3 picks that our gambling expert likes

Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com expert prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network dedicated to sports and sports betting. You can follow him on Twitter at @LasVegasGolferand you can read his picks below for the World Heroes Challenge, which starts Thursday in the Bahamas. Along with Kannon’s recommended shows, you’ll also see data from Chirp Golf, a mobile app featuring Free-To-play and Daily Fantasy golf contests where you can win money and prizes with every round and tournament.

We wrap up our 2024 PGA Tour coverage here in this column this week with World Challenge of Heroesthat will take place at Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas, and I promise you, I’m not deliberately trying to pick who will finish runner-up for the fourth week in a row.

In theory, our chances of landing an outright winner should be better. This field is only 20 players deep, and if it helps, I sat correctly on it Scottie Scheffler here last year about +400. It’s a loaded field with all entrants ranked inside the top 40 in the OWGR. Scheffler is back to defend his title and will be joined by Ludvig Aberg, Justin ThomasPatrick Cantlay, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns and Sahith Theegala, among others. Unfortunately, this week’s tournament host, Tiger Woods, will not be on the field due to injury.

Albany Golf Club is an Ernie Els design, opened in 2010 and first started hosting this event in 2015. It is a par 72, just under 7,500 yards in length. The layout is unique with five par 5s, five par 3s and eight par 4s. The fairways are on the tighter side, the greens are on the smaller side, and everything is wall-to-wall Bermudagrass.

Freeways are bordered by waste areas of sand and water. There are dunes up to 30 meters high. Els has compared it to both British Open-style courses and Australian sandbar golf courses. We do not have ShotLink data recorded for this event, but here is a look at the list 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

A few things jump out at me from this list. Great ball striking, total driving, British Open success and WM Phoenix Open success.

The skill sets I looked at this week were Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, and Strokes Gained: Putting (Bermudagrass). I looked at Good Drives Won, Scrambling and Par 5 Scoring. And finally, I looked at Hole Proximity from 175 yards to over 200 yards. Of course, we have five par 5s. Five par 3s average over 190 yards each and five of the eight par 4s are between 450-500 yards. It all adds up to these players facing plenty of shots in that 175-200+ neighborhood.

As for related courses, it was a bit of a challenge this week because I believe that many of the courses that make sense are not frequented by many players in the field, such as Cardonali in Los Cabos, TPC Craig RanchPort Royal in Bermuda and Grand Reserve in Puerto Rico. But I find a similarity with him TPC South Wind where all these guys prepare for the FedEx St. Championship. Jew. We mentioned getting to know the Open Championship courses and of course, TPC Scottsdalehome of the WM Phoenix Open.

Scottie Scheffler (+225)

Scheffler’s odds are almost cut in half, but I still don’t believe that’s an unfair price. It’s basically half the price of a normal tournament, however the field is over 85 percent smaller in this case. Yes, not all 150+ players in a regular Tour event have a great shot at winning, but this Hero World Challenge field is weaker than it has been in years past as well. At the end of the day, Scottie is clearly the best player in the field by a wide margin and I’m fine with eating the short prize. Over the past 36 rounds, Scheffler is no. 1 in the field in the three categories I considered this week and is second in three other categories. Some might argue that he hasn’t played in a long time. Well, the same was true last year when he won and similarly in the previous two trips when he finished runner-up each time. He’s won in Phoenix twice, is coming off a fourth-place finish at TPC Southwind in August and has two top-10s at the Open.

Ludwig Aberg (11-1)

Obviously, Aberg is one of the best players in the world, but what made me pick him here is the amazing ball vision and total drive that all or most of the past champions have. Aberg is fourth on Tour in Total Driving and 25th in Ball Striking. Over the last 36 rounds, he is No. 1 in the field in Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards and sixth from 200 yards or more. He is also an excellent scratcher and shooter. We first saw him after knee surgery a few weeks ago at the RSM Classic, defending his title. He was shaky at times but also shot two 64s over four days. I believe he will be in the mix here and could give Scheffler a run.

Sam Burns (16-1)

Burns is #2 in this field over the last 36 rounds for SG: Putting (Bermudagrass). This has always been his best surface and it shows with a recent fifth-place finish at TPC Southwind and a third- and sixth-place finish in his last two trips to TPC Scottsdale. His last four Tour starts have been 12-5-2-12. And no, I’m not worried that this is his first time playing this tournament, because we’ve seen others win on debut, in Hovland in 2021 and Rahm in 2018.

Let’s see if we can end the year with one in the win column – and we’ll see you back here in January when they close it out in twin for Sentry.

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