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The American Express: A bold lay plan for the Californian action

Steven Rawlings
19 January 2021
8 min read

Tournament favourite, Patrick Cantlay

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After two weeks in Hawaii, the PGA Tour moves on to California for the American Express and our man's having a change of tactics. Read Steve's in-depth preview here...

"Given the last two winners have gone off at 1000.0 and 500.0499/1 and that between 2008 and 2014, all seven winners went off at a triple-figure price, we have to conclude that this is a great event for outsiders."

Tournament History

The American Express began life in 1960 as the Palm Springs Desert Golf Challenge - a five-round pro-am won by Arnold Palmer.

Between 1965 and 2012 it was known as the Bob Hope Classic before Humana took over the sponsorship and revived its fortunes.

The tournament had been failing to attract quality fields and the perception was that the five-round format had much to do with its demise. It was reduced to the conventional four rounds in 2012 and it's been a much better received event as a result.

The tournament is ordinarily a pro-am staged over three different courses but there's quite a change to the format this time around. Phil Mickelson is once again the Tournament Host but due to COVID-19 the pro-am element has been scraped and only two courses are being used - the host course, the PGA West's Stadium Course, and the Nicklaus Tournament Course.

Venue

PGA West, La Quinta, California

Course Details

PGA West (TPC Stadium Course), par 72, 7,113 yards - Scoring Average in 2020 - 70.36
PGA West (Nicklaus Tournament Course), par 72, 7,159 yards - Scoring Average in 2020 - 69.23

There are six separate courses at PGA West in La Quinta, California, and the rotation has changed over the years. The Arnold Palmer Course, where David Duval shot 59 on Sunday to win in 1999, is no longer part of the rotation and this year we're missing La Quinta, which is traditionally the easiest of the three courses ordinarily used.

The Pete Dye-designed PGA West Stadium Course, which is once again the host course, was used for the first time five years ago and it's always the hardest course. The par three 17th, with its island green, is known as Alcatraz and the final hole is a fairly tricky par four with water in play off the tee and on approach.

The Nicklaus Tournament Course, unsurprisingly designed by Jack Nicklaus, is slightly easier than the Stadium Course and it's described as "both very forgiving off the tee and extremely demanding around the greens."

It will be interesting to see if the set-up is any tougher this year. Ordinarily, with amateurs playing, the set-up is deliberately less demanding than usually encountered on the PGA Tour and very low scoring is the norm. The greens are traditionally set at around 11 on the stimpmeter and the rough is minimal.

American Express lake and fairway view.jpg

There have been changes to both courses since last year, detailed below.

The Stadium Course will measure 7,147 yards this week, 34 yards longer than last year, due to extensions on three of par fours - the 471-yard third (+23 yards), the 452-yard ninth (+7) and 439-yard 18th (+4).

The par four 18th hole is 22 yards longer on the Nicklaus Tournament Course this time around and that's the only change to the length of the course but all the greens have been changed from TifDwarf bermuda to TifEagle bermuda. That change has allowed for an expansion of over 50,000 square feet of putting surfaces across the property and the greens now average over 7,700 square feet. In comparison, the greens on the Stadium Course measure only 5,000 square feet on average.

Weather Forecast

TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, beginning with Featured Group coverage at 16:30 on Thursday. Full coverage begins at 20:00 on all four days.

Last Five Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices

2020 - Andrew Landry -26 500.0499/1
2019 - Adam Long -26 100.099/1
2018 - Jon Rahm -22 10.519/2 (playoff)
2017 - Hudson Swafford -20 70.069/1
2016 - Jason Dufner -25 48.047/1

What Will it Take to Win the American Express?

What you do of the tee is largely irrelevant here although I'd fractionally favour accuracy over length. As a demonstration of how unimportant the driving stats are, last year's winner, Andrew Landry, ranked 61st for Driving Distance and the 2017 winner, Hudson Swafford, ranked the same for Driving Accuracy. Landry ranked third for DA and Swafford ranked fifth for DD.

This is effectively a birdie-fest and it's all about finding plenty of greens and holing lots of putts. The average Greens In Regulation ranking for the last 12 winners is 12.04 and the front three ranked tied seventh, first, and tied seventh for GIR last year. The last two winners, Landry and Adam Long, both topped the Putting Average stats and Par 4 Scoring is a stat to ponder too.

Landry only ranked 12th last year but that was unusually high. Long ranked second in 2019 and Rahm ranked fifth in 2018 but the seven winners before Rahm topped the Par 4 Scoring and the man he beat in the playoff, last year's victor, Landry, played the par fours better than anyone else.

Is There an Angle In?

Given the first event of the year, the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii is a limited field event, and that last week's Sony Open is also staged in Hawaii, this is the first PGA Tour event of the year on the mainland and it's the first event of the year for a number of contenders. And that looks like something of a handicap...

Since Charley Hoffman won this when playing in his first event of the year in 2007, 12 of the next 13 winners have all had at least one start. Bill Haas, back in 2015, is the odd man out.

Interestingly, a decent performance doesn't appear to be vital. The last two winners both missed the cut at the Sony and that was the case for the five winners between 2008 and 2012.

Of those seven winners to miss out on weekend employment at the Sony, the 2012 champ, Mark Wilson, is the only one to have also teed it up at the Sentry Tournament of Champions the week before - where he'd finished 18th.

The 2013 winner, Brian Gay, had finished 31st at the Sony in his sole previous start and Patrick Reed, the 2014 champ, had finished 16th in the Sentry TOC but the three winners before Long had all shown something significant before they won. Jason Dufner took the title having finished ninth in the Sony four years ago, Hudson Swafford signalled his wellbeing with a 13th place at the Sony and the 2018 winner, Rahm, had finished runner-up to Dustin Johnson in the Sentry TOC. He didn't play the Sony.

From a course correlation perspective, form at TPC Scottsdale, where the Waste Management Phoenix Open is staged in two weeks time, is worthy of close inspection.

Phil Mickelson, Mark Wilson and Kenny Perry have all won both this event and the Phoenix Open fairly recently and a number of players have come close to winning both. Dufner was beaten in a playoff there by Wilson in 2011, Charley Hoffman was beaten by Perry in extra time in Phoenix, two years after he'd won here, and Justin Leonard is another to win here and finish second in Phoenix.

Jesper Parnevik, John Rollins and Ryan Palmer have all finished runner-up at both events and Phoenix is where the 2018 winner, Rahm, first came to the attention of the watching world when he finished fifth in just his second professional start in 2015. He's since finished 16th, 11th and 10th there. And finally, Long's 10th in Phoenix was an eye-catching effort last year.

Both are low-scoring events in the desert so it's not a surprise that they correlate nicely.

Is There an Identikit Winner?

Given the last two winners have gone off at 1000.0 and 500.0499/1 and that between 2008 and 2014, all seven winners went off at a triple-figure price, we have to conclude that this is a great event for outsiders.

Back when the tournament was played over five rounds, it used to be a good event for the older, experienced players who could cope with the longevity of the rounds and the idle chatter with all the amateurs. Plenty of event experience was important and between 1984 and 2006, on average, the champion was playing in his seventh Desert Classic but then that all changed.

Between 2007 and 2011, four of the five winners were winning on the PGA Tour for the first time and the odd man out, DJ Trahan in 2008, was winning only his second PGA Tour title.

Big-hitting rookies were seemingly taking control but the veteran, Mark Wilson, took the title in testing windy conditions eight years ago and the winners have been a mixed bag ever since with a handful of experienced winners taking the title, as well as a couple of first-time winners (Swafford and Long). Landry was a huge price 12 months ago but he had won before, claiming the Texas Open in 2018.

Landry looks a lively outsider this time around given he was fourth at the RSM Classic before Christmas and that he traded at a low of 1.528/15 when beaten here by Rahm in extra time three years. He clearly likes the event and multiple event winners are fairly common.

Arnold Palmer loved this event and he won it five times between 1960 and 1973, the tournament host, Phil Mickelson, has won it twice and Bill Hass became the seventh player, other than The King, to win it a second time when he took the title in 2015. We're perhaps due another multiple winner.

Winner's Position and Exchange Price Pre-Round Four

2020 - Andrew Landry tied for the lead 3.412/5
2019 - Adam Long solo 3rd - trailing by three 23.022/1
2018 - Jon Rahm T4th - trailing by two 4.03/1
2017 - Hudson Swafford T3rd - trailing by two 8.07/1
2016 - Jason Dufner led by two strokes 1.875/6

In-Play Tactics

Landry was tied for sixth after the opening round and just two off the lead and that was as far behind as he was all week. He sat third and one back at halfway and he was tied for the lead with a round to go. That was a typical recent route to victory but prior to the last seven renewals this was an event in which several winners recovered from relatively slow starts.

Justin Leonard was eight back at halfway 14 years ago and a number of winners have been four, five, six and even seven back with two rounds to go. David Duval in 1999, trailed by seven before he shot 59 to win by a stroke so you can come from behind with a wet sail, but things have changed of late and it's been a while since we saw an off-the-pace winner.

Being up with the pace is the place to be now but it's still worth looking for an odds-on shot to take on in-running if recent results are anything to go by. Incredibly, in 11 of the last 14 renewals we've seen at least one player trade at odds-on without winning and in each of the last two renewals there have been two...

Scottie Scheffler was matched at 1.9210/11 during round three last year and Abraham Ancer hit a low of 1.71] on Sunday. A year earlier, Mickelson traded at a low of 1.695/7 early on in round four, having led by two with a round to go, and Adam Hadwin was matched at just 1.081/12 when he stood over a five foot birdie putt on the 12th that would have seen him go four clear with six to play. Odds-on backers were filling their boots but he missed the putt and it killed his momentum completely. He bogeyed the next hole and parred his way in.

As already stated, Landry was matched at 1.528/15 in the playoff in 2018, Chad Campbell dipped to 1.758/11 in 2017, David Lingmerth was matched at just 1.141/7 in 2015 and in 2013 there were two to trade really short and get beat. Scott Stallings hit a low of 1.141/7 and Charles Howell III was matched at 1.42/5 before Brian Gay went on to win the title.

It's also worth mentioning that two of the last three winners, Landry and Rahm, both traded at very low odds before looking like they might get beat.

Landry traded at as low as 1.031/33 when he shot six clear of the field with three birdies in-a-row after the turn but the pick-ups were immediately followed by three straight drops and Ancer traded odds-on after that and Rahm, in 2018, was matched for more than 30k at 1.061/18 in regulation play and he hit a low of 1.051/20 before Landry birdied the 72nd hole to take the event to extra time.

Year after year players trade at odds-on and get beat or in the case of Landry and Rahm, come close to throwing it away, so it's a great tournament to trade on a Sunday.

Market Leaders

Since the withdrawal of Jon Rahm on Monday, the tournament looks wide open with Patrick Cantlay heading the market at 16.015/1 but he's a player I always want to take on.

Patrick Reed Sentry.jpg

The 2014 winner, Patrick Reed, was disappointing at the Sentry Tournament of Champions last time out but he was suffering from shin splints, so he does have an excuse. He was in fair form at the backend of last year so could easily bounce back but I'm taking him on to, as I am with almost all the players trading at less than 100.099/1. For a guide on how to lay, click here.

Selections

I've backed two outsiders so far and I'll be back with the details on them either later today or tomorrow with the Find Me a 100 Winner column but given how well outsiders do here, I've had a change of plan this week and decided to begin the tournament by laying almost all those trading at a double-figure price.

I've made Tony Finau my biggest loser and he stands to lose me £444, with all the others losing between £70 and £415. Of those trading at below 100.099/1, I've kept Patton Kizzire, Doc Redman and Adam Hadwin onside and should anyone else I haven't layed, i.e. everyone at 100.099/1 or bigger, win the tournament I currently stand to win me £529.

I'll adjust the book throughout the tournament slightly and get more heavily involved on Sunday. I'll adjust the figures on the In-Play Blog throughout the week.

*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter