AVONDALE, La. (AP) – Tony Finau is among the PGA Tour players primed to take some unusual risks and big swings this week. The tour is back in New Orleans, with the Zurich Classic’s two-person team format being held for the first time since 2019. During the second and final rounds call for players on each team to alternate shots, it’s a best-ball format in the first round Thursday and the third round Saturday. That’s when spectators could see some of the world’s top-ranked players try to pull off all-or-nothing shots.
Finau is among the longer hitters on tour. So is his teammate, Cameron Champ.
“There’s no reason for me to hold back on certain holes where Cameron has got it out there in the middle of the fairway,” Finau said. “So, I’ll crank up my ball speed on a few shots this week.”
Finau specifically mentioned the 403-yard 13th hole, which he called “a drivable par 4.”
“I can see myself letting it rip,” he said.
While heavy-hitting Bryson DeChambeau isn’t in the field, five players are ranked in the world’s top 10. They include No. 5 Xander Schauffele and No. 10 Patrick Cantlay, who are on the same team.
They are friends who know one another’s game well.
week at least once, and we figured it was a bit of a no-brainer,” said Schauffele, who tied for third at the Masters. “We usually compete against each other week-to-week, especially in our little nine-hole matches. So, we know our games inside out. I think that will give us an advantage.”
The par-72, Pete Dye-designed TPC Louisiana course is 7,425 yards long and carved from a cypress swamp southwest of New Orleans. It’s an exotic-looking course with Spanish moss dangling from soaring, old-growth cypress trees whose unique root system, known as cypress knees, sometimes protrudes up through the fairway a couple of yards from the base of the tree trunks. There’s also a giant, semi-famous alligator – called Tripod because he’s missing a leg – which often appears in the water lining the par-3 17th.
Tickets have been limited to 10,000 because of the coronavirus pandemic, which caused the cancellation of the Zurich Classic in 2020. But the familiar garlic-and-butter aroma of charbroiled oysters – one of Finau’s favorite local dishes – again hangs in the air.
Those sights and smells comfort Billy Horschel, the only player to have won here in a traditional single-player format (2013) and in the team format (2018) adopted in 2017.
Horschel, who’d teamed up with Scott Piercy three years ago, tapped Louisiana native and former LSU player Sam Burns as his teammate this time.
“A native Louisiana guy on my team can only enhance my chances of hopefully winning this for the third time,” Horschel said. “He’s a perfect putter. He drives it a long way.”
The defending champions are 44-year-old Texan Ryan Palmer and 26-year-old Spaniard Jon Rahm, a seemingly odd pairing from different continents and generations who won by three strokes in 2019.
Rahm arrives in Louisiana without a win this season but with one second-place – and a tie for fifth at the Masters – among eight top-10 finishes that have earned him a No. 3 world ranking.
“One of the reasons why the partnership worked so well is because we play a similar game,” Rahm said, noting that both players like to hit fades. “It’s a ball-strikers golf course. … It should suit our strengths very well.”
The Zurich also offers players a chance to bolster their credentials for the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, major international team tournaments held on alternate years. The Ryder Cup, pitting a U.S. team against a European one, is scheduled for late September. “This is another week where we have the opportunity to shine in front of our (Ryder Cup) captain and the co-captains,” Finau said, referring to U.S. captain Steve Stricker and vice-captains Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson, and Davis Love III. “Who knows? You could be looking at a team representing the U.S. in the Ryder Cup later this fall.”
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