Black Desert Championship Sleepers and Value Picks: Bet on Novak, Kizzire in Utah

2024 Black Desert Championship Sleepers and Value Picks: Bet on Novak, Kizzire in Utah

Last week's Sanderson Farms Championship provided plenty of drama, with Kevin Yu coming out on top in a playoff against Beau Hossler. 54-hole leader Keith Mitchell coughed up the lead and missed out on the playoff, a familiar scenario for a man who is now 0/3 with a 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour.

This week, a similar level of field has assembled for the Black Desert Championship, a new event on the PGA Tour hosted by the Black Desert Resort in Ivins, Utah.

As is always the case in this article, we will be looking for the best picks at +4000 and bigger for this week's event, as we try to establish who may be best suited to this new event. Will former desert form help, or will this be its own unique test? There's plenty to figure out this week.

We will piece together what we know already about the course and work out from there who could contend.

What Skill Set is Required to Win The 2024 Black Desert Championship?

Black Desert Resort is a new course to the PGA Tour and this Tom Weiskopf design looks like one that players will feast on. Weiskopf was responsible for two low-scoring courses on the PGA Tour, TPC Scottsdale (WM Phoenix Open) and Torrey Pines North (Farmers Insurance Open), and this looks like another.

Played at altitude, this 7,371-yard Par 71 will actually play closer to 7,000 yards and therefore offers three par 5s to score on, as well as some of the par 4s being obvious birdie chances.

While this course is actually surrounded by lava, it will play similar to a desert event, as it does down the road at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas, and at Weiskopf's other design, in Scottsdale. That means looking at the Shriners Open and the WM Phoenix Open could be worthwhile.

Similarly, the Barracuda Championship is another event played at altitude, and with many of the same players playing the two events, it is worth checking form at that layout.

Lastly, the Tour hasn't visited Utah in a long time, but the Korn Ferry Tour stops there every year for the Utah Championship. Winners of that event include Patton Kizzire, Roger Sloan, Cameron Champ, Josh Teater, and Brice Garnett, all of whom are in this field.

Let's look at what stats could help us identify a winner.

SG Off the Tee - While it will be easy to hit these wide, resort-style fairways, players who find an edge off the tee, preferably via Driving Distance, should feast at this course. With three scoreable Par 5s and a driveable Par 4, this should be an ideal test for big hitters. Think about events like the Mexico Open at Vidanta.

Bentgrass Putting - Bentgrass greens are in play here at the Black Desert Championship, so those who excel on this putting surface will be worthy of your consideration.

Par 5 Scoring - With three Par 5s to take advantage of, and a couple of reachable Par 4s, you will want to look at those that take care of the scoring hole. Par 5 Scoring Average is a good indicator of this, as is Birdie or Better Percentage.

SG Approach - While we have focused on those who can hit it a long way, this is ultimately set to be a birdie-fest though, and that means setting up many opportunities with your irons, so those ranking highly in SG Approach should be targeted as well.

Potential Correlating Courses for the Black Desert Championship

Let's take a look at which courses may provide clues for this week's test and why. This could be the leg up a player needs to excel at a new course, and it is good for us to try and identify those that are most likely to correlate.

TPC Scottsdale (WM Phoenix Open) - This course is going to play in a similar way to a desert course, and TPC Scottsdale is situated in desert terrain in Phoenix. Not only that, but Tom Weiskopf designed both courses, so there may well be some little nuances that provide similarities.

TPC Summerlin (Shriners Open) - Another desert event, this time the nearby TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas. Utah borders Nevada, and it is just a 2-hour drive between the two courses. Black Desert features lava on either side of the fairways, so while it is not exactly a desert, there are similarities. The low-scoring nature of both events should throw up similarities regardless, and the location and style look similar enough.

TPC Craig Ranch (Byron Nelson) - Clearly a lover of birdie fests, another course Weiskopf was responsible for was TPC Craig Ranch, which has hosted the Byron Nelson since 2021.

Oakridge Country Club (Utah Championship) - While we don't venture to Utah on the PGA Tour, they play in the Beehive State every year on the Korn Ferry Tour, so the Utah Championship is worth looking at. That local tie could provide clues.

Sleepers and Value Picks for the 2024 Black Desert Championship

Here are my picks at +4000 and bigger for the 2024 Black Desert Championship.

Patrick Fisburn (+3500) will likely be among my outright picks overall, but doesn't quite qualify for this article.

Andrew Novak +4000 (BetMGM)

Andrew Novak is quietly playing some very solid golf, making 7 cuts in a row and finishing inside the top 25 on 5 of those starts.

The two times he failed to nab a top-25 finish at that span, he finished T70 in Scotland, an event he would not have expected to do well in, and the Wyndham Championship, where he finished T52. In the Scottish Open, he opened with a 66 and was 23rd after round 1, and he still never shot worse than 71 that week, the scoring just got away with him. At the Wyndham, Novak was T25 after two rounds as well, so for the most part he's been playing really good golf.

While he doesn't possess the desired length many will opt for off the tee here (nor does my next pick!), he is gaining on approach every week (barring Scotland), and that has been the case for most of 2024.

His spike weeks have come when the putter has also cooperated, and if he can get that area of his game rolling this week, I think he can make an impact.

Looking at Novak's career so far, the American has finished 8th at both the WM Phoenix Open and the Utah Championship, and also 8th and 15th at the driver-heavy Mexico Open. All of these results bode well for Novak, who looks very close to breaking through and landing some big results on the PGA Tour.

His lack of contending form is an obvious concern, but I do think he's built to give you a run throughout the week, and it will come down to how he plays in and around the lead. 7 times in 2024 Novak has found himself inside the top 10 at the halfway mark, and in a three-event stretch of the Phoenix Open, Mexico Open, and Cognizant Classic, he landed consecutive top 10 finishes. So while he's only been seriously in the mix a couple of times on the PGA Tour, at the 2023 Canadian Open and 2024 WM Phoenix Open, he is getting way more familiar with the top of the leaderboard.

Patton Kizzire +6000 (FanDuel)

I backed Patton Kizzire last week on the strength of his ability to back up a win with another one in a short window, but perhaps we were a tournament too early.

We highlighted last week that Kizzire played two events between his 1st and 2nd win on the PGA Tour, and it was the same on the Korn Ferry Tour, meaning he's won twice in four starts on two separate occasions.

While it is hard to keep up such an insane record, Kizzire did his chances no harm last week, when finishing T11 at the Sanderson Farms Championship, where he was in the mix for multiple rounds.

His first Korn Ferry Tour win came at the Utah Championship, which is clearly a nice plus when he's playing in the same state this week, but that is just an additional benefit. He's clearly playing well, and where he's played well on the PGA Tour should also tie in quite nicely.

Kizzire opened with a 65 and closed with a 63 at the 2015 Shriners Open, losing out in Vegas by one stroke, highlighting his ability to play well in the desert. Add in another 4th place finish on the same course, a T3 finish at TPC Craig Ranch, and a 10th at the WM Phoenix Open in 2022 to his win in Utah and you have a player who should relish a return to the Beehive State.

He also has two top-10 finishes in the Barracuda Championship, including an 8th this year, which is further evidence of his ability to play at altitude.

Kizzire has ranked 17th 15th, and 15th in SG Approach the last three times he's made the cut, and 10th, 4th, and 16th in SG Tee to Green overall in that span.

With three top-8 finishes including a win in his past five starts, Kizzire still looks like the value this week in Utah.

Cameron Champ +8000 (bet365)

After pointing out the potential for big hitters to tear this course apart, my selections have generally leaned towards more accurate iron players, so now it is time to take the skillset highlighted and pick a player at the extreme end of the scale.

Cam Champ is consistently one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour ranking, 1st, 4th, 1st, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st in Driving Distance at the end of each season, since joining the Tour.

Consistency has always been Champ's problem and a frustrating missed cut last week, when he was well-fancied will certainly epitomise that. With that said, he gained strokes off the tee almost every week and on occasion is a decent putter, so when he gets on a suitable course, we should always take a second look.

Champ has won three times on the PGA Tour since making it to this level in 2018, but before that, his one and only win on the Korn Ferry Tour came at the 2018 Utah Championship. That's a nice added bonus for a player who has also finished 6th and 8th at the driver-centric Mexico Open and was just three strokes back of the Sunday lead at the 2018 Shriners Open, another desert test.

If anyone can dominate this course with distance alone, it should be Champ who will outdrive anyone on the property.

Kyoung-Hoon Lee +9000 (FanDuel)

'TPC Lee' as he is affectionately known, loves playing on Tom Weiskopf designs, as evidenced by two wins at TPC Craig Ranch and a 2nd place finish at the WM Phoenix Open. Those two wins at the Byron Nelson might not correlate in terms of course layout, but his ability to go low on that sort of setup, especially one with the same course designer is obviously encouraging.

Lee's TPC form also carries over to TPC Summerlin, where has finished 7th and 14th in two Shriners Opens, and with just a two-hour drive separating that course and this week's layout, those efforts are surely worth considering.

The excitement doesn't end there, though, as, after a tough spell of form, Lee has come back to life in recent weeks, with a T9 finish at the 3M Open and a T23 last week at the Sanderson Farms Championship, where he broke 70 each day.

This should be a good layout for Lee, and at the odds, I thought he was certainly eye-catching in an event bereft of value.