The PGA TOUR heads from Hawaii to California this week for The American Express. PGA West will be the host, and will feature a three-course rotation. The Pete Dye Stadium Course is the most notable of the three, as each golfer will play two of their four rounds there. It measures as a 7,210-yard par 72 with Poa greens. The other two courses — La Quinta Country Club and Nicklaus Tournament Course — are also par 72s, but slightly shorter.
The field is pretty strong this week, as Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Wyndham Clark and Sam Burns will all be teeing it up.
Below I have outlined my two favorite bets for the week.
Si Woo Kim to win (+3500)
Pretty easy flow chart to follow this week. Are we playing at a Pete Dye Course? If yes, then bet Si Woo Kim. The South Korean is one of the best Dye specialists both on the PGA TOUR, but more importantly, in this field. He ranks third behind only Patrick Cantlay and Justin Thomas in SG: Tee-to-Green over his 113 measured rounds at Dye tracks.
Among Kim’s four career wins, two have come at Dye tracks: THE PLAYERS Championship and the 2021 rendition of this event. As a matter of fact, in seven career starts at the AMEX, Kim has yet to miss a cut, while posting a T9 and three additional top 25s, to go along with that win.
He’s also coming in to play this week on the back of some strong ball-striking performances. The 29-year-old gained 1.5 or more strokes on approach in three of his past four starts, which dates back to the BMW Championship. He missed the cut at Waialae last week due to an abhorrent putting performance, losing 5.7 strokes on the greens over his two rounds. The good news is, Kim usually bounces back strong after that poor of a showing with the flat stick.
At one of his favorite courses on the circuit, I’m expecting a big-time bounce back effort this week from Kim at PGA West.
Nico Echavarria to win (+5500)
Instead of trying to fight the inevitable, how about we simply lean into it? Echavarria is as hot as any golfer in the world right now. He lost in a playoff last week to Nick Taylor, which marked his third top-two finish across his past six starts. The Columbian picked up his second career PGA TOUR victory back in the fall at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, before following that up with a T6 at the World Wide Technology Championship and runner-up at the RSM Classic.
Echavarria ranks third in this field over the past 16 rounds in Total Strokes Gained, trailing only Lucas Glover and Justin Thomas in that time frame. It’s actually quite likely he ranks ahead of them, but we don’t have shotlink data for his T6 performance at the WWWTC, so that event is not included.
The way to get around PGA West is by hitting your irons well and dropping putts, both of which the 30-year-old has been doing in spades during this run. If a more established name was in the current form Echavarria is in, he would be way shorter than 55/1 in this field, so I do not see how this is not an auto click.