For one week, golf is a two-player sport. The Zurich Classic is the only team event on the PGA Tour's regular-season schedule, and most of the world's top 20 are sitting it out ahead of a three-week run into the PGA Championship at Aronimink. The 74-team field is thinner than usual. The central question is simple: who chose the right partner?
Matt Fitzpatrick, arguably the best iron player on Tour right now, picked his younger brother Alex. Shane Lowry, who won this tournament with Rory McIlroy in 2024, picked Brooks Koepka — five major championships between them, zero rounds together in this format. Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak, last year's first-time winners, chose each other again. The $9.5 million purse, 400 FedEx Cup points per winner, and a two-year Tour exemption are real. No OWGR points and no Masters invitation on the line.
| Day | Format | TV Coverage (ET) |
|---|---|---|
| Thu 4/23 | Four-Ball (R1) | Golf Channel 3–6 PM |
| Fri 4/24 | Foursomes (R2) | Golf Channel 3–6 PM |
| Sat 4/25 | Four-Ball (R3) | Golf Channel 1–3 PM · CBS 3–6 PM |
| Sun 4/26 | Foursomes (R4) | Golf Channel 1–3 PM · CBS 3–6 PM |
Streaming: PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ (all day). CBS simulcast on Paramount+. Golf Channel simulcast on Peacock / NBC Sports app.
TPC Louisiana sits two feet above sea level on reclaimed Mississippi River Delta marshland, a Pete Dye design opened in 2004 and rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina the following year. The fairways run 34 yards wide on average. The rough is light. Over 100 bunkers and water on roughly half the holes provide the defense, but the greens tell the real story: small, undulating Bermuda surfaces that run true rather than fast and reward players who can land a 7-iron in the right quadrant from 180 yards.
Approach proximity — particularly from 150 to 200 yards — separates contenders from the field here more reliably than any other skill. The four par 5s (Nos. 2, 7, 11, 18) are the scoring engine in four-ball rounds, where teams that convert birdie and eagle looks pull away early. The 215-yard par-3 17th decided the 2025 tournament: Griffin drained a 35-foot birdie putt there on Sunday while the team in front of them made bogey, a two-shot swing on the hardest hole on the course. The 585-yard 18th, with water running the entire right side from tee to green, has produced three playoffs in nine years.
The format shapes the course as much as the architecture. Four-ball on Thursday and Saturday rewards aggression — both players go pin-seeking, take the better score, move on. Foursomes on Friday and Sunday punishes it. In alternate shot, both players hit the same ball on each hole, so agreeing on a ball model matters, and a single loose swing becomes your partner's problem. Seven of eight team-era winners have been same-country pairings who already knew each other's games.
| Year | Winners | Score | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Griffin / Novak (USA) | −28 | Both players' first PGA Tour wins |
| 2024 | McIlroy / Lowry (Ireland) | −25 | Playoff |
| 2023 | Hardy / Riley (USA) | −30 | Tournament record; both maiden wins |
| 2022 | Cantlay / Schauffele (USA) | −29 | Only wire-to-wire in team era |
| 2021 | Leishman / C. Smith (AUS) | −20 | Playoff; rain-softened conditions |
| Team | DG Win% | Market Odds | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| M. Fitzpatrick / A. Fitzpatrick | 6.8% | +1100 (8.3%) | −1.5% |
| Gerard / Yellamaraju | 5.0% | (~3.5%) | +1.5% |
| Lowry / Koepka | 5.2% | +1475 (6.3%) | −1.1% |
| Novak / Griffin | 4.3% | +1750 (5.4%) | −1.1% |
| Brennan / Keefer | 4.3% | +3000 (3.2%) | +1.1% |
| Wallace / Penge | 3.7% | +2200 (4.3%) | −0.6% |
| Moore / Clark | 3.6% | +2200 (4.3%) | −0.7% |
| Vilips / Thorbjornsen | 3.6% | +2100 (4.5%) | −0.9% |
| Rai / Theegala | 3.5% | +2200 (4.3%) | −0.8% |
| Li / Smith | 3.7% | (~2.5%) | +1.2% |
The Fitzpatricks carry the highest model probability in the field at 6.8%, but the market has already pushed them to +1100 (implied 8.3%). Matt ranks 1st in ball striking and 4th in approach play among every player in the field — individually, he is comfortably the best golfer here, especially considering recent form. But the team's outcome depends on Alex holding his own in foursomes, and without ShotLink data from his limited PGA Tour starts, the model has less confidence in the partnership than the betting market does.
The wider model-over-market gaps sit with two teams the casual viewer won't immediately recognize. Gerard and Yellamaraju carry the third-highest model probability (5.0%), built on complementary iron play — Gerard ranks 9th in approach, Yellamaraju 12th — at a course where approach is the primary skill. Brennan and Keefer pair the best driver in the field (Brennan, +0.94 off the tee) with Keefer's accuracy, and the model gives them 4.3% against a market-implied 3.2%. Worth noting further down the table: former Stanford teammates Vilips and Thorbjornsen finished T4 here together last year and carry a 3.6% model probability — college chemistry in alternate shot is not nothing at this venue.
Course-correlated form: Harbour Town, last week's RBC Heritage venue, rewards a similar approach-heavy profile. Matt Fitzpatrick won there. Gerard finished T12. Form at one tends to carry to the other.
In 2013, a 14-year-old Alex caddied his older brother to the US Amateur title at Brookline. Thirteen years later, they became the first siblings to win on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour in consecutive weeks — Matt at the Valspar Championship, Alex at the Hero Indian Open. Matt arrives in Avondale ranked 1st in ball striking in this field (+1.55 strokes per round), fresh off a playoff win at the RBC Heritage, with approach play from 150 to 200 yards that is the best in nearly every field he enters. Alex, who said after his own win that he "idolises" his brother, adds a comfort level in this partnership that no amount of data can quantify. The question remains straightforward: Matt will carry four-ball rounds. Can Alex carry his share in foursomes, where every alternate-shot swing counts double?
Lowry won this tournament with McIlroy in 2024 — a win with Koepka would make him the first player to take this title with two different partners. He ranks 3rd in approach play in this field. Koepka's approach numbers are nearly identical — rank 2nd, +1.01 strokes gained per round. They've never played a competitive round together. Both are Srixon staffers, though Koepka was spotted switching to a blacked-out Titleist Pro V1x at the Cognizant Classic in February — a detail that matters more than usual when you're sharing one ball on alternate-shot holes. Lowry brings Zurich experience and putting touch. Koepka brings the composure that this format demands on Sunday afternoon.
This partnership almost didn't happen. Gerard was set to play with fellow UNC grad David Ford until Ford withdrew with an injury late last week, sending Gerard scrambling for a replacement. He reached out to NBC analyst Smylie Kaufman, among others. He landed on Yellamaraju — a 24-year-old rookie who was born in Visakhapatnam, India, moved to Winnipeg at four, and learned to play golf by watching Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy on YouTube with his father in their living room. He has never had a formal swing lesson. He skipped college because he couldn't afford the offers he received, worked his way through Canadian mini-tours and the Korn Ferry Tour, and earned his PGA Tour card by finishing 19th on the 2025 points list. In his rookie season he has posted a T5 at The Players, a T6 in Houston, and a T14 in San Antonio. His putting ranks 10th in this field. Gerard brings three top-5 finishes in 15 starts and the 9th-best approach play on Tour. The sportsbooks don't even list them with individual odds. The model assigns them 5.0% — more than it gives Lowry and Koepka.
Brennan ranks 1st in the field off the tee at +0.94 strokes per round. He won the Bank of Utah Championship last October in his first start as a professional — bypassing the Korn Ferry Tour entirely — and leads the field in driving this week. Keefer, playing on a sponsor exemption, brings the accuracy Brennan doesn't — a pairing that gives them eagle looks on the par 5s in four-ball and a safety net in foursomes. The model gives them 4.3%, a full percentage point above where the market has them. The widest positive gap on the board.
This is their third consecutive Zurich together. Theegala has four top-10s this season, and his putting — once a clear weakness — now ranks 30th on Tour. Rai is steadier than spectacular, the kind of partner who keeps a foursomes scorecard clean. Three years of alternate-shot reps together is a real advantage at TPC Louisiana, even if it doesn't appear in any strokes-gained column.
In every team-era edition of this tournament, the eventual winner has been inside the top 5 after Friday's foursomes round. Not after Thursday's four-ball, when nearly every team posts a number in the 60s. After the alternate-shot round — the one that exposes mismatched partnerships and punishes tentative swings.
Hardy and Riley shot 63 in foursomes on their way to the 2023 tournament record. Cantlay and Schauffele built their 2022 win on a Friday 64. McIlroy and Lowry's 2024 comeback started with a foursomes 65. No team outside the top 10 after Friday has gone on to win. Thursday sorts the field by talent. Friday sorts it by trust.
That pattern is worth holding onto this week. Four-ball tells you who can go low individually. Foursomes tells you who can play together. Vibes matter in golf, and shared chemistry can tip the scales this week.