The 2025 American Express: PGA Tour Golf Betting Odds
The tournament features a rare 54-hole cut due to players competing on three courses over the first three days. Xander Schauffele is favoured on the golf odds.
A reminder that world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, off one of the most dominant PGA Tour seasons in recent memory, remains sidelined due to a hand injury suffered preparing Christmas dinner. This was his original target return date, but it has been pushed back at least one more week. Scheffler had played here the last five years and is a tournament he credited with helping to jumpstart his career in 2022 despite never winning it. Frankly, the rest of the PGA Tour better take advantage now while they can.
We saw history at the 2024 American Express as amateur Nick Dunlap, then a sophomore at Alabama, won at 29-under 259, a record for the tournament since changing to a 72-hole format in 2012. The 2023 U.S. Amateur champion wasn’t able to collect the prize money as an amateur but earned PGA Tour membership through the 2026 season with the victory. He would eventually turn pro last year and win again – and be named PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. Dunlap is +4500 to repeat this week and the last player to do that in this event was Johnny Miller in 1976 when it was a 90-hole tournament.
My individual choice last year was Canadian Adam Hadwin, a two-time former runner-up in the tournament (2019 & ’17) who shot a 59 in 2017 at La Quinta. He finished T6, four shots behind Dunlap. Two of the 59s shot on the PGA Tour history happened in this tournament with Hadwin and David Duval (Round 5, 1999 at PGA West).
Players will compete once each over the first three days at PGA West’s Pete Dye Stadium Course at 7,187 yards, par 72; La Quinta Country Club at 7,060 yards, par 72; and Nicklaus Tournament Course at 7,147 yards, par 72. La Quinta has been part of the rotation the longest. The Top 65 and ties will play the Stadium Course in Sunday’s final round.
The American Express Golf Odds
The tournament boasts nine of the Top 25 players in the world and 11 of the Top 30 led by No. 2 Xander Schauffele (+800), who is from Southern California. He was a disappointing T30 in the season-opening Sentry in Hawaii but has finished third here in back-to-back years.
Sunjae Im (+1400), Justin Thomas (+1600), Patrick Cantlay (+1600) and Sam Burns (+1800) round out the favourites. Im hasn’t been worse than 25th in his past six trips here but also not better than 10th. He was third in the season-opening Sentry. Thomas hadn’t played in The American Express for years before finishing T3 last year, which included course-record-tying 61 in the third round at the Stadium Course. Somehow, Thomas hasn’t won on Tour since 2022.
Since 2019, Cantlay has two T9s and a runner-up (2021) here but hasn’t contended the past two years. Burns has four Top 20 finishes in five trips topped by a pair of sixth-place finishes (including last year).
Canadian Mike Weir won this event in 2003 by two over Jay Haas when it was called the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. We noted above that Adam Hadwin finished T6 last year, while Ben Silverman, Nick Taylor, Roger Sloan and Taylor Pendrith missed the cut.
Nick Taylor won Sunday’s Sony Open in Hawaii in a two-hole playoff over Nico Echavarria at Waialae Country Club. It was Taylor’s fifth career PGA Tour win and third in a row in a playoff. He chipped in for eagle on the par-5 18th Sunday to tie the lead in regulation and force extra holes. Taylor’s three PGA Tour wins since the start of the 2022-23 season are fourth-most among all players. He is +6600 to go back-to-back this week with Hadwin +8000, Mackenzie Hughes +9000, Adam Svensson +12500 and Silverman +22500.
The American Express Golf Predictions
The best value we believe is on South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout to get his first PGA Tour title at +6600. He has gotten better each year at this event: 40th in 2022, 11th in 2023 and runner-up last year.