5 our expert’s favorite picks

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 @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the Charles Schwab Challenge, which begins Thursday in Fort Worth, Texas. Along with Kannon’s recommended games, you’ll see data from Chirp, a free-to-play mobile platform featuring a series of games with attractive rewards, giving fans all kinds of ways to get in on the action without risking money.

Three weeks ago, the PGA Tour was in McKinney, Texas, for the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, a mainstay on the Tour calendar, paying tribute to one of the game’s legends. This week, we’re back in the Lone Star state of Fort Worth for the Charles Schwab Challenge.

The tournament has been held at the Colonial Country Club since 1946, the longest running tournament on the Tour to be played on the same course every year – and we can wrestle with the game’s legend here again. Ben Hogan won at Colonial five times during his career. A statue of the famous Texan stands tall at Colonial, an area often referred to as “Hogan’s Alley,” where Hogan’s last Tour victory came in 1959 at the age of 46.

Players, however, will see the “new” Colonial Country Club in 2024 as Gil Hanse and his partner, Jim Wagner, were brought in last season at the end of the 2023 Charles Schwab Challenge to begin immediate renovations. As is often the case with Hanse projects, he was brought in to not only polish the course to a modern standard, but also restore the golf course to its historic design.

Colonial is a long par 70 at approximately 7,300 yards. The fairways are narrow, tree-lined, dog-legged, and never quite run parallel to each other, creating tricky decisions in negotiating the seemingly omnipresent Texas wind. The vegetation is small, bentgrass. It’s a classic course for golfers for sure, where accuracy, stance off the tee, approach angles, ball handling, and the short game are areas of emphasis. Sound a little bit like Ben Hogan’s collaboration? A four-time US Open winner, Hogan finished third in 1941 when the US Open was held at the Colonial Country Club.

Keep that point in mind when it comes to handicapping next month’s major tournament, the US Open at Pinehurst. The players who play well at the Colonial are often the best players at the US Open.

When we translate what it takes to be successful here into numbers, I look at Strokes Gained: Strokes, Greens in Regulation, Driving Accuracy, Strokes Gained: Par 4s (350-450 yards), Scrambling, Bogey Avoidance, Hole Proximity from at 100-175 yards, and Strokes Gained: Par 3s (200-225 yards) as the average length of Par 3s in the Colony is 209 yards.

Other golf courses based on terrain that we see regularly that require accuracy and precision are Sea Island (RSM Classic), Waialae CC (Sony Open), Harbor Town (RBC Heritage), Pebble Beach (AT&T Pebble Beach), TPC Southwind ( FedEx St. Jude ), Austin CC (WGC-Match Play), and Innisbrook (Valspar Championship).

Last week was very exciting for the PGA Championship as we scored our first pre-season winner in Xander Schauffele, who also earned a top 10 finish. The leaderboard was rounded out with options in Bryson DeChambeau and Collin Morikawa as well, both of whom easily earned top-20 finishes. As we enter late spring and cooler weather, let’s see if we can stay hot too. As always, this week’s games are all about straight wins and top 20 finishes.

Collin Morikawa (12-1)

A major champion who has played good golf twice recently. We talked last week about how finishing was good for Morikawa, and that was true again in two of the four rounds last week at Valhalla. After coming up short at the Masters, Morikawa talked about driving his game to get over the hump and start winning again. I think the pursuit remains unchanged after getting close again in the second major stage of the season. I would like to push for a continuation here this week, a tournament where he has finished second and the last 14. Morikawa also had top-10 finishes at TPC Southwind, Harbor Town, and Waialae. He is No. 1 in the field in the last 24 rounds of Fairways Earned.

Denny McCarthy (50-1)

McCarthy missed the cut at the PGA last week but was sixth last week at Wells Fargo and lost in a playoff last month at the Valero Texas Open, so I believe the current form remains the same. A short, high-quality track should suit his game better. In the last 24 rounds, McCarthy is the No. 1 in Scrambling, 2nd in Bogey Avoidance, and 12th in Par 3s measuring 200-225 yards. He has top-10 finishes at Sea Island, Pebble Beach, and Innisbrook and top-20 finishes at Harbor Town and TPC Southwind. He is also No. 1 in Strokes Gained: Putting (bentgrass).

Christiaan Bezuidenhout (50-1)

The South African missed the title again last week at Valhalla but before that he recorded a 16th at Wells Fargo, a ninth at Valspar, and a 13th at the Players Championship. He has been in the top 15 here at Colonial in the past and has finished in the top 20 at Waialae, Harbor Town, Pebble Beach, and TPC Southwind. In the last 24 rounds, Bezuidenhout is No. 1 in Hole Proximity from 100-125 yards, second in Scrambling, third in Bogey Avoidance, and sixth in Par 4s measuring between 350-400 yards .

Andrew Putnam (55-1)

Putnam finished 53rd last week at the PGA Championship and is not surprisingly ranked 73rd in the Driving Distance category. Also, Colonial Country Club has to be the best set of his game, where he has finished 15th, 20th, and third in the past. Putnam gained nearly three strokes from the green at Valhalla and nearly two and a half strokes for putting. He was also 19th in the Scrambling category – all important skills for this week. In fact, over the past 24 rounds, he’s ranked in the top 25 in almost every category I’ve considered this week. Putnam also has three top-10 finishes at the Sony Open, two at TPC Southwind, and one at Pebble Beach.

Billy Horschel (55-1)

A Tour winner last month at the Corales Puntacana Championship, Horschel continued his good form in Louisville with an eighth-place finish last week. He is a machine in this week’s parallel courses, with multiple top-10 and top-20 finishes across the country. I expect the good form to continue for the Tour veteran, where over the past 24 rounds, he ranks 14th in the field in Good Drives Achieved and eighth in Bogey Avoidance.

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