The American Express: Initial Picks

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We’ve got a full field event and two courses to consider over the first two days of the American Express.  This course has some land mines here and there, but it’s a pretty straightforward set up which primarily requires you to be great on APP.  You don’t have to be long off the tee so short hitters are certainly in play.  Catch our PGA show tonight at 8:00 EST for more on these initial picks and check out all our great content throughout the rest of this week.  You can also catch me on yesterday’s The First Cut Podcast with Rick Gehman so be sure to check that out. Now let’s get started with The American Express: Initial Picks.

Patrick Cantlay (11100) – A Cali kid who is just getting his season started.  The ball striking is on point with this guy and his T2G metrics are best in the field.  Not a guy I’m usually on, but in this field there’s no reason to think he’s not going to be battling late Sunday afternoon.

Matthew Wolff (9700) – Actually hasn’t been great over the last few months but that’s part of the reason I like him.  Hopefully his middling results keep ownership down, and if so, I’ll take the upside.  Keep an eye on ownership because if this guy gets popular, there are plenty of good pivots.

Scottie Scheffler (9500) – Has been good as of late with Top 20’s in 3 of his last 4 and finished 3^rd here last year.  The AmEx will give up a lot of scoring and that’s typically where you want Scottie.

Abraham Ancer (9100) – He let a lot of people down last week (not me as I completely faded him), but his ball striking was actually very good.  He was good OTT and good on APP and he putted worse than I’ve seen him in quite some time.  Look for that to rebound and I think Ancer contends Sunday.

Russell Henley (9000) – Another guy who had great ball striking last week and bad putting, and yet, he still managed to put together a great finish.  Henley is just too good on APP to ignore at this point.

Adam Long (8500) – Has had success here with an outright win in 2019 (and a MC in 2020 by the way) and that may drive ownership up.  If it does, I’m out on Long but if the percentage is reasonable, he’ll be in some lineups.  He has been quite good the last few tournaments including a 3^rd place finish at Mayakoba.

Si Woo Kim (8200) – Si Woo had a round of 87 at this same track last year.  Yes, an 87.  I’m on board regardless as I think he’s a great ball striker and if he can keep his head together he can contend in this field.  With that said, he’s on the riskier side so tread lightly.

Erik Van Rooyen (7900) – Was great with the ball striking last week and awful with the putter.  Give me the expected positive regression.  Pretty good price here. 

Emiliano Grillo (7800) – A great ball striker who I am going to go back to this week.  The putter almost always fails him but the ball striking is excellent. 

Joel Dahmen (7500) – A relatively easy course where you can pile up birdies?  Perfect.  Dahmen is good on APP and good OTT and is a flat out scorer.  With that said he can also tank your lineup (See Si Woo Kim) if things start going south.  His track record here isn’t great but he hasn’t played since 2018 so I’m basically going to ignore that.

Cameron Tringale (7400) – Typically bad OTT which shouldn’t hurt him here but great on APP which will be key.  I don’t want to lean on recent history too much as there was an extended break over the holidays, but he was pretty solid over his last couple tournaments.  His track record here is average at best.  Call this one of my hunch plays as opposed to a data driven play.

Tom Hoge (7300) – Another guy who let a lot of people down last week but one bad week isn’t a big enough sample size for me to auto-fade a guy.  He was good on APP last week but couldn’t get the putter going. I’m sure you’re sensing the theme of positive putter regression. 

Tyler Duncan (6800) – Accurate OTT and great on APP.  I’ll have the Steven Polardi special please.  I should note that his results here haven’t been great as he hasn’t cracked the Top 50 over the last few years, but you get what you pay for in this range and I like his prospects to make the cut.

Kramer Hickok (6700) – Has been good in the ball striking department if you look at his last 4-5 tournaments.  His track record here isn’t great but this is a sneaky guy that you might be getting super early if you get him now.

Secret Weapon (Less than 7k/Less than 5% owned) – Tune into Discord Wednesday night.