PGA Outrights and Best Bets for the 2025 Zurich Classic

This week’s Zurich Classic is the only team event on the PGA Tour schedule. Fans either love it or hate it. Most of the superstars skip this event which helps gravitate people toward the hate bucket. However, there are some big names still teeing it up like defending champs Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry while Collin Morikawa is also showing up despite a heavy recent workload. 

Let’s dig into the course details to see whether we should be backing the stars or looking a little further down the board. 

Course Details

TPC Louisiana is the host course this week, and it’s another Pete Dye design, just like Harbour Town last week. 

This week’s course is much longer — it’s a par 72 that stretches out past 7,400 yards from the tips. When you factor in often-wet turf in NOLA and the course design, it paints a unique picture. 

Off the tee, it’s a course that can throttle down the usage of driver, as we often see in Pete Dye designs. However, with such a long layout that leads to some really long approach shots. Back when it was a solo event, we had more shot tracking data and that showed roughly 30% of approach shots coming from outside of 200 yards while the Tour average is around 23% from that bucket. At the same time, this course also over-indexes in short wedges from inside of 125 yards with 27% of shots coming from that range (Tour average closer to 21%). 

What does that mean for approach play? While most Tour venues will give a golfer approach shots from 125 yards to 200 yards on nearly 60% of holes (56%), here at TPC Louisiana that number is just 43%. I don’t recommend getting too nitpicky with approach ranges most weeks, but this might be a good week to factor that into your plays a bit since the approach buckets are so unique at TPC Louisiana. 

For grass, we see bermudagrass from tee-to-green with overseeded greens. This will be the eighth event already this season with overseeded greens. 

Outright Odds

Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:

The defending champs are heavy favorites, and it’s easy to see why. Will it be easy for Rory to come back down to Earth after such an emotional win? I would guess playing alongside his good buddy will make it a bit easier. 

Even as clear-cut favorites, they still take up less than 20% of the win equity this week. So, what teams a little further down the board might be worth a nibble? 

Free Golf Bets for the 2025 Zurich Classic

Billy Horschel & Tom Hoge to Win (20-1, one-fourth each way for 5 places)

I have this duo ranked just ninth in the field in weighted baseline but they sport the highest combined event-to-event variance. The variance goes both ways but that also means they are more likely than most to shatter their median expectations. 

Add in Horschel’s love for this venue, and I like this team’s chances to contend. 

Sahith Theegala & Aaron Rai to Win (22-1, one-fourth each way for 5 places)

We capitalized a lot on Theegala being able to hit a fairway last season, but he’s gone back to being a wild man in 2025. The rest of his game is just fine so playing in a team event where he won’t be required to hit as many meaningful tee shots is going to be a plus for him. 

Combine that with Rai’s elite iron play and Sahith’s wedge wizardry, and I like this team’s potential. 

Chan Kim & Doug Ghim Top 20 Finish (+150)

Ball-striking is the name of the game when it comes to consistently contending on Tour. Kim is 83rd percentile on Tour when it comes to approach play and Ghim is even better (89th percentile). 

This might be the worst putting duo in the field so there is that concern but perhaps having the added weight of your putt counting for your team will help them ramp up the putters this week. 

Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays throughout the week from myself and Alex Blickle.