Zurich Classic Sleepers and Value Picks: Bet on to Kitayama & Montgomery to be the Winning Pair

Zurich Classic Sleepers and Value Picks: Bet on to Kitayama & Montgomery to be the Winning Pair

After an excellent week at Augusta, followed by a playoff between Jordan Spieth and eventual winner, Matt Fitzpatrick to decide the RBC Heritage, you would be forgiven for feeling a bit deflated ahead of this week's event.

Still, the Zurich Classic is a unique event on the PGA Tour which brings us team golf, something plenty of golf fans cry out for more of, and its exciting format leads to some excellent viewing.

The format sees the pairs play two rounds of fourball in Round One and Round Three and two rounds of Alternate Shot in Round Two and Round Four. The winning team will be the one who finishes with the lowest score relative to par, by the end of these four rounds total.

Longshots won this event in the first two renewals since becoming a team event in 2017, but since, many players have opted to form super teams, therefore making it harder for minnows to win. How will the 2023 Zurich Classic play out, and is there still some value to be had in this event? Let's find out!

Before we get into the Sleepers and Value Picks for the 2023 Zurich Classic, check out this offer from FanDuel Sportsbook. With the FanDuel promo code, you will bet $5, win $150 guaranteed, even if your team doesn't win at the Zurich Classic, thanks to this exciting new customer offer!

What Skillset is Required to Succeed at the 2023 Zurich Classic

Here are the top statistics to look at ahead of the 2023 Zurich Classic. It is worth bearing in mind that stats are no longer kept year-on-year for this event since the team format was introduced in 2017, so there is some guesswork involved to an extent.

• Greens in Regulation - You cannot win here without pounding greens, so being wayward with your irons and wedges is not an option on this incredibly easy layout.
• SG Putting - Two shoot the types of scores you need to do so here in order to win, you need at least one of you on your team to be riding a hot putter. Preferably you will have two players that can be streaky and get hot on the greens throughout the week. Every winning team here has featured at least one player that ended that season inside the top 50 for SG Putting.
• Pete Dye Form - Form at Austin Country Club in particular has translated well on this golf course at TPC Louisiana, with Jon Rahm winning this event in 2019, and finishing 2nd at the WGC Match Play in 2017. Kevin Kisner has won the WGC Match Play and finished runner-up here with Scott Brown in 2019. Billy Horschel won the WGC Match Play in 2019 and has won this event twice, both as part of a team and as an individual. Sam Burns has finished 2nd and 4th here in two starts with Billy Horschel and won the WGC Match Play this year.

Zurich Classic Trends - How to Find a Winner at the Zurich Classic

This is a tough event for trends, but I have analyzed the winning teams and have tried to find some useful stats to help you pick a team.

• At least one of the players on every winning pair here has ranked 50th or better in SG Putting in the same season they won this event. Four of the five teams had a player who ranked T28 or better in end-of-season SG Putting standings.
• Four of the last five winning pairs were made up of two players who had won on the PGA Tour before. Only Cameron Smith (2017) was winning for the first time on the PGA Tour at this event. All of the other players, including Cameron Smith's partner, Jonas Blixt had won at least two times on the PGA Tour before winning the Zurich Classic.

These two trends suggest we are looking for:

• A team that has at least one player ranking top 50 in SG Putting this season
• A team that features at least one player who has won the PGA Tour already

The top 50 SG Putting stat was based on their end-of-season ranking, so if your highest-ranked player was say 75th in Putting right now, I wouldn't overlook them, as they could be 50th by the time the season comes to an end.

Trying to find a team made up of two PGA Tour winners that will be classed as a sleeper play this week will be tricky, but try and at least find a team that has experience winning somewhere, whether that be on the DP World Tour or Korn Ferry Tour.

Do Sleeper and Value Picks Win The Zurich Classic?

Here are the pre-tournament odds of all the winners of the Zurich Classic, since it became a team event in 2017.

2022 - Patrick Cantlay & Xander Schauffele (+900)

2021 - Cameron Smith & Marc Leishman (+1200)

2019 - Jon Rahm & Ryan Palmer (+1600)

2018 - Billy Horschel & Scott Piercy (+4000)

2017 - Cameron Smith & Jonas Blixt (+10000)

As you can see, the first two winners of the Zurich Classic were longshots, but it appears over the past three years, players are taking it more seriously and some of the best players are forming "Super Pairings". This might make getting a value or sleeper pick over the line at the Zurich Classic tough. We will however try our best to find the best value which based on the odds this week, should be marked at +2500 and bigger.

Sleeper and Value Selections for the 2023 Zurich Classic

Here are my value and sleeper selections for the 2023 Zurich Classic. All of these plays are +3000 or bigger. 40-1 is normally our benchmark for sleeper and value picks in this article, but given the way this event is priced, those priced at 30-1 and bigger look to be the right target this week.

Kurt Kitayama & Taylor Montgomery +3100 (Bet $5, Win $150 Guaranteed at FanDuel)

For my first sleeper and value selection this week, I am going to bet on two players that played well at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play and also know how to make birdies.

Taylor Montgomery is one of the best putters in the world and ranks 3rd in SG Putting this season. Kurt Kitayama is no slouch in that department either, despite ranking just 89th, he is still gaining strokes in that department.

Montgomery also ranks 5th in Birdie or Better Percentage, making him a very valuable asset on this team.

Kitayama is the better ball striker of the two but Montgomery cleans up on the greens and is the more reliable when it comes to scoring, and it is this yin and yang approach that I love for this event.

Kitayama advanced from a tough group at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play by beating Tony Finau 4 & 3 and he also beat Andre Putnam 6 & 5 in the last 16, just to run into a hot Cameron Young, who he took to the 18th hole. Kitayama showed a liking for low scoring on a Pete Dye course that week and that is a great sign for this PGA Tour winner.

Montgomery didn't advance from his group, losing out to Mackenzie Hughes in his final game, but he did beat major champions Jordan Spieth and Shane Lowry, who have both excelled on Pete Dye courses in the past.

The newly-crowned PGA Tour winner, Kitayama can help his former UNLV teammate, Montgomery get off the mark for the first time here.

These two played together on the same college team and also teamed up to win an event in Vegas, which helped Montgomery bankroll the early stages of his professional career, so there's a lot of history between these two.

Sam Ryder & Doc Redman +7000 (Bet $5, Win $150 Guaranteed at FanDuel)

Somehow, the pairing of Sam Ryder and Doc Redman managed to finish 3rd in this event last year, but instead of wasting time wondering how it happened, let's instead focus on the fact that A) It did and B) Sam Ryder returns a better player.

Ryder is now up to 105th in the World Rankings, the highest he's ever been and that is based on two things, firstly a slightly broken OWGR system but secondly the fact he's played well on and off all season.

Ryder's 3rd at the Valero Texas Open was his best finish of the season and his third top 8 in 2022-23. He led for 54 holes at the Farmers Insurance Open before the occasions caught up with him and saw him eventually finish 4th, but he has not backed down since. 20th at back-to-back designated events at Phoenix and Riviera were impressive enough and 19th and 3rd place finishes since suggest that form hasn't gone away. 8th at the Mayakoba earlier in the season was another positive sign, and this strong putter can succeed in this format. Ryder ranks 2nd in SG Putting this season.

Doc Redman has admittedly struggled for form and was in a better place this time last year, but what Ryder has shown this season was far better than either player showed leading up to this event last year, and this comfortable pairing could go close again.

Redman has at least shown a flash of life recently, with a T16 finish at the Valspar and that was enough to pique my interest with his improving teammate alongside him once more.