The American Express: Poston the pick at 39/1

• Longshots and previous event winners prosper

• Great place to trade on a Sunday

• Read My Dubai Desert Classic preview here

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Tournament History

After a fortnight in Hawaii, the PGA Tour takes in the first of three events in-a-row in California - The American Express.

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 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 a Pro-Am staged over three different courses (listed below) in rotation over the first three days with the host course, the Pete Dye Stadium Course (known previously as the PGA West TPC Stadium Course), staging the final round on Sunday.

Venue

PGA West - La Quinta Country Club, California

Pete Dye Stadium Course (Stadium Course), par 72, 7,187 yards - Scoring Average in 2023 - 69.2
PGA West (Nicklaus Tournament Course), par 72, 7,147 yards - Scoring Average in 2023 - 68.72
La Quinta Country Club, par 72, 7,060 yards - Scoring Average in 2023 - 69.58

The Pete Dye-designed Pete Dye Stadium Course, which up until this year was known as the PGA West Stadium Course, was used for the first time eight years ago and it's usually the hardest of the three courses used.

La Quinta was the easiest of the three courses again last year and between 2017 and 2020 it was the easiest par 72 used on the PGA Tour for four seasons in-a-row.

With amateurs playing, the set-ups are deliberately less demanding than usually encountered on the PGA Tour and very low scoring is the norm. The Bermuda greens are usually set at around 11 on the stimpmeter and the rough is minimal.

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Weather Forecast

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TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 21:00 on Thursday in the UK

Last Eight Winners with Pre-event Prices

• 2023 - Jon Rahm -27 8.07/1
• 2022 - Hudson Swafford -23 250.0249/1
• 2021 - Si Woo Kim -23 55.054/1
• 2020 - Andrew Landry -26 500.0499/1
• 2019 - Adam Long -26 1000.0999/1
• 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?

The last two winners, Jon Rahm and Hudson Swafford, both ranked slightly better for length than they did for accuracy but what you do off the tee in this event is largely irrelevant.

As a demonstration of how unimportant the driving stats are, the 2020 winner, Andrew Landry, ranked 61st for Driving Distance and when Swafford won the title for the first time in 2017 he ranked the 61st for Driving Accuracy. Landry ranked third for DA and Swafford ranked fifth for DD.

Rahm ranked sixth for Strokes Gained Tee to Green 12 months ago and he ranked second for Greens in Regulation and the average GIR ranking of the last 15 winners is 11.3.

Swafford ranked fifth for Putting Average and second for Strokes Gained Putting two years but Rahm only ranked 10th and 61st for those two putting metrics.

This is a tough event to evaluate statistically as it's basically just a birdie-fest and it usually boils down to who holes the most putts on Sunday.

It's tough to know what we should be looking at but Par 4 Scoring or Par 4 Performance are possibly stats to consider.

The 2021 winner, Si Woo Kim only ranked 10th for Par 4 Scoring but the man who finished second, Patrick Cantlay, ranked first. The last two winners have ranked second and the two winners before Kim, Landry and Adam Long, ranked first and second.

Rahm only ranked fifth when he won here for the first time in 2018 but the seven winners before him topped the Par 4 Scoring.

Is There an Angle In?

Given the first event of the year, The Sentry 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 back in 2007, 15 of the next 16 winners had all had at least one start. Bill Haas, back in 2015, is the odd man out.

The red-hot favourite, Rahm, was winning his third event in four starts when he won last year but a decent performance doesn't appear to be vital. Swafford finished 48th in the Sony Open the week before when he won here two years and Kim finished a respectable 25th in the Sony three years ago.

However, the two winners before him both missed the cut at the Sony (Adam Long in 2018 and Andrew Landry in 2019) and that was also the case for the five winners between 2008 and 2012.

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 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 seven years ago, Swafford signalled his wellbeing with a 13th place at the Sony when winning here for the first time in 2017 and the 2018 winner, Rahm, had finished runner-up to Dustin Johnson in The Sentry. And he won that event last year before winning here too.

Is There an Identikit Winner?

Rahm went off favourite 12 months ago and Kim was a 55.054/1 chance three years ago but this is a great event for massive outsiders.

Swafford was matched at 350.0349/1 when the market first opened two years ago and the two winners before Kim went off at 1000.0999/1 and 500.0499/1. And between 2008 and 2014, all seven winners went off at a triple-figure price!

Multiple event winners are fairly common so previous winners are well worth considering closely.

Arnold Palmer loved this event, and he won it five times between 1960 and 1973, the last two winners had both won the event previously, as many as ten men have won it more than once, and huge outsider, Landry, has very nearly won it twice.

Winner's Position and Price Pre-Round Four

• 2023 - Jon Rahm tied for the lead 1.645/8
• 2022 - Hudson Swafford T5th - trailing by three 25.024/1
• 2021 - Si Woo Kim tied for the lead 5.14/1
• 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

Like most low scoring birdie-fests, being up with the place is usually the place to be in this event.

Since the tournament was reduced from five rounds to four in 2012, all bar one winner has been within four strokes of the lead after round one and six of the last eight winners have been inside the front three places after the opening day.

As many as five of the last eight sat first or second after round one so a fast start is often key but it's not impossible to win after a slow start, as Swafford proved two years ago...

A lacklustre 70 on Thursday saw him sitting tied for 73rd (trailing by eight) and he could still be backed at odds in excess of 200.0199/1 at halfway when he trailed by five in a tie for 24th and although we hadn't seen a winner form off the pace for some time, Swafford wasn't the first...

Justin Leonard was eight back at halfway 17 years ago and a number of winners have been four, five, six and seven back with two rounds to go. David Duval in 1999, trailed by seven before he famously shot 59 to win by a stroke so you clearly can come from behind with a wet sail.

If you're looking to trade in-running, this is a great event in which to lay odds-on shots in-running.

Rahm was the only man to go odds-on last year but pre-event 400.0399/1 chance, Davis Thompson, hit a low of 2.186/5 on Sunday and in 13 of the last 17 renewals we've seen at least one player trade at odds-on without winning.

And in two of the last five renewals there have been two players trade at odds-on before losing - Scottie Scheffler (1.9210/11) and Abraham Ancer (1.715/7) in 2020 and Phil Mickelson (1.695/7) and Adam Hadwin (1.081/12) in 2019.

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

Rahm drifted all the way out to 3.02/1 in-running on Sunday last year, having been matched at as low as 1.192/11 during round three. Landry 1.152/13, after three holes in round four in 2020, was 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. Those pick-ups were immediately followed by three straight drops however.

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

The world number one, Scottie Scheffler, lines up here for the fifth year in-a-row and with event form figures reading 3-MC-25-11, he's yet to improve on his debut appearance in 2019 when he traded at odds-on in-running.

Scheffler finished fifth two weeks ago at The Sentry, where he led at the halfway stage, and where his tee-to-green game was up to its usual stratospherically high standard, but as highlighted in the De-brief, as the weekend wore on, his putting deteriorated.

That's a big concern in an event that's effectively a birdie-fest and often merely a putting competition so I'm more than happy to swerve him.

Patrick Cantlay has traded at odds-on to take the title here twice previously and with form figures reading 9-2-9-26, he commands plenty of respect.

The world number six was second at the Pheonix Open on debut in 2022 and he has Shriners Children's Open form figures reading 1-2-2-8-2 so he loves desert golf but I'm happy to swerve him after an underwhelming 12^th place finish at The Sentry last time out.

Xander Schauffele missed the cut on his first two appearances here, in 2016 and 2017, and he swerved the tournament altogether for the next five years before signing off last year's renewal with a 62 in round four to finish third and he has a second and a third at Phoenix, so he's another that plays well in the desert.

The 30 year-old Californian has played 26 times in his home state but he's yet to win here and his 10^th placed finished at The Sentry last time out wasn't great given he sat third and just two off the lead after 54 holes.

He hasn't won in 18 months and he's not the most resolute in contention so he's another I'm happy to leave out before the off.

Selection

I'm far from convinced he's a fabulous price at around the 40.039/1 mark but I couldn't resist a small bet on the in-form two-time PGA Tour winner, J.T Poston, who sounds like he's looking forward to this week's tournament.

Having sat right down in a tie for 81^st following a double-bogey at the third hole in round three at last week's Sony Open, a week after finishing an impressive tied fifth in The Sentry, and having played his first five holes on Sunday in level-par, Poston caught fire in round four, playing his last 13 holes in nine-under-par to finish sixth, beaten by two, and he's looking forward to taking the feelgood factor to California.

When interviewed after his round on Sunday, he had this to say about this week's event.

"It's great momentum. I finished the week last week with my low round of the week, and I've done it again this week, so it feels good to be playing my best rounds of the week on a Sunday.

It's a good thing and it definitely builds a lot of confidence and so, I like next week, there's usually a lot of birdies which tends to kind of be my sort of game I guess so I'm excited."

This is Poston's eighth appearance and he's already contended twice. He was seventh in 2019 and sixth last year, when he sat third with a round to go.

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Read my Dubai Desert Classic preview here

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*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter