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 @LasVegasGolferand you can read his picks below for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, which starts on Thursday in Bermuda. 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.

From Chiba, Japan, to Los Cabos, Mexico, to Southampton, Bermuda, the PGA Tour hasn’t set foot in the country since leaving Las Vegas almost a month ago.

If you’ve been globetrotting and touring lately, it will be over 10,000 miles traveled when the players arrive in St. Simons Island, Georgia next week for the FedEx Cup Fall finale at the RSM Classic.

But before we head home, we’re off the southeast coast nearly 1,000 miles this week for the sixth edition of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course. Forty-two-year-old Camilo Villegas is your defending champion. Since winning here last year, Villegas has qualified 18 times for the Tour in 2024. At the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, noted golfer Jeff Sherman is putting Villegas at 400-1 to become the Bermuda champion again.

Villegas reached the winner’s bracket last season with 24 wins under the bracket. There is a bit of wind in the forecast for this year’s event and in the SuperBook, Sherman has this year’s winning points bet Under/Over proposition at 13.5 under the division.

For me, this will put batting and swinging at a premium. The wind will eat the copper that is not beaten properly and for those who do not get the green because of the wind, stabbing up and down will be the priority. The golf course is very short by tour standards, a par 71 at just over 6,800 yards. The fairways are very narrow but nothing too difficult to speak of. Greens are above average in size and have a fair amount of bounce. The course includes some elevation change, seven holes with fairways, and the turf is, ideally, wall-to-wall Bermudagrass.

I’m looking at Scrambling this week, as I mentioned earlier. In terms of hitting the ball, I considered Greens In Regulation Gained, Good Drives Gained, and Stokes Gained: Approach. There are 11 Par 4s at Port Royal, six of which measure between 350-400 yards and five that fall between 400-450 yards. I also looked at Strokes Gained: Laying (Bermudagrass).

Since Port Royal is a short, narrow, coastal track, I used Waialae (Sony Open), Sea Island (RSM Classic), Colonial (Charles Schwab Challenge), and Pebble Beach as my complementary courses this week .

We almost got there with an 85-1 shot on Carson Young last week in Los Cabos. Let’s see if switching to the Atlantic coast will change our fortunes for the better.

Mackenzie Hughes (18-1)

We’ll start with the chalk as Hughes is one of the few favorites this week in Bermuda. It worries me that he has never played this event before, but there is no doubt that he is one of the best players in the field and has done better than anyone in the corresponding courses. He finished in the top 20 at the Sony Open, top 10 at Pebble Beach and Colonial, and at the RSM Classic, Hughes had a win and a runner-up finish. He made two FedEx Cup appearances this Fall, taking fourth at Napa in the Procore Championship and eighth in his next start at the Sanderson Farms Championship. In the last 36 rounds, Hughes is fourth in the field in SG: Putting (Bermudagrass), second in Scrambling, and ranked fifth in Par 4s of 400-450 yards.

Andrew Novak (31-1)

Novak has had a solid 2024 and just this summer, he has three top-25 and top-10 finishes. He added another top-25 finish this fall at the Sanderson Farms Championship and was 16th at the Zozo Championship a few weeks ago. He has played the tournament three times and finished 17th. The batting ball is the deal here with Novak. He is 10th in this category in GIR Achieved, 17th in SG: Approach, and ranks ninth in Good Drives Achieved in the last 36 rounds.

Nick Taylor (45-1)

Like his fellow Canadian, Mackenzie Hughes, Taylor is one of the better players in the field – and like Hughes, he won (Pebble Beach) on one of our complementary courses. In addition to winning at Pebble in 2020, Taylor has finished 10th, 14th, and 20th around the Monterey Peninsula. He also has two seventh-place finishes and an 11th at the Sony Open at Waialae. His best finish here in Bermuda is 23rd in two tries. Over the last 36 rounds, Taylor ranks 21st in Good Drives Gained and 26th in Scrambling. Earlier this year, when he won the WM Phoenix Open, at TPC Scottsdale, a classic golf course with Bermudagrass greens, Taylor ranked ninth that week in SG: Approach, second in GIR, 22nd in driving accuracy , first in Scrambling, and first in SG: Placing.

Grayson Sigg (50-1)

Sigg has been playing very well for a long time and has a very good track record in this tournament and the associated courses. He entered having finished 4-11-23 in his last four starts this season. He was 11th and 22nd here in Bermuda in two visits. He never missed the cut at the Sony Open in three tries and finished eighth and 15th at the RSM Classic. As a freshman, Sigg won and finished second in 2015 and 2016, respectively, in the Carmel Cup at Pebble Beach Golf Links. The man is checking a lot of boxes for us this week. In the last 36 rounds, Sigg ranks fourth in the category in GIR Gained, 30th in SG: Approach, second in Good Drives Gained, and 18th in 400-450 yards on Par 4’s.

Nate Lashley (85-1)

Lashley has played in every event so far this fall and has cut five straight. He played here in Bermuda two seasons ago and finished 35th. He finished seventh at the Sony Open and fifth at Pebble Beach, and made four of six cuts at the RSM Classic. Lashley seems to make a living from these wild events in coastal areas. He finished 11th at the Mexico Open in Vidanta, 10th at World Wide Technology in Los Cabos, 4th and 15th at Corales Puntacana, and went 3-7-8 in Puerto Rico. In the last 36 rounds, Lashley is ranked 37th in the field in SG: Approach, 34th for Good Drives Gained, and 10th in Scrambling.

Chirp Golfers picks this week

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