The Zurich Classic 2024 Chalk 💣

The weather down in the Big Easy will be a factor as it often is on the Gulf Coast this time of year. Thursday’s conditions look ideal: sunny and low winds, but Friday could get a little hairy. Higher gusts in the morning will give way to light rain through the afternoon before a significant rise in windspeeds over the final two rounds.

For final analysis on weather advantages and tee times, make sure you tune into the Nut Hut live chat starting around 9pm ET for the latest and final thoughts on the weather this week...GET IN THERE

LIV Golf Adelaide? LIV Golf Adelaide!

We interrupt your usual Chalk Bomb programming to bring you DB & Pat’s first-ever LIV Golf Betting Show! The fellas head ‘down undah’ with their worst Aussie accents to preview the action at Grange Golf Club. Check it out!

Eckroat/Gotterup -129 ($7900) vs. Ghim/Kim, Chan +106 ($8300)

Everyone knows the Zurich is a weird team format and that it’s tricky to lean too much on any betting insights at this event, so I’m not going into too much detail with these.

For what it’s worth, both teams have a player making their first start at TPC Louisiana this week, and both have a player who’s been here before. Not much of an experience advantage to be had.

According to our Nut Hut ownership projections available in the Discord, both pairs are hovering around 10-12% ownership.

Smalley/Schmid -131 ($7200) vs. Fox/Higgo +109 ($8000)

Staying in the $7-8k range, we’ve got a big discrepancy between DFS pricing and sharp betting odds between Smalley/Schmid and Fox/Higgo.

The favorites have more combined experience at this event, but Higgo has a T4 in the better ball from 2022 when he paired with Brendan Grace.

Both teams are similarly popular, coming in around 9-10% ownership.

Novak/Thompson -116 ($8100) vs. Berger/Perez -105 ($8200)

Lastly, Novak & Thompson are favorites over Berger & Perez in a 72-hole matchup despite a slight discount in DraftKings DFS.

With seven starts at the Zurich between the two teams, there’s not much of an experience edge to be had, but the Berger/Perez pairing has had the better success at TPC Louisiana with three top-20 finishes over the years for those guys compared to zero made cuts between Novak/Thompson.

According to our Nut Hut ownership projections, the Novak/Thompson pairing is almost chalky at about 14% ownership while Berger/Perez are looking at roughly 10%.

*DISCLAIMER: The Chalk Bomb is CHALK for a reason! This is a ballsy call. We're simply giving you 1 player projected to be highly owned that we think could warrant a fade in order to gain leverage in DFS GPP Tournaments. Sack up & fade OR Ignore the play. 

Call it another slight W for the Chalk Bomb column at the RBC Heritage where Ludvig Aberg looked strong for 54 holes but ultimately faded to a T10 as the second-highest-owned player behind only Scottie Scheffler.

Now we’re on to everyone’s favorite tournament of the year… I can’t understand why the LIV guys left because they wanted to play ‘team golf’. Don’t they know about the Zurich?

In all seriousness, nobody really cares about this week’s action, but if you MUST play DFS this week, here’s some analysis.

As a reminder, these picks are limited to players projected at over 15% ownership in DFS according to our proprietary projections available in the Tour Junkies Discord. The whole idea is to pick a popular player who may not be worth the chalk and might just provide a good opportunity for a pivot play to a more sensible option.

So listen, even our data experts at Bet the Number are taking some time off this week. With strokes gained and other data all messed up by the weird format and with no real way to account for the alt-shot part of the tournament, there’s no model for this week.

So how do we know who to fade? I’ll keep this short and simple, mostly because I’m headed to a bachelor weekend right after writing this.

Fade Rory, and whoever he’s playing with. I think it’s Shane Lowry. McIlroy is already 2-for-2 as the Chalk Bomb recipient, delivering a pair of duds to earn his place as the Bomb of the Season so far. It’s not that he’s been horrendous. Hell, before last week’s T33 at the Heritage he rattled off six-straight top-25 finishes… but with only one top-10.

With that and zero PGA TOUR wins on the year so far, it’s just not good enough for the No. 2 player in the world and one who is one of the top three favorites at every event.

Combine that with Shane Lowry’s play as of late (zero top-25s in the last month) and I can get behind fading the Irish lads here. And as we all know, New Orleans is a world-famous drinking town — wouldn’t be shocked if Big Shane has other priorities on Bourbon Street this week.

So at almost 20% ownership, Rory McIlroy & Shane Lowry, you are the Chalk Bomb(s)!

What if medical people started changing the names of stuff to be more in line with words people actually use? Like why not “buttholeoscopy” instead of “colonoscopy”?

The Zurich should introduce players with their favorite movie quotes one year instead of walkup songs.

One really annoying thing for OCD people is when two light switches control the same light, and you can never get them both to face up or down at the same time.

Alright folks, that’s all I got this week for the Zurich Classic in New Orleans. Stay well and good luck with all your lineups and bets. Bome!