The American Express is held annually in January, and we have another great field in 2025. It takes place in La Quinta, California, utilizing three different courses: the PGA West Stadium Course, the Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West, and La Quinta Country Club. The tournament features a unique three-course rotation for the first three rounds, with all players competing on each course once. After 54 holes, there's a cut to the top players who then play the final round on the Stadium Course at PGA West.
Recent winners include Nick Dunlap in 2024, who was the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event since Phil Mickelson in 1991. Other notable past champions include Jon Rahm, Patrick Reed, and Phil Mickelson. Let’s see what the BetQL model sees value in this weekend.
Patrick Cantlay To Win: +1600, BetMGM
The model sees a ton of value in Cantlay this weekend, making him to win The American Express a 5-star wager that we can get behind. It projects fair odds of +413 for him to take home the win, so getting 16/1 here at BetMGM clearly presents a ton of value.
Cantlay is one of the best golfers in the world, and one of his biggest strengths is his consistent play rather than sporadic brilliance. There are plenty of golfers who have their year in the spotlight and then fade away into irrelevance. You almost never see Cantlay at the bottom of a tournament. He is consistently in contention, sat at the top of the league in top 20 finishes, and always aims to capitalize on his position. While the wins haven’t been plentiful for him, he has had plenty of success here at The American Express, and should have us in good position as we head into Sunday.
Cameron Young Top-5 Finish: +650, BetMGM
The BetQL model has another 5-star wager here on Cam Young to finish inside the top-5 at The American Express. It isn’t often we have multiple 5-star wagers, so the value in this tournament seems plentiful. It is projecting fair odds of +189 for Young to finish top-5, so getting +650 is clearly going to pop in the model.
Young started the 2025 season with an impressive showing at the 2024 Hero World Challenge, where he scored a bogey-free 8-under 64 in the first round. This performance was after a downtime of more than 14 weeks, so the extra rest could have really helped him. However, he withdrew from the World Wide Technology Championship in November 2024 for undisclosed reasons, which was quite notable since he was one of the favorites to win that tournament. In 2024, he had a runner-up finish at the Valspar Championship along with a few other top-10 finishes.
Tony Finau Top-10 Finish: +225, BetMGM
Not quite as much value on this one, as the BetQL model has this as a 4-star play rather than 5-star, but that still is very good. The model projects this at +115 fair odds, so getting +225 at BetMGM is popping right now for us.
Finau secured a top-15 finish at The Sentry tournament and opened his season strong, but he needs to continue that kind of success going forward. He hasn’t won a PGA Tournament since 2023 at the Mexico Open, so he is dying for a win at this point. In 2024, he was 10th in total strokes gained, showing some really good play but without the results to show it. Perhaps in 2025, if he can maintain that kind of elite play, Finau can finally grab some wins on tour to bolster his resume. Unfortunately, he has become known as a player that can’t finish, but he’ll aim to break that mold this season.
Jason Day Top-20 Finish: +250, BetMGM
The last 5-star play of the tournament we have for you is Day to finish inside the top-20, which is showing some serious value. We are projecting Day at -104 odds, so getting +250 is once again going to be a top wager for us.
Day finished 52nd in total strokes gained last year, showing that he is still an above-average player, but he wasn’t elite like he has been in the past. In 2024, he had a great performance at the Wells Fargo Championship where he finished fourth, shooting 6-under at Quail Hollow Club. However, as mentioned, his results have been somewhat inconsistent. He finished 39th at the Masters Tournament in 2024 and missed the cut at the Memorial Tournament with a score of 4-over. At the PGA Championship, he managed a 43rd-place finish. His average score in his last five tournaments has been around 5-under.
Harris English Top-40 Finish: +130, BetMGM
Rounding out our picks for The American Express, we are seeing some decent value on English to finish inside the top-40, enough to make this a 4-star wager. We are projecting -105 odds for him to do so, while BetMGM is offering +130 right now for that to happen.
English finished 65th in total strokes gained in 2024, which is above-average, but also showed some inconsistent play. His most recent tournament at the Sony Open was not great, missing the cut with a score of +1. He did have several tournaments at the end of 2024 where he had success, finishing inside the top-10 at the Black Desert Championship and Shriners Children's Open. He also finished inside the top-15 at the World Wide Tech Championship. He’s up and down, but hopefully, he can just finish inside the top-40 for us.