The American Express
The American Express
Jan 19, 2026The American Express
It was a solid start to the year for us at the Sony Open as we bagged a runner up finish with our 60/1 pick Ryan Gerard to show a small profit on the week.
The American who arrived on the back of his play off defeat in Mauritius just before Christmas was solid all week and there can be no complaints about his closing 65 after he headed in to Sunday three back.
Things could have been even better for us as we had started the final day with 100/1 pick John Parry also in the frame. Unfortunately though the Englishman struggled on the final day and slipped down the board.
The event itself was won by Chris Gotterup. The American had shown at the Scottish Open last year that he is more than capable in windy conditions and he rubber stamped that this week with an excellent performance.
With three wins now Gotterup is clearly heading towards elite level and is undoubtedly a man to watch through 2026.
So after week in Hawaii the PGA Tour moves across to Palm Springs, California for the start of the traditional ‘West Coast Swing’ played at this time of year with the first event of this stretch being the American Express.
This event is the first of two Pro Am events in a three week stretch [The other being the AT & T National] with both events played across three courses.
As has always historically been the case the event rotates over three courses with the players playing one round each on The Stadium Course, The Nicklaus Tournament course and La Quinta over the first three days with The Stadium Course then hosting the final round.
The American Express first debuted on tour as the Palm Springs Classic in 1960. Since then it has gone through many guises and course changes and is most synonymous with the late Bob Hope who was the tournament host for many years, with the event being known as The Bob Hope Desert Classic and then the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic for many a year.
Over the more recent years the tournament has struggled to find a long term lead sponsor and after stints from Humana and CareerBuilder it found itself without a title sponsor in 2019 and with its future in real jeopardy.
Fortunately however it was announced at the back end of 2019 that American Express had signed a ‘multiyear’ deal to take over as lead sponsor of the event and initially Phil Mickelson was installed as tournament host with the aim of helping the event regain a profile more akin to its previous heyday. Now though of course Mickelson is no longer in that role for obvious reasons.
With many of the games big names who missed out on some reps at the Sentry adding this event to their schedule this year the field is as strong as we have seen here for many a year
The market is dominated by Scottie Scheffler who chooses to make his seasonal debut here. The world’s number one is then followed in the market by Ben Griffin, Ludvig Aberg and Patrick Cantlay.
COURSES
The courses used this year will be as follows;
The Stadium Course
The Nicklaus Tournament Course
La Quinta
The Courses used for the event have changed over the years and the current rotation has been in play for the last four editions.
The Stadium Course is the current host course and having had a brief stint in the rotation in the mid 1980s was reintroduced in 2016, so this will be its fifth year in use of late.
The Stadium Course is a Pete Dye design so it is certainly worth looking at form across other Pete Dye courses used on tour with TPC Sawgrass being an obvious point of reference.
The Nicklaus Tournament Course was also added to the events course rotation in 2016 replacing the PGA West Nicklaus Private Course. Prior to 2020 the Nicklaus Tournament Course greens were changed to Tiff eagle Bermuda. In addition they were also expanded in size.
La Quinta Country Club has been the staple diet of the event for 50 years and, up until last year had been used with no breaks since 2010.
All players get to play one round on each course over the first three days before a 54 hole cut is made. The players who make the cut then play the final round at the Stadium Course.
Those betting in running should note that of the 3 courses La Quinta yields the lowest scoring average, whilst The Stadium Course is the toughest nut to crack.
The greens on all 3 courses are Bermuda.
While the current course rotation [with the exception of La Quinta missing out in 2021 due to Covid]] has only been in play for the last nine editions of the event it is worth noting that the now defunct PGA Tour Q School used to be played at the Stadium Course every other year and it is certainly worth cross referencing results from this event which was last played in 2012.
HISTORY
With the courses used for the event having undergone such a radical overhaul since 2016 it is probably not worth looking back further than that year.
The winners of the nine editions from 2016 have been as follows;
2025 Sepp Straka
2024 Nick Dunlap
2023 Jon Rahm
2022 Hudson Swafford
2021 Si Woo Kim
2020 Andrew Landry
2019 Adam Long
2018 Jon Rahm
2017 Hudson Swafford
2016 Jason Dufner
With still fairly limited data to go on it is perhaps too early to say whether patterns in relation to these winners are coincidence, however in 2019 I noted that all of the first three winners had performed well on their previous start, which was their first one of the new calendar year.
In Dufner and Swafford’s case they had finished 9th & 13th respectively at the Sony Open the week before, whilst in Rahm’s case he finished 2nd at the Sentry ToC in 2018 before skipping the Sony Open.
2019 shock winner Adam Long though blew this blossoming trend out of the water completely as he had missed his previous three cuts on tour including at the Sony the week prior and 2020 winner Andrew Landry continued things in the same vein as he arrived here on the back of five straight missed cuts stretching back to the previous fall and was whatever price you liked!
Moving on 2021 winner Si Woo Kim, whilst not really threatening the top of the leaderboard at the Sony Open the week before had posted a solid 25th place finish in Honolulu, which had put him on a lot of peoples radar’s, including I’m pleased to say ours! Next up 2022 champion Swafford produced an under the radar 48th place at the Sony in his first start of 2022 the week before winning here, while in 2023 Rahm won here on the back of his win a fortnight before at The Sentry.
2024 shock win for at the time amateur Nick Dunlap once more blew all trends out of the water. However a bit like Si Woo Kim, last years winner Sepp Straka was on mine and I’m sure many other peoples radar coming in to the week after a solid 30th in the Sony.
Despite the lack of form coming in from the 2019, 2020 and 2024 winners there was one constant in the eight champions from 2016-23 in that they had all teed it up once previously in the calendar year, giving them a crucial ‘warm up’ edge over those who were dusting down the clubs for the first time that year.
2024 winner Dunlap defied this trend for obvious reasons however it was back to the norm with Straka last year.
Moving on and one trend, which has developed since the change in course roster in 2016 though, and which I can’t help thinking is not a coincidence, is that since the introduction of a Pete Dye course as the host course we have seen players more renowned for their prowess from tee to green and as ‘Ball strikers’ come out on top.
This is particularly the case with Dufner and Swafford and last years winner Straka. Rahm is of course strong in all departments including this area, while if we look at the end of year stats for 2019 winner Adam Long it is the long game [if you pardon the pun] that he had flourished in that year rather on or around the green.
Looking at the 2020 leaderboard champion Andrew Landry’s strength comes in his accurate driving while Ancer, Scheffler, Straka and Burns who all finished prominently are all high quality ball strikers.
As for 2021 Champion Si Woo Kim in the Korean we of course had an out and out Pete Dye specialist who no doubt flourished here further due to the extra round on the Stadium Course that year.
If we then look at the 2024 leaderboard we’ll see former TPC Sawgrass Champion Justin Thomas in third while Kevin Yu a player renowned for his tee to green prowess was alongside him. Meanwhile it was Thomas again who chased Straka home last year.
Another point to note is that although this is a ‘West Coast’ event if we look at the final leaderboards over the past five years this is not an event dominated by players who hail from/are based in California or the surrounding states, in fact it is players from the Southern/Eastern states who have dominated here.
To back this up we can see that both Si Woo Kim and Landry are Texas based, as are Ancer and Ghim who finished top five in 2021 and Scheffler, who along with Ancer again finished in the top three in 2020.
In 2023 Sea Island resident Davis Thompson chased home Rahm while Georgia and Carolina guys Chris Kirk and JT Poston featured prominently.
Adam Long hails from Louisiana and is based in the golfing mecca of Jupiter, Florida. Dufner is an Auburn man as is Nick Dunlap and Swafford is a Georgia man. Finally Straka as we know is an Austrian exiled in Georgia for many years now.
In fact aside from Phil Mickelson the only other recognised Cali guys to make the top six here over recent years are Schauffele, Cantlay, Na, Steele, Lovemark and Michael Kim. Something, which we can probably put down to the Bermuda greens.
From the point of correlating courses while we need to bear in mind Pete Dye tracks it is also noticeable that players who have performed well at the two Jack Nicklaus layouts used on the Tour have shown up well here.
To delve in to this further and of course two time winner here Jon Rahm is a specialist at Muirfield Village while 2021 champion here Si Woo Kim has an excellent Memorial record over recent years. Delving further and Denny McCarthy who came close to victory at the Memorial in 2024 was sixth here in 2022. Chris Kirk triumphed at The Cognizant in 2023 not long after finishing third here. Lee Hodges posted top tens both here and at the Honda in 2022.
In 2024 Kevin Yu went on to post a ninth place at the Cognizant after his third here while runner up here Christiaan Bezuidenhout was fourth at the Memorial later in the year. Standing dish here Adam Hadwin popped up with third at the Memorial in 2023 and to round things off the winner here Dunlap was 12th.
Finally if we bring it up to date last years champion Straka who is a former Honda champion rubber stamped this perfectly. In addition another form Cognizant winner Camillo Villegas was seventh here last year.
Go further back and Jason Dufner and David Lingmerth who battled out the finish here in 2016 are both former champions at the Memorial.
Finally on this front one event on the Korn Ferry Tour has historically caught my eye, The Ellie Mae Classic At TPC Stonebrae, also in California.
To explain further if we look at the history of this event from 2015 to 2020 we will see that 2021 winner Si Woo Kim is a former champion at TPC Stonebrae while 2019 champion here Adam Long, finished fourth at the Ellie Mae Classic the year before, delve back a year further we will see that the players who finished first and second at the Ellie Mae in 2017, Martin Piller and Brandon Harkins, finished third and eighth respectively at the Amex a year later. Finally, 2015 Ellie Mae runner up Jamie Lovemark finished sixth here in 2016.
In 2021 with three of the four rounds played on the Pete Dye designed Stadium Course as opposed to two in previous years it made sense to focus more on form on other Dye tracks particularly TPC Sawgrass, which bears a lot of similarities to this weeks venue and was an obvious pointer and this lead us to Si Woo Kim. Even though the Stadium Course has reverted to hosting only two rounds again it is still worth of course cross referencing other Dye tracks.
With regards to previous course form and until 2020 there had been no pointers to any of the winners since changes to the course rota’s in 2016 as the best any of the four winners had managed previously on the current rotation was a 34th place from 2018 winner Jon Rahm. In 2020 though this changed as Landry had placed second here two years prior to his victory.
2021 winner Si Woo Kim had managed nothing better than 40th in two visits since 2016 however again we need to note that the tweak to the rotation that year favoured him.
In 2022 and 2023 we had champions here who were bagging their second American Express trophies in the shape of Swafford and Rahm.
Whilst the addition of the Stadium Course to the rota has toughened things up slightly in terms of scoring this event is still basically a birdie fest and this can be seen by the fact that the winning number over the past nine years has been -25 -29 -27 -23 -26, -26, -22, -20 & -25 respectively.
WEATHER FORECAST
We look set for a dry, sunny week with temperatures around the mid 70 degree mark.
The wind, which occasionally can be an issue here does not look to be a factor this week with nothing over 10mph in the forecast so all in all conditions look perfect for low scoring.
As I always so though this could all change!
PICKS
I have gone with six players this week as follows;
SI WOO KIM – 30/1 – 2pts E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8
First up this week I will turn to Si Woo Kim.
The case for Si Woo is a pretty obvious one, however I will make it any way.
A former champion in this event when we were on board in 2021 Si Woo as we know is something of a Pete Dye specialist, having also landed the spoils at TPC Sawgrass in 2017 before posting further finishes of sixth and ninth there over the years.
Granted his win here in 2021 came in the year that the Daye designed Stadium Course was used on three occasions however he also has further finishes of ninth and 11th here on the CV. Meanwhile on Nicklaus layouts he has a best of fourth at Muirfield Village over the years.
Looking at Si Woo’s recent form and he was in fine fettle at the back end of last year posting seven straight top 21 finishes, while he rounded the year out with a fourth place at the RSM and a third place in the Australian Open.
On to 2026 and the Korean appears to have started off in the same manner with an excellent 11th place in the Sony.
Looking at Si Woo’s stats in Honolulu and it was the usual story of an excellent week in the long game department, for which he ranked third in approach and second off the tee, while the putter, with which he ranked all but last losing nearly five shots, caused him much woe.
The hope this week then is that something will click on the greens and if so, assuming he continues in a similar vein with the long game he will surely be in the hunt come Sunday afternoon.
DANIEL BERGER – 55/1 - 1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8
If there is one player in the field this week who has the identikit profile we are looking for it is Daniel Berger and I can’t ignore his credentials.
A look at Berger’s record over the years shows numerous strong performances at all the right correlating events. To expand further and Daniel has done everything but win at the Cognizant finishing fourth twice and second at the Nicklaus design while he has a top five to his name at the Memorial. Meanwhile Daniel’s Players record shows finishes of 20th, 13th and ninth on his last three visits.
Looking at the American’s record in this event while showing nothing spectacular we can take confidence that he played solidly here last year to finish 21st, a finish which could have been much better bar a disappointing Sunday, after missing the cut in the Sony, while the previous year he was again solid in finishing 39th, again after a missed cut in Honolulu.
This year though it is a different story as Daniel heads to California after an excellent season opening sixth place in Honolulu, which saw him rank 13th in approach play and 18th in putting.
Berger as we know has been blighted by injuries over the years however the early part of 2025 saw him produce some really strong performances including a second in Phoenix and a third at Hilton Head as he knocked on the door for a fifth tour win. The second half of 2025 saw the Floridian cool off somewhat however he seems to have hit the ground running for the start of the new year and he is a must for me this week.
RYAN GERARD – 66/1 – 1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8
Next up I shall stick with the man who went so well for us in Hawaii last week, Ryan Gerard.
After his much publicised dash to Mauritius before Christmas to secure his end of year place in the worlds top 50 Gerard has picked up in 2026 where he left off producing a superb performance in Hawaii to bag the runner up spot for the second start running.
On the face of it a strong performance at a windy Waialae really shouldn’t give us too many clues heading in to the Californian desert however as noted earlier it is pretty much always the case here that the winner has made a start already for the year in Hawaii, and even without the Sentry this year I would still see that as key.
Looking at Ryan’s performance in Honolulu and he ranked fourth for the week in approach play and that ties in with his main skill set, his iron play, something that is key for this week.
A look at Ryan’s wider CV then brings us a big clue as his PGA Tour breakthrough came when he was fourth as a Monday qualifier at the Nicklaus designed Palm Beach Gardens in the Cognizant which we know ties well here. He also produced an eye catching 42nd on debut at the Players, which of course is also key to here. Meanwhile in his first look at this event he posted a solid enough 51st.
Ryan’s maiden tour win came in California at the Barracuda last year so he should feel comfortable out West, however as a North Carolina native he ticks the box of players who hail from the Eastern states who are more often than not successful here on the Bermuda surfaces.
Ryan is clearly a player on the up and I am happy to stick with him this week as he goes in search of win number two on the PGA Tour.
JORDAN SMITH – 175/1 - 1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 10
Those with long memories may remember us landing a big priced place on Sepp Straka in this event back in 2020 with my hunch then being that his ball striking skills would suit this event.
Roll forward six years and it is another European that I am going to chance this week for similar reasons.
Smith earned his PGA Tour card courtesy of a really solid 2025 season on the DP World Tour, which, while winless, saw him notch seven top tens. Key to that success has been Jordan’s iron play an area in which he has consistently ranked in the top ten on the DP World Tour over the years.
On to life on the PGA Tour then and in all honesty we have nothing really to go on other than a decent enough week where he made the cut at the Sony on his first outing as a full member.
Back to my hunch though and with Smith likely to be peppering the pins in these resort course friendly conditions over the first three days if his putter co operates I can see him really enjoying the test.
All very speculative granted but that is reflected in the odds and I am happy to take my chances.
TOM HOGE – 225/1 - 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1st 10
I will confess to having nearly fallen off my chair when seeing the early odds being offered on Tom Hoge today. Granted the prices of around 400/1 have now been snapped up, however I still think anything upwards of 200/1 is well worth taking.
The reason for optimism for Hoge is two fold. Firstly we have the course form and correlating form, which jumps out at us with his runner up and sixth place finish here, alongside his two top three finishes in his last three visits to Sawgrass. We also have a top ten finish at Memorial last year for good measure.
Secondly while Tom, struggled through the back end of 2025, the reason I assume for the dismissive odds his season opening 40th place at Waialae offered plenty of encouragement as after ranking 85th and 65th in approach play over the first two days his iron play really caught the eye over the weekend ranking 23rd on Saturday while on Sunday he produced his best round of the week of 67 while ranking 16th in this department.
A winner in California at the Pebble Beach Pro Am we know Tom has the patience for the long rounds you encounter in this format and I can see him producing a big week here at really big odds.
DANNY WALKER – 1000/1 - 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1st 12
Finally it is not often you find yourself gravitating towards a 1000/1 shot but this is where I find myself here, and while I appreciate this wont be for everyone, as the phrase goes ‘faint heart never won fair maiden’.
The player we are turning to here then is Danny Walker. The needless to say speculative case is built around a couple of things. Most obviously Walker’s finest hour by far came at the Players last year when after getting in to his local event at the 11th hour as an alternate he had the week of his life to finish sixth, in addition Danny played strongly on another Pete Dye layout at TPC Louisiana in the Zurich, while he also showed again his liking for a TPC layout when 25th at the Byron Nelson. You would have to think then Danny will have positive vibes stepping on to the Stadium Course this week.
Despite a poor second half to 2025 as a whole, Walker did just enough to keep his card largely due to a seasons best third place, which came at the Sanderson Farms. A result which he produced to his credit when snapping a run of seven straight missed cuts.
Walker missed the cut on debut here last year however his day one 68 at the Nicklaus Tournament was solid enough before he lost his way over Friday and Saturday.
Walker missed the cut at the Sony last week but there was encouragement in his opening 67 before he produced a poor Friday. Hopefully though he will have brushed off the cobwebs with that outing.
Like I say all very speculative and no doubt it is hard to picture him seeing off Scottie Scheffler down the stretch on Sunday. In an event though that lends itself to shocks I’m happy to roll the dice that he might just sneak in to the top 12.