3 picks our playing professional loves

Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, that includes picks from GOLF.com’s professional prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a daily visitor on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio community dedicated to sports activities and sport betting. You possibly can observe on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you’ll learn his picks beneath for the Hero World Problem, which will get underway Thursday within the Bahamas. Together with Kannon’s beneficial performs, you’ll additionally see information from Chirp Golf, a cell app that options each Free-To-Play and Each day Fantasy golf contests the place you may win money and prizes with every spherical and event.

We wrap up our 2024 PGA Tour protection right here on this column this week with the Hero World Problem, going down at Albany Golf Membership within the Bahamas, and I promise you, I’m not deliberately making an attempt to select who will end runner-up for a fourth-straight week.

Theoretically, our probabilities of touchdown on an outright winner must be higher. This subject is simply 20 gamers deep, and if it helps, I did land accurately on Scottie Scheffler right here final 12 months at round +400. It’s a loaded subject with all individuals rating inside the highest 40 within the OWGR. Scheffler is again to defend his title and he’ll be joined by Ludvig Aberg, Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns and Sahith Theegala, amongst others. Sadly, this week’s event host, Tiger Woods, is not going to be within the subject as a result of damage.

Albany Golf Membership is an Ernie Els design, opening in 2010, and first started internet hosting this occasion in 2015. It’s a par 72, measuring just below 7,500 yards in size. The arrange is exclusive with 5 par 5s, 5 par 3s, and eight par 4s. The fairways are on the narrower facet, the greens are on the smaller facet, and every thing is wall-to-wall Bermudagrass.

The fairways are bordered by sandy waste areas and water. There are dunes as excessive as 30 toes tall. Els has in contrast it to each British Open-style programs and Australian sand belt golf programs. We don’t have ShotLink information recorded for this occasion however here’s a have a look at the record of winners at this golf course.

2023 – Scottie Scheffler
2022 – Viktor Hovland
2021 – Viktor Hovland
2019 – Henrik Stenson
2018 – Jon Rahm
2017 – Rickie Fowler
2016 – Hideki Matsuyama
2015 – Bubba Watson

Just a few issues leap out at me from this record. Glorious ball hanging, whole driving, British Open success, and WM Phoenix Open success.

The ability units I checked out this week have been Strokes Gained: Strategy, Strokes Gained: Ball Hanging, and Strokes Gained: Placing (Bermudagrass). I checked out Good Drives Gained, Scrambling, and Par 5 Scoring. And at last, I checked out Gap Proximity from 175 yards to over 200 yards. Clearly, we’ve 5 par 5s. The 5 par 3s common over 190 yards every and 5 of the eight par 4s measure between 450-500 yards. All of it provides as much as these gamers going through fairly a number of pictures in that 175-200+ neighborhood.

So far as correlated programs, it was a little bit of a problem this week as a result of I consider most of the programs that make sense should not usually frequented by many gamers on this subject, like El Cardonal in Los Cabos, TPC Craig Ranch, Port Royal in Bermuda and Grand Reserve in Puerto Rico. However I do discover some likeness to TPC Southwind the place all these guys tee it up for the FedEx St. Jude Championship. We talked about familiarity with Open Championship programs and naturally, TPC Scottsdale, residence to the WM Phoenix Open.

Scottie Scheffler (+225)

Scheffler’s odds have been minimize almost in half this go-around however I nonetheless don’t consider it’s an unfair value. It’s principally half of what his value could be in a traditional Tour occasion, but the sphere is over 85 p.c smaller on this case. Sure, not all 150+ gamers in a daily Tour occasion have a fantastic shot at profitable, however this Hero World Problem subject is weaker than what it has been in years previous too. Backside line, Scottie is clearly the most effective participant on this subject by a large margin and I’m okay consuming the brief value. During the last 36 rounds, Scheffler is No. 1 on this subject in three classes I thought of this week and is second in three different classes. Some would possibly argue that he hasn’t performed in fairly some time. Nicely, the identical was true final 12 months when he gained and related within the two journeys prior when he completed runner-up every time. He’s gained in Phoenix twice, comes off a fourth-place end at TPC Southwind again in August and has two top-10s on the Open Championship.

Ludvig Aberg (11-1)

Clearly, Aberg is among the finest gamers on the earth however what led me to select him right here is the ball-striking, total-driving look that every one or a lot of the previous champions have. Aberg is fourth on Tour in Complete Driving and twenty fifth in Ball Hanging. During the last 36 rounds, he’s No. 1 on this subject in Gap Proximity from 175-200 yards and sixth from 200 yards or extra. He’s additionally a superb scrambler and putter. We first noticed him submit knee surgical procedure a pair weeks in the past on the RSM Traditional, defending his title. He was shaky at instances but in addition shot two rounds of 64 over the 4 days. I consider he’ll be within the combine right here and will give Scheffler a run.

Sam Burns (16-1)

Burns is No. 2 on this subject over the past 36 rounds for SG: Placing (Bermudagrass). That has all the time been his finest floor and it reveals with a current fifth-place end at TPC Southwind and a 3rd and a sixth-place end in his final two journeys to TPC Scottsdale. His final 4 begins on Tour have been 12-5-2-12. And no, I’m not nervous that that is his first time enjoying this event as a result of we’ve seen others win on debut, in Hovland in 2021 and Rahm in 2018.

Let’s see if we are able to shut out the 12 months with one within the win column — and we’ll see you again right here in January, once they tee it up at Kapalua for the Sentry.

Who Chirp Golf gamers are choosing this week

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