4 choose our favorite expert

Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com expert Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a regular guest on SportsGrid, an integrated audio network dedicated to sports and sports betting. You can follow on Twitter at @LasVegasGolferand you can read his picks below for the World Wide Technology Championship, which starts on Thursday in Mexico. Along with Kannon’s recommended games, you’ll see data from Chirp Golf, a mobile app that includes both Free-To-Play and Daily Fantasy golf tournaments where you can win cash and prizes for each round and tournament.

The FedEx Cup Fall is back and continues around the world for another week. Before taking a week off last week, the Tour was in Japan for the Zozo Championship and is now in Los Cabos, Mexico, for the World Wide Technology Championship at El Cardonal in Diamante. Only three events remain on the schedule for the fall season. At the end of this fall rotation, players must rank in the top 125 in FedEx Cup points to keep their Tour card for the 2025 season. Players who finish between 51 and 60 at the end of the fall, will earn spots in two Signature events, the AT&T Pebble Beach and the Genesis Invitational.

There’s a lot on the line here at El Cardonal in Diamante, a Tiger Woods design making its second appearance on the Tour calendar. For many years, this event has been held at El Camaleon Golf Club located along the Riviera Maya outside of Cancun, Mexico. Erik van Rooyen won the first event at Tiger’s place last season.

Van Rooyen came in at 27 under par on the par-72 course that stretches over 7,450 yards. The fairways are very wide and have no tension to speak of, and the greens are very large. Despite the strong wind last year, the players were able to kneel. The prediction isn’t too windy again this year, and here in Las Vegas at the Westgate SuperBook, the winning score proposition bet is set at Under/Over 25.5 under the category. Thus, very low scores are expected as well.

With that, we should consider Birdies or Better Gained this week in our handicap. I also looked at Strokes Gained: Approach and SG: Off the Tee. There’s not much here about the distance versus the accuracy off the tee and the fairways being too wide, but I think I’m looking for a player who works very well off the tee, and if he can gain on the field at this stage, then I believe that’s an advantage. I also looked at Greens in Regulation Jained, Scrambling, and how players play on Par 4s that measure between 450-500 yards, as do six of the 10 here at El Cardonal.

During this FedEx Cup fall, I feel like we’ve seen a few courses lately that provide this week’s song. Both Black Desert Resort in Utah and TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas feature fairways that are wider, rougher, and larger than average greens. Vidanta Vallarta, home of the Mexico Open, is also very similar to the wide fairways, large greens, and Paspalum grass surface on the course as we have here at Diamante. I also looked at TPC Craig Ranch, Port Royal Golf Club, Detroit Golf Club, Plantation Course in Kapalua, Corales Puntacana, and Pebble Beach. Also, wide fairways, large greens, and other similarities in turf types, coastal terrain, and elevation changes are connective tissue.

Ben Griffin (28-1)

We’ve been to Griffin before during this fall’s FedEx Cup and it’s no surprise that we find ourselves rooting for them again. He is one of the best players on these star-less pitches that we have faced and he has been playing well. He also carries more motivation, sitting 60th in the FedEx Cup Fall standings. He did almost everything well that we looked at this week. He is ranked seventh in the field in SG: Approach in the last 36 rounds. He is eighth in SG: Placement (Paspalum) and 12th in GIR Gained. Griffin is ranked 17th on Tour in Scrambling and 58th in Birdie Average. I also like some of the later results. Griffin was 13 at TPC Craig Ranch (CJ Cup Byron Nelson) back in May. Fifth at John Deere in July, seventh at Wyndham in August, 11th at the Black Desert Championship in October and just shot 66-64 over the weekend in Japan at Zozo.

Harris English (33-1)

Even though the statistics may not be completely telling, English is one of the most successful players in this field, and in addition, it comes out of two straight top-10 in our two related subjects, a. sixth in Utah and ninth in Las Vegas. Like Griffin, English also sits in that 51-60 window in the FedEx Cup Fall rankings, needing to catch up to qualify for those aforementioned Signature events. Very good, he can get it out with some distance and accuracy, which should translate into more bird chances. English is ranked 10th in the Tour in SG: Placement and is fourth in the field in Scrambling the last 36 rounds. English won at Kapalua, and the previous tournament’s home, Paspalum greens, and finished in fifth place. It was back in 2018 that he finished fifth at Puntacana Corales, another coastal course with Paspalum.

Sam Stevens (36-1)

Stevens is a teenager who has started to catch my eye. He has made the cut 22 of 27 times this year and has finished in the top 20 six times. He played in four FedEx Cup Fall events and finished in the top 40 in one. He has the longest distance off the tee, ranking eighth in the field in SG: Off the Tee in the last 36 rounds. He is also 14th in Birdies or Better Gained and 15th in Scrambling. Stevens is ranked 31st in the SG Tour: Placement and finished third last year at Corales Puntacana.

Carson Young (85-1)

No, not Cameron Young, Carson Young. Yes, it’s easy to put the two words together and yes, both are in the field this week. Cameron Young is a very good player and is one of the favorites this week at about 20-1, but I’ll go with the long shot. Carson Young is coming off an 11th place finish in Utah a few weeks ago and has an eighth and 15th place finish at Vidanta Vallarta. Young was ninth here last year at El Cardonal and took 14th last year at TPC Craig Ranch. He is very efficient with his driving accuracy and is solid everywhere, indeed, he has birdies, if you approach, on Par 4s, and the putter, as he is 23rd in this field of SG: Putting (Paspalum) in the last 24 rounds.

Chirp Golfers picks this week

This information will be updated as soon as it becomes available.