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 Tour Championship, which gets underway on Thursday in Atlanta.
PGA Tour golf is back.
The FedEx Cup Fall Series begins this week with the first of eight “tweener” season events taking place between now and Thanksgiving. First stop: Asheville, N.C., for the inaugural Biltmore Championship Asheville, which is being played at the Cliffs at Walnut Cove. For a handful of players in this week’s field, this brand-new event will serve as the final tune-up for next week’s Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club, just outside of Chicago.
Nestled into a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains at over 2,000 feet in elevation, this Jack Nicklaus design sits right between the protected boundaries of the Pisgah National Forest and the Blue Ridge Parkway. I’ve driven along this parkway before and while I have not witnessed the golf course in person, I have seen the whereabouts, and gosh, it must be gorgeous. The first nine is played across some old farmland while the second nine gets into more mountainous landscape. Elevation change, uneven lies, heavily tree-lined fairways… this really ought to be visually spectacular.
Much is on the line for those players who finished the 2026 regular season ranking 51st or worse in the FedEx Cup standings. The top 50 are already exempt for next season along with entry into the Signature Events. The rest of the group will be trying to finish inside the top 125 in order to keep their Tour cards. Those finishing between 126-150 will be awarded conditional status in 2027, and those falling out of the top 150 will lose their PGA Tour cards. There are currently only five players in the field this week that are in the top 50.
The golf course is relatively short by Tour standards, a par 71 that measures under 7,300 yards. The fairways are wide but are bordered by some extremely penal rough, reportedly measuring close to six inches high. The greens are a blend of Bentgrass and Poa Annua and they are smaller than average size. I looked at Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Putting (Bent/Poa), Good Drives Gained, Scrambling, Birdie or Better Percentage, and Hole Proximity from 200+ yards. There are four relatively short par 5s, nine mid-length par 4s, and five par 3s that each measure close to or better than 200 yards.
We don’t have any course history to go off of here but the layout of the golf course reminds me of TPC Deere Run with the wide fairways and thick rough. I used Deere Run (John Deere Classic), TPC Toronto (Canadian Open), Detroit Golf Club (Rocket Classic), and Silverado in Napa (Procore Championship) as what I believe are reasonable comps.
The field is made up of 135 golfers and there is a standard 36-hole cut for the top 65 and ties.
Davis Thompson (28-1)
I am not one to gravitate toward what I believe will be popular plays but without knowing much about what this golf course will deliver, I am going with a proven winner, who is from this area of the country, and was on a very nice run before his season came to an end at the Wyndham Championship. Thompson finished 7-8-14 to close out the regular season and he won the John Deere Classic in 2024. The eighth-place finish was at the Rocket Classic, where he shot all four rounds in the 60s. Over the last 24 rounds, Thompson is No. 1 in this field for SG: Approach and is sixth in Birdie or Better Percentage.
Kevin Yu (40-1)
Yu won a Fall Series event for us a few years back when he captured the Sanderson Farms Championship. That is a driver-heavy golf course and he has fared well at our comp courses too — finishing 15-21-20-6 in four visits to TPC Deere Run and was third at TPC Toronto in 2025. Yu is 20th in this field over the last 24 rounds for Good Drives Gained and is No. 1 for Birdie or Better Percentage.
Jackson Suber (42-1)
We tried at least a couple times recently on Suber and got close when he finished fourth at TPC Toronto and sixth two weeks later at the John Deere Classic. His form over the summer was one of the best on Tour and he did finish sixth at the Rocket Classic in 2025. Over the last 24 rounds, Suber is No. 1 in this field for Hole Proximity from 200+ yards.
Rico Hoey (70-1)
I figure we have to have some longshots on the card because with a new venue, the guessing game becomes that much tougher and the variance of who may find the winner’s circle this Sunday is likely even greater than we are used to. Hoey is an excellent driver of the golf ball, ranking 31st on Tour in Total Driving. He finished ninth in Napa last year, has been 15th and sixth in Detroit, and was 11th at the John Deere in 2025. He is sixth in this field over the last 24 rounds for Hole Proximity from 200+ yards.
Mackenzie Hughes (75-1)
We know the man has a short game. He ranks sixth in this field for SG: Putting (Bent/Poa) and is 28th in Scrambling. He’s been as high as 16th at the Deere and 14th at the Rocket Classic. Hughes has finished seventh and fourth in 2025 and 2024 in Napa. Over the last 24 rounds, Hughes ranks sixth in this field for Birdie or Better Percentage.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: golf.com
