The American Express 2024 Each-way Tips: Picks from 50/1 to 150/1

• 50/151.00 Taylor Montgomery was fifth on debut last year

• 55/156.00 Adam Hadwin has a trio of top three finishes here

• 150/1151.00 Patton Kizzire looks a value outsider

After a pair of somewhat surprise winners in the two Hawaii events - Chris Kirk at The Sentry and Grayson Murray in the Sony Open - the PGA Tour heads to the American mainland for the first time in 2024.

California now takes centre stage with this event followed by two other staples: the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines and the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

All three tournaments use more than one course, and a trio of familiar layouts are once again in play here.

For the first three days, everyone has a lap at the Pete Dye Stadium Course, the Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta Country Club. All are sub 7,200 yards, with La Quinta offering the best chance to go low. The Pete Dye Stadium Course hosts the final round following a 54-hole cut.

It's a pro-am so scoring is easy. Jon Rahm won with totals of 27-under (2023) and 22-under (2018), Andrew Landry (2020) and Adam Long (2019) both fired 26-under while Hudson Swafford (2022) and Si-Woo Kim (2021) delivered winning totals of 23-under.

Swafford, like Rahm, is a dual winner having also triumphed in 2017 while Bill Haas (victor in 2010 and 2015) helps strengthen the argument that course form counts for plenty.

Strokes Gained: Approach has been the most robust stat when looking at those recent champions. The last four winners all ranked at least 8th in that category.

An even stronger stat is that 14 of the last 15 winners had played in one of the Hawaii events so had shaken some rust off. In other words, it's extremely likely that the man holding the trophy on Sunday night will have played The Sentry and/or the Sony Open.

Back Taylor Montgomery @ 50/151.00

Nine of the last dozen editions of this event were won by an American although that's far from the main reason why Taylor Montgomery jumps out this week.

Montgomery has yet to win on the PGA Tour but compatriots Hudson Swafford (2017) and Adam Long (2019) shed their maiden tag here and runner-up Davis Thompson almost did last year but ran into a Jon Rahm winning for the second time in three weeks.

The 28-year-old, who was born and resides in Las Vegas, has a background in desert golf so it made sense that he immediately took to this event on first look last year.

Montgomery posted rounds of 64, 69, 65, 66 to finish in solo fifth place. "Just felt like a relaxed round playing with a bunch of ams. I had a lot of fun," he said after round one.

It followed on from a good week at the Sony Open where he'd posted tied 12th, his first start since a tied 15th in the RSM Classic.

In short, the man from the gambling capital came here in impressive form.

Wind on 12 months and it's exactly the same scenario this week. He was tied eighth in the RSM Classic and tied 13th at Waialae on Sunday. Stretch it back a little and he's fired in the 60s in each of his last 14 rounds.

Of particular relevance at the Sony Open was that Montgomery finished 2nd for Strokes Gained: Approach (7.122), a key metric at this event.

He actually admitted to finding the greens a little difficult to putt last year but the stats show Montgomery ranked 9th for SG: Putting that week while let's remind ourselves that he finished 2nd for SGP on the PGA Tour last season.

There are some big names at the front of the betting - 6/17.00 Scottie Scheffler, 9/110.00 Patrick Cantlay, 9/110.00 Xander Schauffle and 20/121.00 Justin Thomas give the field some extra glow - but Montgomery is very capable of making a huge challenge at a venue he clearly likes.

Back Adam Hadwin @ 55/156.00

On first glance, it looks less than ideal that Adam Hadwin missed the cut at the Sony Open last week.

But it's actually not hard to put a positive spin on that early exit which was basically down to one average round (72) on Friday after he'd opened with a 67.

For starters, it likely helps us get a better price on him here.

Secondly, a quick flick through the history books shows that both Long (2018) and Landry (2019) missed the Sony cut before landing victory here a week later.

Hadwin's underlying form is actually pretty good.

Before it went wonky on day two in Waialae, he'd closed with a 64 to bank tied 14th in The Sentry and his previous start before that was a second place in October's Shriners Children's Open in Las Vegas, a birdie-fest like this one.

Ah yes, that brings us on to his form in this tournament which is absolutely outstanding without quite resulting in the ultimate prize.

The Canadian was sixth on debut in 2016, finished runner-up in both 2017 and 2019 and posted third inbetween those second places.

He's added a further pair of top 25s in his last two visits, finishing 18th last year.

Attempting to explain his success here, Hadwin once said: "Lliving in Phoenix these past few years, this is the golf that I play every day. So that over-seeded, the greens are exactly what we play back in Scottsdale. So I would assume that might add to some of the comfort."

It's an important point about the grass type. You'll see these greens listed as Bermuda but they're Poa overseed as stated on the GCSAA fact sheet.

That page adds some further notes: "All greens were re-surfaced with Tifdwarf hybrid bermudagrass in the last two years, but are overseeded at this time of year.

"Weather was warm in November and December leading to great growing conditions and thicker than normal rough."

That latter could help Hadwin, who was in the top 25% for Driving Accuracy on the PGA Tour last season.

Back Patton Kizzire @ 150/1151.00

It's been a good couple of weeks for American golfers who were winning some time back into the previous decade.

Chris Kirk had four victories between 2011 and 2016 before ending his drought last year and adding another triumph at The Sentry.

Grayson Murray hadn't seen the winners' enclosure since 2017 before pulling off a dramatic victory at the Sony Open.

So how about a player who posted a pair of PGA Tour wins in 2017 (Mayakoba) and 2019 (Sony) - Patton Kizzire.

Kizzire only has conditional status this season but made a good fist of his first event when 13th on his latest trip to the Sony Open last week.

That added to three decent performances in November including a 15th at the World Wide Technology Championship. Over his last four events he has a stroke average of 67.47.

Kizzire has been trying his luck in this event since 2016 and his best two knocks have come in the last two years: 22nd in 2022 and 11th last year.

On a very basic level, getting 150s on a player who just missed the top 10 in 2023 and returns with two top 15s in his last four PGA Tour starts looks good business.

He's confident in his game, looks very much a man on a mission after losing his card and could just take a little positive inspiration from Kirk and Murray.

Others I looked at were 70/171.00 Erik van Rooyen, 55/156.00 Akshay Bhatia, 125/1126.00 Matthieu Pavon and Open de France winner [Ryo Hisatsune] at 90/1.

From the top end, Korean duo Sungjae Im at 20/121.00 and Tom Kim at 25/126.00 could go close but I'll stick with my trio of Montgomery, Hadwin and Kizzire.

Now read Steve Rawlings' preview of The American Express