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Sungjae Im should be priced closer to the top. Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Golf best bets: Outright picks for the American Express

By Jack Dougherty | Last updated 1/16/24

The PGA Tour returns stateside after a two-week Hawaii vacation for The American Express from PGA West in La Quinta, Calif. This week's tournament features a 54-hole cut, three different golf courses and one of the easiest setups on the PGA Tour circuit. The winner this week will have to get to at least 20-under-par, so we're hunting elite birdie-makers who can go low on all types of layouts.

Here are the three outright bets we're targeting for The American Express.

Sungjae Im (+2000 FanDuel)

There's a clear Tier 1 on the odds board made up of Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, but we're skipping past that group and targeting the top of Tier 2 instead.

Sungjae Im should be priced closer to the top three for a few reasons. For one, the South Korean has an immaculate course history at this event. In five starts at PGA West, Im has never finished worse than T18. We also love his chances to go low this week considering he racked up 34 birdies in 72 holes at The Sentry en route to a T5 finish.

Im is firing on all cylinders right now, and he's our favorite outright bet near the top of the board.

Tony Finau (+3500 DraftKings)

Tony Finau is another player who's slightly mispriced near the top of the odds board. There's no reason he should be priced behind names such as Eric Cole and J.T. Poston, especially considering how well he's played desert golf courses throughout his career.

Finau loves low-scoring birdie fests, and he can go low with the best of them as long as the putter cooperates. The putter has been cold of late, as Finau has lost strokes on the green in five straight starts, but he's gained 10.08 true strokes putting over his last two starts at PGA West.

Ben Kohles (+17000 FD)

This is such a wacky tournament that it tends to lead to some surprising winners, so we're going for a big surprise at 170/1.

If you don't know the name Ben Kohles, you likely will soon. The 33-year-old won the Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year award last year after finishing No. 1 on the points list and earning his PGA Tour card for the third time. He ranked fourth on the KFT in scoring average and second in greens in regulation percentage last season, and he finished T5 at the RSM Classic in his season opener while gaining 5.48 true strokes on approach.

Kohles can struggle around the greens, but he should be able to hit a ton of greens in regulation on an easy setup at PGA West. If the putter shows up, Kohles will put himself right in the mix.

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