Early season and late season we have these nonsense events. The Tour stopover in Las Vegas may be popular among the pros, but the pro-am format is not. When players are trying desperately to hold onto their Tour cards or even just qualify for the Tour Championship, being paired with amateurs and playing on artificially easy courses trivializes the whole affair. These events therefore bring to the fore the more experienced players and the ones more at ease with distractions. Hal Sutton has a terrible record in these events, Fred Couples has an excellent one. Two people with different degrees of intensity and therefore suitability to the pro-am format.
The event is played over three courses - Summerlin, Desert Inn & Southern Highlands - which are played in rotation on the first three days, then only the Summerlin course is played at the weekend after the cut. All three courses are over 7000 yards, but play much shorter in the thin desert air. The greens are large, but will be soft, so birdies will come easily. The course record at Summerlin is 60, set by Tommy Armour last year, while Jim Furyk's winning score was 29-under-par. With the Summerlin course also boasting wide fairways, it is something of a surprise that Jim Furyk has won this event for the past two season - he is no long-hitting birdie machine. Again, it shows suitability to format is important this week.
There has been some doubt that Furyk is playing this week, though I have a reliable source who insists that he is. Just as well as he my top-ranked player this week. His form has not exactly been spectacular of late, but he did have a top-20 finish last week and his record here reads: 5th (1994), 1st (1995), 22nd (1996), 19th (1997), 1st (1998) and 1st (1999). His average round in this event is 67.50 and the courses are all par-72! The early lines do not have him listed, but he should represent value from about 12/1 upwards.
Second-ranked is Davis Love who is attracting relatively large odds because his form has been unimpressive for quite a while. Nevertheless he has had four top-5 finishes in his last seven visits including victory in 1993 and he is a long-hitting birdie machine. He currently ranks 7th in the Tour driving distance stats and 3rd in the birdie average stats. Like Furyk though, his last outing was a top-20 finish (Buick Challenge) and he does look good value @ 20/1.
Looking at the early odds, there are no real outsiders that look capable of winning, so this may be a week to pass on those. A third player to note in this case would be Mark Calcavecchia. He missed the cut last year, but had finished 2nd, 4th and 3rd in the three years prior. With his putter behaving uncharacteristically well, he could be a strong challenger and fit the mould of Furyk as a pro-am specialist (he has a good record in the Bob Hope Classic as well) rather than that of Love.
Will have final plays later today once the tee-times and course rotation has been announced.
