Large-Field GPP Breakdown: Zurich Classic

What an eventful week it has been for the golf channel! This week, I unfortunately cannot play the classic slate, as I am with my family on vacation right now where DraftKings is blocked. That being said, I still am writing this article as if I were playing and handling it with the care that I would any Large-Field GPP Breakdown. Don’t let Discord gossip king cantfademe try and convince you otherwise.

RBC Heritage – Recap

It was admittedly a tougher RBC Heritage for me, even though I did have a strong shot on goal in the lotto that was sabotaged by Harris English, Bud Cauley, and Patrick Cantlay all bogeying the 18th. English lost his BOFR, Cauley lost his AU70 and BOFR, and Cantlay, well, just lost points. Congrats, however, to ShaunSmithTTU, who I know is a lurker in Discord and reads this article. If I were to pick someone to win the lotto, it certainly wouldn’t be you, but you’d probably be in my top 10. Anyways, we finished another signature event with no cut (hopefully these are gone next year), but we’ll have plenty more upcoming (including two in the next three weeks) before the PGA Championship, so get ready for some more no-cut, limited-field fun.

Let’s move on to the Zurich Classic, which is the PGA Tour’s only team event this year. I will, of course, go through the general rules of the tournament so you are aware of what you’re watching.

Zurich Classic – Preview

For those of you who are new here, the Zurich Classic is a team event (duos) that features a totally different format than any other tournament on the PGA Tour. There are 74 teams that compete in this event for the week, basically setting up the tournament to play out like a signature event in terms of cumulative ownership. The duos play a combination of best ball and alternate shot, making scoring here on the best-ball days quite high. Because of the timing of this event, the Zurich usually does not attract many of the top players in the game. Therefore, we are left with some really tough clicks at the bottom of rosters with players who we probably never would roster at any other point in the season, including alternate events.

Last year, I almost bypassed my article because Sky had written such a good article previewing the Zurich and how to attack it from a GPP standpoint. I will again link the article here so you all can read it. I highly, highly suggest checking that out; it will really guide you on GPP strategy in what is otherwise a pretty pure lottery event. I won’t give you the “tldr” of it here, but I will cite this article a couple more times throughout, so hopefully you don’t skip out on your reading. You will see that it’s obviously imperative that you get a 6/6 here, both because of the scoring format and also because the 6/6 rate is naturally going to be unbelievably low. The 6/6 rate has not been above 5% in any of the last three years, and last year’s was actually the highest at a measly 4.76% in the large-field lottery. For those of you who are single-entry or small-field players, you may have a pretty good idea that you’ll be getting a top finish when the cut hits on Friday.