Black Desert Championship 2024 Tips: Dave Tindall's picks from 35/1 to 70/1

• 66/167.00 Ben Kohles likes a birdie-fest and is in form

• 70/171.00 K.H. Lee is a two-time winner on another Weiskopf design

• 35/136.00 Michael Thorbjornsen looks a good fit here

For the first time since 1963, the PGA Tour heads to Utah for a brand new tournament - the Black Desert Championship. It's virtually a brand new course too, the Tom Weiskopf Black Desert Resort Golf Course only opening in 2023.

Utah as a destination gives us a first way in as the State that borders Nevada to the east is set at altitude. Not as high as the recent event in Denver but Black Desert is about 3,000 feet above sea level.

With the par 71 measuring 7,371 yards we can knock a chunk off that so this really isn't that long a layout.

Set amongst lava, it'll look great on TV but beyond the spectacular visuals, Black Rock should play as a fairly standard resort course. With generous fairways and fairly large bentgrass greens, the birdie count will need to be high.

As for correlating courses, mentions for Weiskopf's Craig Ranch in Texas (Byron Nelson) and the Summit Club in Las Vegas (2021 CJ Cup) look logical.

Rory McIlroy won at the Summit with -25 while winning scores at Craig Ranch range from -23 to -26 in the four events held there.

Last week's Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi should also be relevant in terms of what was required and plenty of the leading protagonists there are heading to Utah.

Back Ben Kohles @ 66/167.00

It's always tough to accept shorter prices on players who hardly win or, in fact, have never won, so I'll look beyond the very front end of the market which shows Keith Mitchell as 14/115.00 favourite and Beau Hossler at 22/123.00.

Yes, they have an obvious chance but both will carry some disappointment after missing out to Kevin Yu down the stretch in last week's Sanderson Farms Championship.

Results from that event are worth noting though and anyone who cracked the top 25 there goes on the shortlist.

And one of those to emerge as a bet is Ben Kohles.

The 34-year-old is a four-time winner on the Korn Ferry Tour and two of those victories came last year.

He's popped up on plenty of leaderboards this year and one of those occasions has particular relevance as it came at Craig Ranch where he finished runner-up in the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.

With his card locked up for next season, these next few events are about improving his FedEx Cup ranking and it currently stands at 83rd.

Kohles has made both cuts on the Fall Series so far.

He was 10th at halfway in the Procore Championship before falling away on the weekend while last week he fired three 67s and a 70 to take 16th in the Sanderson Farms.

Rankings of ninth Tee To Green and 13th Approach (he was 14th in this category at the Procure) there bode well as everyone will take time to get used to these new greens.

A straight hitter, he'll avoid the risk of the big number from the tee more than most and his best results this season have come in birdie-fests - second with -22 at Craig Ranch and sixth with -17 at the Puerto Rico Open.

Kohles, who racked up 23 birdies last week (T3), is worth a play at 66s.

Back K.H. Lee @ 70/171.00

If playing the correlating courses angle, it's hard to overlook K.H. Lee at 70/171.00.

Matt Every winning back-to-back Arnold Palmer Invitationals at Bay Hill is perhaps the weirdest example of a player making a successful PGA Tour title defence.

But K.H. Lee walking off with the trophy two years running in the Byron Nelson at Craig Ranch must come a very close second.

The Korean won the first of those with -25 in 2021 and went one lower to shoot -26 and retain the title in 2022.

Now we cross over to the 2021 CJ Cup at the Summit Club in Las Vegas and although that field was littered with big names who aren't playing here, a look at that leaderboard shows Lee finishing 25th after posting a pair of 66s on the weekend.

Last week he was on the birdie trail again to finish 23rd in the Sanderson Farms.

The 33-year-old from Seoul came home in 31 on Sunday thanks to an eagle and three birdies. His birdie count on the week was 21.

Three starts earlier he was tied ninth at the 3M Open (20 birdies, rank 10th) so he's racking up the par breakers.

This looks a good chance to improve his FedEx Cup rank of 101st and hopefully the fact that this is another Weiskopf design gets into his head and propels him to another big finish.

As a very bottom line, you'll struggle to find many two-time PGA Tour winners in this field at odds of 70/171.00.

Back Michael Thorbjornsen @ 35/136.00

Stanford University grad Michael Thorbjornsen looks destined for big things and this could be a great place to catch him.

The 23-year-old secured his card by finishing top of the University rankings for the Class of 2024.

Ludvig Aberg followed this same pathway and it's worked out pretty well for the Swede.

Thorbjornsen made his mark at the very start of the year when 11th in the DP World Tour's Dubai Desert Classic.

And in nine starts on the PGA Tour since then, he's posted second place at the John Deere Classic and eighth at last week's Sanderson Farms Championship.

His scores from those two events - -24 at the John Deere and -19 at the Sanderson Farms - show that he's a big danger in birdie-fests like these.

Thorbjornsen had rounds of 63 (R4) and 64 (R2) at the JDC and opened with 63 last week.

Black Desert should be a bomber's course and that definitely suits him. He was third for Driving Distance last week as well as fourth Off The Tee and his putter is a weapon too: seventh for SG: Putting in Mississippi.

Talking earlier that week, Thorbjornsen said: "Just had to put in some good work these off weeks and understand that to play good golf, you don't really need something special, just hit fairways, hit greens, and have a couple putts drop here and there, and you'll produce some good results.

"So yeah, just tried to keep that mindset going."

That uncomplicated outlook should work well on this uncomplicated layout.

With birdies needed, Thorbjornsen's simple recipe of smashing driver and holing plenty of putts should serve him well.

If the 35s doesn't look amazing now, it will if his career really takes off. "Really? Thorbjornsen 35/136.00 in a field like that!" we may be saying this time next year.

Now read Steve Rawlings Open de France preview here