Welcome to our PGA Tour gambling-tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sport betting, and is a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow him on X at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his early picks below for the Masters, which gets underway on April 9th in Augusta, Ga.

Let the madness begin! The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and the Masters is really a match made in heaven, isn’t it? For roughly the next 25 days, two of the biggest events in all of sport will dominate the headlines, viewership, content … the entire media landscape! And what a wonderful thing that is.

I began betting College Basketball futures back in December. The first bet I made this year “to win the Masters” was in early February. For several years now in my golf handicapping process, I have used the Hawaii events and the American Express in La Quinta, Calif., as a “pre-season” of sorts, getting a feel for the players, their form, the new faces, and assessing everything involved with the new golf year. With the Plantation Course at Kapalua being such a strong pointer toward success at Augusta National, I have often made my first Masters bets during or after that tournament, the Sentry, but of course, that event was cancelled this year due to drought-like conditions in northwest Maui.

There are a couple of other strong indicators on the West Coast Swing that can be predictive of Masters success. In addition to Kapalua, the connection between winners at Riviera Country Club (Genesis Invitational) and the Masters is widely known and is an extensive list. The Genesis winner this year, Jacob Bridgeman, is down to anywhere from 60 to 70-1 to slide on a green jacket on the second Sunday in April. I did not make a play on Bridgeman after that victory, nor did I back Rory McIlroy to defend his Masters title after he finished runner-up in Los Angeles. I did make some early bets, however, on a few guys that finished top 15 at Riviera. We’ll get to that shortly.

In addition to specific golf courses that can provide us with some clues, strong performance, top-10 finishes, and tournament wins are a common thread that we see on the early season resumes of most Masters winners. It is not surprising that current form is a bit of a qualification. It is not often that a player who is struggling suddenly finds their game and wins a major championship.

My first play though took place a few weeks ago during the WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. Two-time winner in Phoenix, former Masters champion, and recent winner at both Riviera and Kapalua, Hideki Matsuyama was my first “to win the Masters” bet of 2026 at 39-1, which I found here in Las Vegas at Circa Sports. After seeing how the 2021 Masters champ got off to a great start in Phoenix, I pulled the trigger. I did the same thing last year after he won at Kapalua but unfortunately, he cooled off and ended up finishing 21st at the 2025 Masters four months later. Since finishing runner-up in Phoenix, Matsuyama has cooled off again but the game remains very strong. The struggles have come off the tee but the wide fairways at Augusta National can often minimize those issues. I still don’t mind a play on Matsuyama at 30-1 or better.

I made my second bet that same week on another former Kapalua and Masters champion. A player who at the time, was red-hot, and that is Patrick Reed. I was able to get ahead of the game slightly, grabbing Reed at 46-1. Reed left the LIV circuit and has been playing quite a bit on the DP World Tour. He won twice and finished runner-up once in a span of three weeks between the end of January and beginning of February. I’m seeing his price now range from roughly 25 to 35-1. I believe 35 is still a solid number. Reed just recorded another top 10 finish earlier this month at the Joburg Open in South Africa. In seven Masters appearances since winning in 2018, Reed has no missed cuts and has finished top 10 four times.

I added two more plays in February with both players being Australians. Min Woo Lee (80-1) and Adam Scott (125-1). Scott of course, is a former Masters champion and Lee fits the mold for me as a big hitter with a fantastic short game. Lee’s lone PGA Tour victory came at Memorial Park in Houston, which can also be Augusta National-like in course set up and layout style. Both players have gotten off to excellent starts in 2026. Scott finished fourth at Riviera, a course where he’s won twice. He followed that up with an 11th-place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This year will mark the 25th time Scott has played the Masters. He’s only missed the cut one time since he won 13 years ago. I thought 125-1 was too high and lately I am seeing anywhere from 80 to 100-1 on the 45-year old.

This will be Lee’s fifth time playing the Masters. His best finish is 14th. He’s missed the cut one time and has also finished 22nd. Lee was 12th at Riviera this season, runner-up at Pebble Beach, and finished sixth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

I currently have six plays in pocket. I may stand pat, but I am thinking if I do add anything, it will only be one more. It is very easy to accumulate Masters bets with the board being up and available for such an extended period of time but let’s remember, this is a smaller field and becoming overloaded on outrights can happen more quickly than with a typical 130-some player field. If you start to pick apart the Masters field, it feels like only 30 players or so really have a chance to win. It won’t likely be a debutant, with that not happening since 1979, and we can’t expect it to be one of the seniors or one of the amateurs. So again, six or seven futures is already a lot. We don’t want to get too carried away or it starts to impact potential profits greatly.

The final two plays I made were done earlier this month. Collin Morikawa (30-1) and Jordan Spieth (60-1). I played Morikawa when he was threatening at Bay Hill a few weeks ago, a place where he finished runner-up last season. Morikawa already checks the box of having a win to his credit this season, capturing the crown at Pebble Beach back in February. In six visits to Augusta, he hasn’t ever missed a cut. His last five finishes are as follows.. 14-3-10-5-18. Morikawa withdrew from The Players last week after experiencing pain in his back during a practice swing on just the second hole of the championship. I am confident he’ll be ready to go next month.

Like I was surprised by the price on Scott, I was pretty happy to find 60-1 on Spieth. I found this on March 8th at William Hill. I am now seeing odds between 35 and 45-1. Anything 40-1 or higher is good in my opinion. He was 12th at Riviera this season and followed that up with an 11th place finish at Bay Hill. At the time of writing, Spieth is off to a great start at the Valspar Championship. If that continues, his Masters odds will likely drop even further.

A six-pack it is for now for the Masters. As for cutting down the nets in Indianapolis on that Monday of Masters Week, I’m hoping that is either Gonzaga, Michigan State, Vanderbilt, Illinois, or Iowa State.

This interview was first published in Golf Journal, a quarterly print publication exclusively for USGA Members. To be among the first to receive Golf Journal and to learn how you can ensure a strong future for the game, become a USGA Member today.

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Only six men — Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy — have won golf’s career Grand Slam. EJ Tackett became just the ninth to capture the Professional Bowlers Association’s equivalent, the Triple Crown, at the 2023 U.S. Open in his home state of Indiana. Needing a strike and eight pins in the last frame to defeat his rival, friend and golf buddy Kyle Troup, Tackett “shoed up and stepped up,” as they say on the lanes, crushing the pocket twice for strikes to fulfill his childhood dream.

Well, one of his childhood dreams — it could have been a U.S. Open golf triumph, too.

Tackett, now 33 and starring alongside Troup in HBO Max’s new documentary series, “Born to Bowl,” was an elite junior golfer as well as bowler, competing against the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas at the 2010 U.S. Junior Amateur and Junior PGA championships and later playing Division I golf before turning his attention to knocking down pins with a bowling ball instead. The four-time and reigning PBA Player of the Year has since won 27 tour titles, including seven majors, and will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Tackett’s career numbers put him at least in line with what Scheffler, Spieth and Rory McIlroy have achieved in professional golf, except for his Q rating and bank account — bowling’s popularity and prize money, while on the rise again, still lag golf’s by a country mile and a half. The highly entertaining “Born to Bowl” has the potential to change that, at least marginally. Regardless, if Tackett only recently stopped having to share hotel rooms on the road, he hasn’t just left his mark on bowling but also still finds time to maintain a better-than-scratch golf game. Which begs the question: Can JT bowl a 300? Color us doubtful.

How did you get started in golf?