There is a new tournament on the PGA Tour this week as the inaugural Black Desert Championship takes place out in Utah as the fall part of the year continues with a number of players looking to enhance their playing rights for 2025.
We are at the stage of the year where the bigger tournaments on the DP World Tour are taking place and the truly big names are either closing their year down or focusing on the events on the other side of the pond so there is a chance for someone under the radar to prevail here.
The Course
We are at the Black Desert Resort Golf Club in Utah this week. The course is famous for being the final one designed by Tom Weiskopf before he passed away. The track is officially a par 71 which on the ground measures 7,371 yards but with the altitude at play in this part of the world you can probably take around 300 yards off that. The beauty of this course is that it is laid out in amongst the black lava which makes it a very picturesque offering.
This is a new track for the PGA Tour but from what we can see by doing our research we are looking at wide and undulated fairways so the test would appear to be the second shots. The greens aren’t necessarily small but the undulations on them and the run off areas mean that the landing areas are actually much smaller so well struck iron shots could yield dividends, particularly early in the week until players get a better feel of the greens the longer the tournament goes on.
The Field
It has to be said that the field this week isn’t the strongest. The fact that a PGA Tour star like Billy Horschel is appearing in France rather than here would tell us where the tournament lies in the eyes of the bigger PGA Tour players. That is not to say that there aren’t some competent players on show here though. Chris Kirk won a tournament last season while Kurt Kitayama, Stephan Jaeger, Lucas Glover and Ryan Fox have all won events in the last 12 months or so.
Two men who will probably feel that they should have taken down the Sanderson Farms Championship last week are here too in Keith Mitchell and Beau Hossler while the European charge alongside Jaeger is led by Seamus Power and Matti Schmid while other internationals in the field include Adam Svensson, K-H Lee, Erk van Rooyen and Ryo Hisatsune who could be defending his Open de France crown this week but has chosen to play here instead.
Market Leaders
Keith Mitchell was right there deep in the mix in the Sanderson Farms Championship last week but he couldn’t get the job done. That isn’t the first time in 2024 he has bulked at a winning position and having had my money on him on one of those occasions I’m certainly in no rush to get involved in the American. He is a 20/1 favourite and there is a consensus that recent form is the key statistic in a new tournament or on a new track but I just don’t trust him to get the job done anymore.
Seamus Power will start out as a 25/1 shot this week. You would imagine that the wide open expanses off the tee will certainly help the Irishman. He comes in here off the back of a solid showing at the Sanderson Farms last week where he finished T11 so he is in decent nick but whether this course will play to all of his strengths I’m not sure. He can prosper in low scoring events though and you would imagine this will be one of them so he shouldn’t be ruled out completely.
Kurt Kitayama and Beau Hossler come next in the market at 28/1. The former lost out in a playoff at the Sanderson Farms last week so that might need a bit of time to get over which isn’t ideal. That would put me off backing him although clearly he is hitting the ball well. Kitayama has won on some exposed resort tracks around the world and is an aggressive player which should suit this kind of test. I don’t see his price as anything other than fair though so he isn’t for me.
Patrick Fishburn and Chan Kim are 33/1 on the best prices. I’ll come onto the former a little further down this preview. Kim has put together three top 12 finishes in his last seven starts and in his last two events he has been T26 and T33 in the fall series with totals of -8 and -14 so he has just been involved in low scoring events which have got the better of him. I don’t see this being any different so I have to pass him over. It is 35/1 bar those named.
Main Bets
Patrick Fishburn is on home soil this week and as a Utah man he will be motivated to get the job done. Fishburn arrives in his home event in decent form too because from the ISCO Championship onwards he has form figures of 15-3-T6-MC-3-T48. He is a long hitter off the tee and on a course where there are a couple of drivable par fours that is definitely no bad thing and he is hitting irons well as evidenced by him being third in GIR across 2024. You don’t score well like he has recently if you can’t putt and in familiar conditions where he should be dialled in at the altitude there is a whole lot to like about the man who could easily take down his first PGA Tour win in the inaugural staging of this event.
The other main bet I like this week is a man who has done the business in a resort track before in Erik van Rooyen. The South African can be described as streaky but his wins tend to come in low scoring events. He won the Barracuda Championship in 2021 and the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico last year so both of his wins have come at altitude which is no bad thing given that we are at that again this week. EvR was also T8 in the Mexico Open earlier in the year and T4 at the Myrtle Beach Classic. Van Rooyen has space off the tee here and tends to do his better work from there. He is comfortable at altitude and feels like a big price to me.
Outsiders
Henrik Norlander is inside the top 10 in the greens in regulation statistic on the PGA Tour this season and I am coming round to the idea that the best iron players are going to go very well this week. The rest of the Swede’s game isn’t exactly sloppy either and with no real punishment off the tee and no need to pound the driver anyway he shouldn’t be pushing the limit to open holes up. The other thing to like about Norlander when you consider the run offs around here is that he is second in scrambling. If he has a negative to his game it is the putter but nobody has an advantage on these greens to begin with so I like the Swede as an outsider bet here.
Peter Kuest could quickly look a monster price. He went to University in Utah and won a number of college titles in this part of the world so in a place where a number of runners need to acclimatise to the conditions he should be a lot more suited to his numbers and I would expect him to get off to a decent start. Whether he stays out in front might well depend on conditions but I would happily be on a player we know should be comfortable in the area over those who might not be. Kuest doesn’t have an actual tour card so this would be a huge week for him if he can run hot. He has top 10 finishes in Texas and the Corales Puntacana this season having made his name as a Monday qualifier when finishing T4 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic last term. He can play and this might be his best chance of a huge finish.
Tips
Back P.Fishburn to win Black Desert Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-8)
Back E.van Rooyen to win Black Desert Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 36.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-8)
Back P.Kuest to win Black Desert Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 151.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-8)
Back them here:
Back H.Norlander to win Black Desert Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 76.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-8)
