4 choices our 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 Tech Championship, which starts Thursday in Mexico. 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.

FedEx Cup Fall is back and continues on international soil for another week. Before taking a week off last week, the tour was in Japan for the Zozo Championship and is now in Los Cabos, Mexico, for World Championship of Technology at El Cardonal in Diamante. Only three events remain on the schedule for the fall season. At the conclusion of this fall swing, players must rank in the top 125 in FedEx Cup points in order to retain their Tour card for the 2025 season. Players finishing 51st and 60th at the end of the fall, will earn spots in two Signature Events, the AT&T Pebble Beach and the Genesis Invitational.

There’s a lot on the line here at El Cardonal in Diamantea Tiger Woods design appearing for only the second time on the tour calendar. For many years, this event was held at El Camaleon Golf Club located along the Riviera Maya outside of Cancun, Mexico. Erik van Rooyen won the inaugural event in Tiger country last season.

Van Rooyen made it to 27 under par on this par-72 course that stretches over 7,450 yards. The fairways are particularly wide and we cannot speak of rough, and the greens are very large. Without much wind to contend with last year, players were able to kneel the course. The prediction doesn’t take too much wind again this year, and here in Las Vegas at the Westgate SuperBook, the winning score proposition bet is set at Under/Over 25.5 under par. So once again very low scores are expected.

With that, we have to consider Birdies or Better Gained this week in our handicap. I also watched Strokes Gained: Approach and SG: Off the Tee. There’s not a lot here in terms of distance versus accuracy off the tee, with the fairways being so wide, but I think I want a player to be very efficient off the tee, and if he can win on the course in that category, then I believe it is an advantage. I also looked at Greens in Winning Regulation, Scrambling, and how players perform on Par 4s measuring between 450-500 yards, as six of the 10 here at El Cardonal do.

During this FedEx Cup Fall, I think we’ve seen a few courses lately that offer some crossovers with this week’s track. both Black Desert Resort in Utah and TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas have wide fairways, very little rough and larger than average greens. Vidanta Vallarta, home of the Mexico Open, is also very similar with wide fairways, large greens and the Paspalum grass surface that is present throughout the course as we have here at Diamante. I also looked at TPC Craig Ranch, Port Royal Golf Club, Detroit Golf Club, Plantation Course at Kapalua, Corales Puntacana and Pebble Beach. Again, wide fairways, large greens, and some similarities in terrain species, coastal location, and elevation differ being the connective tissue.

Ben Griffin (28-1)

We were at Griffin once earlier during this FedEx Cup Fall and it’s no surprise we find ourselves rooting for him again. He is one of the classiest players on these less-than-stellar fields we have experienced and he has played well. He also carries a little extra motivation, sitting at No. 60 in the FedEx Cup fall standings. He does pretty much everything really well that we’re looking at this week. He ranks seventh in the field for SG: Approach over the last 36 rounds. He is eighth in SG: Putting (Paspalum) and 12th in GIR Gained. Griffin ranks 17th on Tour in Scrambling and is 58th in Birdie Average. I also like some of the recent results. Griffin was 13th at TPC Craig Ranch (CJ Cup Byron Nelson) in May. Fifth at John Deere in July, seventh at Wyndham in August, 11th at the Black Desert Championship in October and just hit 66-64 over the weekend in Japan at Zozo.

Harris English (33-1)

Although the stats may not quite say it, English is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished players in the field, and on top of that, he happens to be coming off two straight top-10 finishes at two of our linked courses, one of sixth in Utah and ninth in Las Vegas. Like Griffin, English sits in that 51-60 window in the fall FedEx Cup standings, needing to hold serves in order to qualify for those aforementioned Signature Events. He is excellent off the tee, able to get it out there with distance and accuracy, which should translate into many birdie opportunities. The Englishman ranks 10th on Tour in SG: Putting and is fourth in the field for Scrambling over the last 36 rounds. English has a win to his credit at Kapalua, and at this tournament’s previous home, the Paspalum greens, along with two fifth-place finishes. In 2018 he finished fifth at Puntacana Corales, another coastal course with Paspalum.

Sam Stevens (36-1)

Stevens is a younger player that is starting to catch my eye. He has made 22 of 27 cuts this year and has finished in the top-20 six times. He has played in four FedEx Cup fall events and finished in the top 40 in each of them. He has great distance off the tee, ranking eighth in the field for SG: Off the Tee over the past 36 rounds. He is also 14th in the field for Birdies or Better Gained and 15th in Scrambling. Stevens is ranked 31st on Tour for SG:Putting and finished third last year at Corales Puntacana.

Carson Young (85-1)

No, not Cameron Young, Carson Young. Yes, it’s easy to mix up the two names and yes, both are on the field this week. Cameron Young is the much higher profile player and is one of the favorites this week at 20-1, but I’ll go with the much longer shot. Carson Young is coming off an 11th place finish in Utah a few weeks ago and has eighth and 15th place finishes at Vidanta Vallarta. Young was ninth here last year at El Cardonal and tied for 14th last year at TPC Craig Ranch. He is very efficient in terms of his driving accuracy and is consistent all the way, really, with birdies, approaches, Par 4s and putts, as he is 23rd in the field for SG: Putting (Paspalum) during the last 24 rounds.

Who are Chirp Golf players picking this week?

This information will be updated as it becomes available.