Zurich Classic Odds: Cantlay, Schauffele Favorites in New Orleans Team Event

With Scottie Scheffler off presumably steam-cleaning the green and tartan jackets he’s claimed the past two weeks at the Masters and the Heritage, everybody else gets a shot this week in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the PGA Tour’s annual team event. The duo of Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, who won this event in 2022 and tied for fourth last year, are favored in the Zurich Classic odds.

The 80 teams (cut to top 33 and ties) will play best ball in the first and third rounds, and alternate shot in the second and final rounds. No surprise, then, that the top of the oddsboard is dominated by players with lots of experience competing in those formats at the Ryder Cup—like the team of Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry (+750), Collin Morikawa at +1200 (playing with Kurt Kitayama) and Matt Fitzpatrick at +2800 (playing with brother Alex).

2024 Zurich Classic Odds

Odds as of April 23

Zurich Classic PGA Tour Best Bets

Patrick Cantlay/Xander Schauffele to Win: +450

A chalk selection, but also the natural play here. Schauffele has been fantastic most of this season, finishing eighth at the Masters and tied for second at the Players Championship, while Cantlay fought out of a recent rough patch with a T4 at the Heritage. These guys are best friends who enter this event with zero pressure, a fact evident in some of the outrageously low scores they’ve posted in recent years.

Collin Morikawa/Kurt Kitayama Top 5 Finish: +240

While he struggled in both final rounds, Morikawa is still coming off fantastic back-to-back finishes in T3 at the Masters and ninth at the Heritage. Morikawa and partner Max Homa surprisingly missed the cut in New Orleans last year, so this time he’s paired with Kitayama, whose 2024 campaign has been uneven outside of a T8 in Phoenix. But he still has plenty of game, as he showed in winning the Arnold Palmer and finishing T4 at the PGA Championship last year.

Billy Horschel/Tyson Alexander Top 10 Finish: +750

Horschel is really good in New Orleans, owning second- and fourth-place results in addition to his victory with Piercy in 2018. The same player who missed 10 cuts in 2023 also has renewed confidence after tying the course record to win the opposite-field PGA event in Puerto Rico, his first victory since 2022. Alexander is an unknown, though he did finish T14 at the Texas Open earlier this month. But thanks to the format, Horschel can do a lot of the heavy lifting on a course where he’s thrived before.

Zurich Classic PGA Tour Betting Tips

There’s a little more star power than usual in this non-elevated event, with McIlroy, Fitzpatrick, Morikawa, Wyndham Clark and Will Zalatoris all entered, and Billy Horschel coming off a win last week in the PGA Tour’s opposite-field tournament in Puerto Rico. But the bulk of this field is still filled with lesser names and Champions Tour regulars, which allows bettors to identify the top contending teams pretty quickly once the tournament begins.

But surprises can still emerge, as the +4000-to-win pairing of Davis Riley and Nick Hardy did last year when they won by two shots. Horschel and Scott Piercy won by a stroke in 2018. But since this event switched to a team format in 2017, every other winning duo has had an A-lister on board: Cantlay and Schauffele in 2023, Cameron Smith in 2021 with Marc Leishman and in 2017 with Jonas Blixt, and Jon Rahm with Ryan Palmer in 2019. Indeed, the LIV defectors are felt this week.

Like Harbour Town at last week’s Heritage, TPC Louisiana is a Pete Dye design loaded with ponds and dotted with over 100 bunkers. But the format mitigates many of those hazards, allowing teams to go very low—as Cantlay and Schauffele did by shooting 59 and 60 on their way to the 2022 crown. Davis and Riley last year finished a record 30-under for the tournament. The better teams especially will have lots of opportunities to post red numbers, move up the leaderboard, and separate themselves from the rest.