The good news for this week’s field at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans is that World No. 1 Scheffler is taking this week off as his first child is due shortly. Even in a team event, the other players on the PGA Tour need a break from Scottie.

Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele (5-1) won this event two years ago and are once again the pre-event favorites.

Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry (8-1) paired together once in the 2021 Ryder Cup (a fourball defeat to Tony Finau and Harris English).

Sahith Theegala and Will Zalatoris (10-1) as well as Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama (16-1) are first-time pairings.

Two pairs of brothers — Nicolai and Rasmus Højgaard (18-1) and Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick (28-1) — make return appearances to the event.

Defending champions Nick Hardy and Davis Riley (66-1) return as do runners-up Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin (40-1), who make up one Canadian team with Corey Conners and Taylor Pendrith (25-1) being the other.

The Zurich Classic of New Orleans has a history that dates to 1938 and has been played annually on the PGA Tour since 1958. Swiss insurance company Zurich took over as the tournament sponsor in 2005 and the Fore! Kids Foundation serves as the event organizer. In 2017, the Zurich Classic became a team event with 80 teams of two players with 33 teams making the weekend cut. The event winners do not receive Masters invitations nor OWGR points but do earn 500 FedEx Cup points, two-year PGA Tour exemptions, plus invitations to the PGA Championship, Sentry Tournament of Champions and The Players Championship.

In the first round, the teams will compete in fourball (best ball), which sees each player use his own ball, with the teammate with the lowest score on each hole providing that team’s score per hole.

There’s a change for the second round, with foursomes (alternate shot) the order of the day, as team members alternate shots with the same ball.

After the end of Friday’s action, there is a cut that sees the top 33 teams and ties make it to the weekend. The remaining teams once again play a round of fourball on Saturday before finishing with another round of foursomes, when one of the teams is declared the winner.

In the event of a tie at the end of Sunday’s action, a sudden-death playoff will be held with the two formats alternating after each hole until a winner is found.

TPC Louisiana has hosted the Zurich Classic of New Orleans since 2005 (except 2006 when course renovations post-Hurricane Katrina forced a move back to English Turn). It is in Avondale, which is a 15-minute drive southwest of Bourbon Street. The track was designed by Pete Dye in 2004 and renovated by Chris Gray in 2012. It is a public course of 7,425 yards and plays as a par-72. The layout is defended by 106 bunkers (fourth most on tour) and five water hazards that are in play on seven holes. Two days after the 2019 tournament, the greens were redone with TifEagle Bermuda grass (changing from MiniVerde Bermuda) overseeded with Poa Trivialis, and the fairways (34.5-yard average width — 15th widest on tour) were transformed to Celebration Bermudagrass. The greens are 5,225 square feet on average and relatively average speed (12 on stimpmeter).

The rough is only two inches and fairly non-penal.

There is no elevation on this course, which is the flattest layout on the PGA Tour.

Pete Dye is the designer, and there are several Dye courses every year on the PGA Tour schedule if you are looking for a course correlation. They include:

Austin Country Club — WGC Dell Match Play since 2016

Crooked Stick — 2012 and 2016 BMW Championship

Harbour Town — RBC Heritage

Ocean Course, Kiawah Island — 2012 PGA Championship

TPC River Highlands — The Travelers

TPC Sawgrass — The Players Championship

TPC Stadium, PGA West — The American Express since 2016

Whistling Straits — 2010 and 2015 PGA Championship

Other correlated courses are the other TPCs on the PGA Tour including TPC Twin Cities and TPC Scottsdale along with Detroit Golf Club.

Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy (25-1, BetMGM)

Hoge’s approach game plus McNealy’s putting should make them one of the teams to beat.

Nick Taylor/Adam Hadwin (31-1, Circa Sports)

Taylor is already a winner this year in Phoenix, and his fellow Canadian Hadwin, who was tackled by overzealous security last year at the RBC Canadian Open celebrating Taylor’s victory, has three top-6 finishes in 2024.

Taylor Moore/Matthew NeSmith (45-1, Circa Sports)

This duo has finished fourth here in each of the last two years.

Davis Thompson/Andrew Novak (45-1, Circa Sports)

Both players are based at the Sea Island Resort. Thompson was second on a Pete Dye design at the 2023 AMEX and Novak is playing the best golf of his career on the PGA Tour.