.
Pretty well everyone thought that the Patrick Cantlay-Xander Schauffele combo which had won comfortably in 2022 would prevail again on the course Pete Dye designed with tour professionals Steve Elkington and Kelly Gibson. They could do no better than fifth but there are solid reasons for expecting normal service to be resumed.
Not only are they best buddies but America’s top pairing in Ryder and President’s Cups. They play the same type of game, hit the ball a similar distance and come into the week in great nick, especially Schauffele after a second in the Players, fifth at Valspar and eighth at the Masters.
For Cantlay it has been a bit more of a struggle so his good T3 behind that man Scottie Scheffler at the Heritage could not have been more timely. Even though it’s a good while (20 months) since either man won a tournament, they are the most likely winners, as the betting suggests.
A pair who could outrun their odds are Billy Horschel and the little-known Tyson Alexander. With Horschel winning the Corales Puntacana on Sunday – put up here at 20/1 in midweek – he has that priceless combination of current and course form as he boasts an enviable record at Avondale, winner in 2013 in the days when it was played as an ordinary solo tournament and again in 2018 with Scott Piercy (the second year after it metamorphosed into the pairs event it is today). And two years ago, with Sam Burns as partner, he took second spot to Cantlay-Schauffele, no shame in that.
The question is whether Alexander, whose only claim to fame is a second place in the Houston Open at the end of 2022, can give Horschel the back-up he needs. If he rises to the occasion, Fitzdares’ 40/1 looks a great each-way bet.
Last year’s runners-up Taylor and Hadwin putt well enough to suggest they could go one better and anothe pairing to look out for sees Sahith Theegala, runner-up to Scheffler at Harbour Town on Monday, teaming up with the metronomically straight Will Zalatoris. Their birdie potential is enormous.
It’s going to be a sunny week, hitting 32C on Sunday, and all 160 players with eyes on the $8.9m prize money will be mighty relieved that the unstoppable Scheffler is taking a break from kicking ass.
Best bets
2pts each-way Talor Gooch @ 14/1
1.5pts each-way Cameron Smith @ 11/1
1pt each-way Marc Leishman @ 40/1
1pt each-way Patrick Reed @ 28/1
Round five of LIV Golf’s round-the-world tour goes Down Under this week and their most precious signing Jon Rahm has yet to justify the outrageous sum they paid for him. He’s Fitzdares’ favourite again at 6/1 but they may have to push him out to get the swarthy Spaniard in the book.
Not better than third in four LIV outings, then 45th at Augusta, 20 shots behind Scottie Scheffler, in a turgid defence of his Masters title, big Jon has two weeks with LIV – in Adelaide and Singapore – to right the ship before the second Major of the year.
‘Jon Rahm has yet to justify the outrageous sum they paid for him.’
He will need to show something special to top the stunning golf produced by quiet American Talor Gooch at The Grange on LIV’s Australian debut last year. Gooch fired in two rounds of 62 to lead by ten shots and the tournament was as good as over with 18 holes still to play.
When it’s just a 54-holer there simply isn’t time for the chasers to catch up and although he faltered on the final day, he was still three shots to the good for the first of three $4m first prizes that made him LIV’s Golfer of the Year, yet apparently not worthy of a Masters invite.
Gooch has yet to get off the mark this campaign but was second just a shot behind Dustin Johnson in Las Vegas and we know he loves the course, short for a par 72 at 6946 yards and perfect for his accuracy, as he shot 19 under last time. The 14/1 looks very fair.
Even though one of their own didn’t win, the reported turnout of 77,000 over the three days last year made LIV Adelaide the best attended of the 14-tournament series and they’re expecting even more this week with local hopes hinging on the Aussie quartet of Cammie Smith, Marc Leishman, Lucas Herbert and Matt Jones.
While I can’t see that squad winning the team competition, Smith and Leishman could be Gooch’s principal rivals. Smith was T3 last year, was close to his best when making the playoff in Hong Kong in early March and last time out was, along with Bryson DeChambeau, the pick of the LIV contingent at the Masters when T6.
Leishman’s chance is less obvious but he did produce his best performance of the year last time out when fourth in Miami and he loves the love that the noisy Aussie crowd give him.
DeChambeau and Patrick Reed both feed off adversity and will relish the atmosphere. They had good Masters, Reed (12th) for the second year running, and Pat had a good time in Adelaide last year when sharing third spot with Smith. He’s worth a punt at 28/1.
Little wonder LIV chief Greg Norman chose The Grange. It is where he won his first tournament, the West Lakes Classic, in 1976 and he’s also re-designed the East course which forms half of the composite layout they are playing this week.
As ever, there’s a shotgun start on Friday for the field of 54 and the bad news if you want to watch the action live – it kicks off at 2.45am our time and will be done and dusted before you put the kettle on in the morning. Do remember to get those bets on Thursday night!
Best bets
1.5pts each-way Keita Nakajima @ 16/1
1.5pts each-way Sebastian Soderberg @ 25/1
1pt each-way Sam Bairstow @ 60/1
1pt each-way Matthieu Pavon @ 14/1
0.5pt each-way Ryo Ishikawa @ 66/1
0.5pt each-way Matteo Manassero @ 66/1
Nothing would go down better with the golf-mad Japanese than a home winner of the ISPS Handa and in young Keita Nakajima they might just have found a worthy successor to the great Hideki Matsuyama.
The way he led wire to wire in New Delhi to open his DP World Tour account at only the 11th attempt confirmed that the 23-year-old who ruled the amateur rankings for a total of 87 weeks was a bit special.
‘In Keita Nakajima they might just have found a worthy successor to Hideki Matsuyama.’
While still an amateur he beat the professionals to win the Panasonic Open on the Japan Tour in 2021 and quickly enhanced his growing reputation by capturing three more Japanese tournaments as a pro last year before setting his sights on broadening his horizons.
With the DP World Tour ticked off, the PGA Tour is sure to follow but for the time being he’s chasing win No. 2 on the DPWT on familiar terrain at the Taiheiyo club in Gotemba which has hosted the prestigious Taiheiyo Masters for almost half a century as well golf’s World Cup in 2001.
It is a course the Japanese players know very well and a number of this week’s field have won there. Ryo Ishikawa bagged three Taiheiyo Masters, Hideto Tanihara two, Takumi Kanaya while still an amateur tamed the 7262-yard par 72 parkland layout in 2018 and last year Shugo Imahira put his name on the roll of honour. And there are more.
Ishikawa, once the precocious golden boy with the world at his feet, never quite made it to the top but at 32 still has his moments as when fourth to Collin Morikawa in the ZOZO Championship in November when the PGA Tout visited Japan. Given his stunning course record – he won the third of his Masters titles as recently as 2022 and was ninth to Imahira last year, he’s worth an each-way interest at 66/1.
Unfortunately, two of their brightest stars, Ryo Hisatsune and Rikuya Hoshino, both DPWT winners, are missing but overseas raiders still face stubborn resistance.
PGA Tour-based South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout, runner-up to amateur Nick Dunlap in the AmEx in January, heads the market, is sure to play well but finds winning difficult and preference is for late bloomer Matthieu Pavon, the Frenchman who has won on both main tours, good tournaments too, in the past six months after years of anonymity. As an ISPS Handa ambassador, he can confidently expected to be giving 110 per cent.
Sweden’s Sebastian Soderberg, Italy’s Matteo Manassero and England’s Sam Bairstow all have a shout. Soderberg’s second place to Nakajima in India was his fourth top-ten of the year, the course should suit Manassero, a comeback winner in South Africa and top-five in India, and Bairstow, third in Singapore and 13th in New Delhi, looks more and more a winner waiting to happen.
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