You’re standing on the 18th tee at TPC Louisiana, and the air is thick. Not just from that famous Bayou humidity, but from the weird, high-stakes pressure of knowing your mistake isn’t just yours—it’s your best friend’s problem, too. That’s zurich new orleans golf in a nutshell. It’s the only time on the PGA Tour schedule where these guys, who are usually solitary sharks, have to play nice and share a ball.
Most fans think this tournament is just a breezy, lighthearted exhibition. They see the walk-up music and the guys joking around on the range and assume it’s a vacation.
Honestly? It's the opposite.
If you miss a three-footer on Saturday at a normal event, you’re annoyed at your bank account. If you miss it here during a Foursomes (alternate shot) round, you have to look another grown man in the eye and apologize for ruining his week. That’s a different kind of psychological torture.
Why the Zurich New Orleans Golf Format Actually Breaks Pro Golfers
The format is what makes this thing tick. It’s not just "golf with friends." It's a calculated, often stressful alternating rhythm of "Best Ball" and "Alternate Shot."
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On Thursday and Saturday, they play Four-ball. This is the fun part. Both players play their own ball, and you just take the best score on the hole. If your partner goes into the swamp, you can still fire at the pin. It’s aggressive. It’s why you see teams shooting 60 or 61 like it’s nothing.
Then comes Friday and Sunday. Foursomes.
This is where the wheels usually come off. You hit the drive, your partner hits the approach, you putt, he finishes it off. If you snap-hook a drive into the cypress trees, your partner has to go find it and try to hack it out. You can see the tension in their shoulders. Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak, the 2025 champions, basically won because they didn't blink during these high-stress alternate-shot stretches, finishing at 28-under par to edge out the Højgaard twins by a single stroke.
TPC Louisiana: Pete Dye’s Swampy Masterpiece
You can’t talk about zurich new orleans golf without talking about the dirt. TPC Louisiana is a Pete Dye design, which means it’s basically a psychological experiment disguised as a golf course.
It’s built on 250 acres of wetlands in Avondale. It’s flat, sure, but Dye used over 100 bunkers and five massive ponds to make it feel like a minefield. The 18th hole is a 588-yard par-5 that ruins lives. Water runs along the entire right side. In a team format, the strategy here is wild. Do you both go for it? Does one guy lay up just to be the "safety" while the other tries to hero-shot it over the lake?
- The 17th Hole: A 215-yard par-3 that is essentially an island of grass surrounded by water and bunkers.
- The 13th Hole: A short par-4 where the big hitters try to drive the green, but a tiny plateau green makes that a massive gamble.
- The 6th Hole: A dogleg left where you’re forced to flirt with water just to get a decent angle at the green.
The course doesn't demand 350-yard drives as much as it demands you stay out of the "alligator-infested" hazards. And yeah, there are actual gators. Players have had to wait for 12-footers to cross the fairway before. That’s just New Orleans golf.
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The Stakes Are Higher Than You Think
People keep saying this event is "low stakes" because it doesn’t award Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points. That’s a mistake.
While you don't get a Masters invite for winning, the winners get 400 FedEx Cup points each. For a guy hovering around the 70th spot in the standings, that’s the difference between keeping your job and heading to the Korn Ferry Tour. In 2025, that win punched Ben Griffin’s ticket to the Signature Events and the PGA Championship.
The purse for 2026 is sitting at $9.5 million. The winning duo splits that, with each player taking home over $1.3 million. That’s plenty of reason to take it seriously.
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Real Strategies for the 2026 Tournament
The 2026 Zurich Classic is scheduled for April 20–26. If you’re planning to watch or, better yet, head down to Avondale, here is how the elite teams are actually built.
It’s rarely about putting two superstars together. We’ve seen Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry win (2024) because they are legitimate friends who know each other's games inside out. But often, the best teams are a "steady Eddie" paired with a "bomber." One guy keeps the ball in play so the other guy can feel free to be a maniac and chase birdies.
If both guys are "high-risk, high-reward," they usually miss the cut on Friday during the alternate shot. You need a partner who makes you feel safe.
Actionable Tips for Following the Event
If you want to actually understand what’s happening on the leaderboard this year, stop looking at the total score and start looking at the Friday/Sunday splits.
- Watch the Foursomes closely: Any team that shoots under 68 in alternate shot is a serious threat. That is much harder than shooting a 60 in best-ball.
- Check the "Friendship Factor": Look for teams that play together often or have a history in the Ryder Cup. Chemistry isn't a "stat," but in this format, it’s everything.
- Monitor the 18th hole strategy: On Sunday, watch how teams handle the par-5 18th. If the first player finds the fairway, the second player almost always goes for the green in two. If the first player misses, the pressure on the second player to "just get it in play" is immense.
The zurich new orleans golf experience is about the grit beneath the party. It’s a 72-hole grind where you’re only as good as the guy standing next to you. If you’re looking for a sleeper team to follow in 2026, keep an eye on the mid-tier ball-strikers who have played TPC Louisiana more than five times. Experience on these greens matters more than raw power.