Tuesday 21 April 2015 16:48, UK
The PGA Tour heads to New Orleans this week, where Ben Coley tips Kyle Reifers to shine in a strong field.
Masters runner-up Justin Rose returns to the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, and this year he’s joined by two other top-grade professionals in Dustin Johnson and Jason Day to give the tournament a strong feel.
Not always has the Zurich, which rests between the season’s first major and the PLAYERS Championship at Sawgrass, been able to boast strength in depth. That this year’s renewal does so probably reflects next week’s World Match Play and the desire of some of the world’s top 64 to tune up for the lucrative prize.
All of this poses a problem for punters. Over the years, this event has been a graveyard for favourites, instead offering the opportunity for some of the tour’s maidens to break their duck. Some of them – Jason Dufner and Billy Horschel especially – were winners-in-waiting and towards the head of the market, but several – such as Andres Romero and last year’s winner, Seung-yul Noh – were not.
Do we acknowledge the class of that trio who head the betting and take our pick, or rely on a long-established trend and take a few chances? For me, it’s the latter policy but if you do want one of the top three on your side, it just has to be Johnson at the odds.
Pick of the outsiders is Kyle Reifers, who has finished one shot outside the top-10 in each of his last two starts.
The 31-year-old hasn’t lived up to the potential he showed when playing for the US Walker Cup side in 2006, but there’s time yet and the exploits of Kevin Kisner last week demonstrate the quality that lies beneath the very top level.
Reifers broke the course record here at TPC Louisiana in his very first round at the layout, way back in 2007, while his sole subsequent visit would have ended in an encouraging top-30 finish but for a double-bogey at the final hole of the tournament.
Those two efforts offer sufficient encouragement, as does the fact he’s hitting a lot of greens at present. Most winners at this Pete Dye course – including Horschel, Dufner and Noh – are best known for their tee-to-green exploits, and it’s this type of player we should focus on.
Brice Garnett went into the final round of last week’s RBC Heritage on the same score as the eventual winner, and while only 11th in the end it was a solid week.
Garnett made just one bogey in the final round having gone bogey-free on both Friday and Saturday, so he’s very much in control of his golf ball and looks poised to better just a modest debut in this event last year.
Another player who features among the top-50 on the PGA Tour for greens in regulation and one with loads of experience playing in this part of the US, he could go well once more.
Anyone who remembers the final round of the Farmers, won by Day, will recall that Alex Prugh held himself together really nicely in contention and a first PGA Tour title is on the agenda for this man at some stage.
Prugh hits it a long way and is 10th for greens in regulation this season, while two top-30 finishes in just three starts here suggest some sort of liking for the course.
Completing the staking plan are Lucas Glover and Harris English.
Glover is something of a course specialist and was fourth two years ago. There’s been enough in his play this season to suggest his game is returning to the sort of standard which saw him win the 2009 US Open and, as a tee-to-green specialist, he only needs a good putting week to contend.
English, meanwhile, is my idea of the best of the market leaders. Sixth here two years ago and now a two-time PGA Tour winner, he is a top-class talent in the making and, like Glover, his strengths lie in his iron play.
What’s more, I put Tommy Fleetwood up on these pages last week with the logic that he’s now free from the pressure which came with fighting for a spot in the Masters and he so nearly proved that a wise call. Like Fleetwood, English came up short in his own bid to make Augusta and as a Georgia boy I can’t help but feel the situation held him back somewhat.
If he does get into contention, expect attack rather than defence and potentially another title to add to a collection that will keep on growing.
