2022 Zurich Classic to tee off at TPC Louisiana

Jude Papillion, Sports Editor
April 20, 2022

  • Last year, Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman won the 2021 Zurich Classic in a playoff. This year’s tournament features ten of the world’s top 20 golfers. Pictured is TPC Louisiana’s 18th green.

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  • 2020 PGA Championship winner, 2021 British Open winner and current World No. 2 Collin Morikawa takes a drive off the eighth tee during Tuesday’s practice round.

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  • TPC Louisiana, designed by Pete Dye, has served as the host of the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans since 2005.

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  • Since professional golf arrived in New Orleans in 1931 and began to be played annually in 1958, big names such as Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson, Tom Watson and Seve Ballesteros have teed off in the Big Easy.

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  • Zurich Insurance is the title sponsor of the tournament in partnership with the tournament’s host, the Fore!Kids Foundation.

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The 2022 Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Louisiana’s only PGA Tour event, is slated to take place from Thursday, April 21 through Sunday, April 24 at TPC Louisiana in Avondale. This year’s tournament will feature five of the top six players in the current Official World Golf Ranking including World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. 

Scheffler has won four of the last six tournaments he competed in, and the FedEx Cup leader will return for the first time following his recent win in this year’s Masters Tournament. Because the Zurich Classic is the PGA Tour’s only team tournament, Scheffler and his partner Ryan Palmer have the fifth-highest odds to win the tournament at +1100. The pairs of Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele along with Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa share the highest odds to win the tournament at +800 despite Scheffler’s hot start to the season.

Louisianan and World No. 11 Sam Burns will team up with two-time Zurich champion Billy Horschel as they also enter the tournament with higher odds to win than Scheffler/Palmer at +1000. 

The 2021 Zurich champions, the Australian duo of Marc Leishman and World No. 6 Cameron Smith will return to the Westbank to defend their title win from a year ago. Other major champions in the field include Bubba Watson, Sergio García, Shane Lowry, Charl Schwartzel, Henrik Stensen and Danny Willett.

A look at golfers teeing off from the 292-yard, Par 4 sixth tee at TPC Louisiana on Tuesday afternoon. (Jude Papillion)

Sunshine and warmer temperatures have created a beautiful wetlands landscape at TPC Louisiana, the tournament’s host course since 2005. While alligators remain a common sight along the fairways of the Pete Dye-designed course, its 250 acres were ravaged when Hurricane Ida made landfall on the Gulf Coast last September, causing over 700 trees to fall on the property. Just months later, TPC Louisiana is in better shape than ever and is ready to welcome back both patrons and championship golf.

https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/1516553479208116224?s=20&t=m-QkMxTEWmej4Yj5fBqrWg

In total, 160 players will form the 80 two-man teams that will compete in this weekend’s tournament. The top 33 teams after the first two rounds will make the cut and advance to the final two rounds.

Teams will compete in fourballs — best ball — in rounds one and three and in alternate shot foursomes in rounds two and four. If two teams are tied after 72 holes on Sunday, a sudden death alternating format playoff will be held until there is a winner. 

The tournament’s overall purse has increased from last year by $900,000 and now stands at $8.3 million. Each man in the winning team will collect $1,199,350, an increase of $130,000 from a year ago.

Tickets for the tournament begin at $40 per day, but the action can be seen on the Golf Channel on Thursday and Friday and on CBS on Saturday and Sunday.

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