7 picks our expert loves

Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator, Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sports betting, and is a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow Brady on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the 2026 Players Championship, which gets underway Thursday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

The Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s granddaddy event, is here. And what a glorious one it is. It’s not a major championship, and I hope it never becomes one despite the recent push for such. TPC Sawgrass is a remarkable golf course, without a doubt one of the finest in the world and is world-class designer Pete Dye’s masterpiece. Can we just leave some things in sports alone? The Players is affectionately known as “the fifth major” and I would just love to keep it that way — please. The Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open, and Open Championship are different. The Players is brilliant just the way it is, and the best of the rest.

Okay, off the soap box and on to the handicap. TPC Sawgrass is indeed a masterful design. Dye was brought in to PGA Tour headquarters in Ponta Vedra Beach, Fla., to build exactly this, a stadium-like showcase venue that tests every fiber of one’s game. No two holes run in the same direction. Outside of the four par 3s, half of the holes favor a draw and the other half cater to a fade. Water comes into play on all but one of the 18 holes. It is an intense examination of precision, nerve, and stamina. The finishing stretch, holes 16, 17, and 18, are arguably the finest closing holes in the game, with 17 being the globally recognizable island green.

The golf course is a par 72 that measures close to 7,400 yards. The fairways are relatively narrow, bordered by thick rough, and the Bermudagrass greens are smaller than average size. The weather forecast is calling for temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s all week with winds in the range of 10-20 mph.

The results over the years at The Players are wild. Just about everyone that has done well here has also missed multiple cuts. We’ve had marquee winners like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, Davis Love III, Scottie Scheffler, and Rory McIlroy. We’ve also seen Stephen Ames, Jerry Kelly, Ian Poulter, Fred Funk, and Tim Clark seemingly play well here at TPC Sawgrass every time. Predicting the winner at The Players feels to me like one of the bigger challenges on the entire Tour calendar but that is not to say that the formula around here is a mixed bag. Rather, it is pretty straightforward as to what needs to be done around this track. Ball-striking is A, No. 1. Iron play, approach shots — if the ball-striking is not spot on, it is not going to be your week. Off the tee, accuracy is preferred over distance, and finally, Scrambling. Getting oneself out of trouble needs to be executed successfully time and time again.

The correlations are strong and some are just simply other Pete Dye designs we see regularly on Tour, like TPC River Highlands (Travelers Championship), and Harbour Town (RBC Heritage). Sedgefield Country Club (Wyndham Championship) has an incredible amount of crossover success with TPC Sawgrass. I also looked at Innisbrook (Valspar Championship), Waialae Country Club (Sony Open), and I did not rule out success at the American Express in La Quinta, Calif., either as two of the four rounds there are played at Dye’s Stadium Course at PGA West.

Russell Henley (30-1)

Henley was quite impressive in his title defense last week at Bay Hill, finishing sixth. He ranked 13th in the field for SG: Off the Tee and was No. 1 in Scrambling. His record at the correlated courses is tremendous, with top 10 and top-20 finishes up and down the board. He’s been runner-up at TPC River Highlands and at Sedgefield, and he’s won the Sony Open. Henley finished eighth at the American Express earlier this season. He does everything very well, he is one of the most accurate off the tee in the game, and in 2026 the putter is firing too, ranking 24th on Tour in SG: Putting.

Rickie Fowler (50-1)

Yes, I’m going to go there. It has been a while but it sure would be something to see Fowler add a second Players Championship to his resume and with the way he’s going lately, it’s enough for me to risk a few shekels on him doing it again. Fowler is yet to miss a cut all season and was ninth last week in Orlando, where he ranked ninth for SG: Off the Tee, was second in Scrambling, eighth in Greens in Regulation, and was fifth in Driving Accuracy. Like Henley, everything is working well along with the putter. After last week’s top-10 finish at Bay Hill, Fowler has vaulted to No. 60 in the OWGR. He has three more events to either win or crack the top 50 in order to qualify for the Masters. I’m betting the push continues.

Maverick McNealy (65-1)

McNealy missed a great deal of the 2023 season with injury but since then, we have seen him become one of the best players in the world, currently 25th in the OWGR. He’s been as high as ninth here at Sawgrass and has twice finished top 5 at Harbour Town. McNealy was 10th earlier this season at Torrey Pines and has finished 13th twice, including last week at Bay Hill. He ranks 53rd on Tour for SG: Approach, 30th in SG: Off the Tee, is 36th in Scrambling, and 40th in Par 4 Scoring.

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Shane Lowry (70-1)

The Irishman missed the cut last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and I’m not all that surprised with the way it went down the week before for Lowry at the Cognizant Classic. But I expect him to be ready to bounce back this week at a place he’s finished as high as eighth and top 20 another four times. He’s been top 10 at all of the correlated courses and has twice finished third at the RBC Heritage. Lowry has been playing fantastic golf so far this season and different from last year, the putter has also found its groove in 2026, ranking 35th on Tour for SG: Putting. I was hoping to get 50-1 this week on Lowry, so 70 feels like an excellent bargain.

Adam Scott (80-1)

The 45-year old Australian was another Tour veteran that came to mind for me this week, much like Fowler. Both of these former Players champions have been playing exceptional golf so far in 2026. Scott was fifth in the field last week at Bay Hill for Driving Distance. Amazing that this guy can still really bang it. You recall, he was right there in the mix for the U.S. Open last year at Oakmont. In addition to his win at TPC Sawgrass, Scott has finished top 10 another three times and top 20 six times. He’s also finished runner-up and seventh before at the Wyndham Championship. Four weeks ago, Scott was fourth at Riviera. Last week he was 11th at Arnie’s place, where he ranked 12th in the field for both SG: Approach and Scrambling. Scott ranks 26th on Tour in Ball Striking.

Sahith Theegala (92-1)

It has been a minute since the star from Pepperdine University has been a factor on the PGA Tour but it appears now that he is back. Theegala has three top-10 finishes already this season, including eighth at the American Express and sixth last week at Bay Hill, where he ranked eighth for SG: Approach and 10th in Scrambling. He’s been as high as ninth here at the Players and has been runner-up at both Harbour Town and TPC River Highlands. Off the tee has been a bit of a shaky area for Theegala early this season but he gained over a half stroke on the field last week. It that continues this week, he will be in the mix again.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout (100-1)

To the triple-digits we have arrived. Bezuidenhout finished 13th here at Sawgrass in back-to-back visits in 2023 and 2024. He was eighth last week in Puerto Rico where he ranked 12th in the field for Driving Accuracy and was fourth for Greens in Regulation. Bezuidenhout ranks 56th on Tour this season for SG: Approach, 21st for SG: Putting, is 33rd for Driving Accuracy, and is 45th in Scrambling. He’s been top 10 before at the Valspar Championship and was runner-up at the American Express in 2024.