The American Express PGA Tour: 2022 Golf Betting Odds

For travel and other reasons, some golfers opt to skip the first two events of the New Year in Hawaii but there are four players who are currently or formerly world No. 1 playing this week in Rahm, Justin Rose, Jason Day and Luke Donald. There are 14 past champions of the American Express in the field.

The event is spread over three courses as everyone plays the Stadium Course at PGA West (par 72 around 7,120 yards), the Nicklaus Tournament Course (par 72; 7,160 yards) and La Quinta Country Club (par 72; 7,060 yards). Then the cut happens and all remaining players compete on the Stadium Course on Sunday. The Stadium Course has a par-3 island green at No. 17 and it produced 35 double bogeys or worse in 2021 — last year because of COVID, La Quinta Country Club was excluded and it had a usual 36-hole cut. Amateurs usually play with the pros – this formerly was the Bob Hope Classic — but that was called off as well.

The defending champion is South Korea’s Si Woo Kim. He was 21 under with three holes left Sunday but birdied Nos. 16 and 17 before a par at No. 18 to finish at 23-under 265 and win by a shot over Patrick Cantlay, who shot a blazing final-round 61, a record on the Stadium Course. Kim had only two bogeys all week in his third career win and first since the 2017 Players Championship. He hasn’t won since. Cantlay only made the cut on the number before going crazy on the weekend.

The American Express Golf Odds

Spain’ Jon Rahm (+650) won here in 2018 at 22 under and was sixth the next year but hasn’t played the tournament since. He opened 2022 with a runner-up at the Tournament of Champions but didn’t play last week at the Sony Open. Patrick Cantlay (+900) had that runner-up finish last year and was T9 here in 2019. He also skipped the Sony Open.

Scottie Scheffler, Sungjae Im and Tony Finau are all +2000. Scheffler missed the cut here last year but was third in 2020. Im hasn’t been worse than T12 in three visits. Finau had his best result here of fourth last year.

Hideki Matsuyama, who won the Sony Open in a playoff Sunday over Russell Henley, is not playing. Henley is +3300 and has missed the cut here four straight trips. Si Woo Kim is a +6000 long shot to repeat. He finished T55 on Sunday in Hawaii. The last person to repeat at this event was Johnny Miller in 1975-76.

Americans have almost exclusively won this event, but Canadian Mike Weir did in 2003 by two shots over Jay Haas. Weir won twice more that year, including the Masters.

Adam Hadwin has finished runner-up by a shot here twice, in 2019 behind Adam Long and in 2017 behind Hudson Swafford. Hadwin was the top Canadian finisher last year at T32. Roger Sloan was T40, Nick Taylor T47, David Hearn T64 and Michael Gligic missed the cut. Corey Conners is +2200 this week off a T11 at the Sony Open. Hadwin is +8000, Adam Svensson +16000 off his T7 on Sunday, Taylor Pendrith +17500, Nick Taylor +17500, Sloan +30000 and Gligic +50000.