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 Black Desert Championship, which begins Thursday in Ivins, Utah. 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.

First things first: It was fun, making our selection 120-1 IN Sanderson Farms Championship with Kevin Yu catching his first Tour win in a playoff against Beau Hossler. But the partying is over and it’s time to head west for the third of eight FedEx Cup fall events this season.

The PGA Tour returns to the state of Utah for a full championship for the first time since 1963. Black Desert Championship at Black Desert Resort in Ivins, Utah, is making its Tour debut and the first of four scheduled annual appearances during the fall FedEx Cup pace.

The golf course it has been open for less than two years. It is a Tom Weiskopf design and was his last work before his death in 2022. It is a resort course with wide fairways and large greens. Located in southern Utah, just a two hour drive northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The course is approximately 3,100 meters above sea level and is visually spectacular as fairways and greens weave their way around black lava rock outcrops, all surrounded by a backdrop of orange-hued mountain desert. red.

The course will play as a par 71 at just under 7,400 yards. Will play shorter than this number, however, with height. It’s the second week in a row on Tour that we’re seeing very little star power in the field, but you can tell it’s going to be another week with a lot of birdies. A short, tour-style course with wide fairways shouldn’t be too much of a test for any Tour pro. It is likely that Weiskopf made these wide fairways and these large greens because of the strong winds that can often blow through this area. But this week’s forecast doesn’t call for anything above 15 mph currently, and three of the four days are reaching 10 mph.

Of course, we haven’t seen this golf course before on Tour, so our knowledge of how it will play is limited against a regular Tour stop. With the wide fairways and elevation, I believe driving distance and strokes gained off the tee will be an advantage. I looked at Strokes Gained: Approach as an iron game might be the most important stat this week. Finding these big greens in regulation shouldn’t be too difficult, but getting close to the hole and making birdies will likely set the pace. I’ve personally played another resort course nearby in this area of ​​southern Utah with equally large greens, and it made me consider avoiding the 3-putt this week as well.

In terms of cross courses, I don’t believe there are great matches, but I used other Weiskopf designs that we see that have some crossover characteristics: Torrey Pines (North Course), TPC Scottsdale, and TPC Craig Ranch. I also used Vidanta Vallarta in Mexico due to the fact that, like the Black Desert, it features very wide fairways and larger than average greens.

Now let’s see if we can make it two weeks in a row in the outright winning category.

Daniel Berger (40-1)

Berger has been a specialist throughout his career on Bermudagrass greens, and we saw that surface last week at the Country Club of Jackson, where he finished seventh. He has also fared fairly well throughout his career at TPC Scottsdale with finishes of 10th, 11th, seventh and ninth over the years. Berger has also finished third and 13th at Weiskopf’s TPC Craig Ranch, home of Byron Nelson since 2021. We’re on the bentgrass this week, but I’m going to lean a bit on the Weiskopf link and believe his current form holds for at least another week. For a guy who was once one of the best in the world before taking nearly two years off due to injury, I’ve been wanting a proper escape when that elite level of play finally resurfaces. Over the past 36 rounds, Berger ranks 11th in the field for SG: Off the Tee and is 20th for Birdies or Better Gained.

Andrew Novak (40-1)

Novak tied for eighth last year at TPC Scottsdale and has finished eighth and 15th at the Mexico Open at Vidanta. He hasn’t missed a cut in nearly five months and dropped out of the top-25 last week. He is one of the best in the field in all the stats I considered this week. At most, he ranks 13th in the field for SG: Approach, ninth for Birdies or Better Gained, and 12th for SG: Putting (Bentgrass).

Justin Lower (55-1)

Lower is coming off a top-30 finish last week and a top-10 prior to that in Napa at the Procore Championship. He was third earlier this year at the Mexico Open at Vidanta and recorded a top-25 finish at the Byron Nelson. He is a birdie machine, ranking fifth in the field for Birdies or Better Gained over the past 36 rounds. He is also seventh for SG: Par 4s measuring 400-450 yards. Interesting to note, there are two drivable Par 4s on this course, but the other nine average around 470 yards in length. However, when you factor in the elevation, these should play more like 400-450 yard Par 4s. Finally, Lower is one of the best players in the field, ranking fifth for SG: Putting (Bentgrass) over the past 36 rounds.

Harry Hall (55-1)

The Las Vegas native and former UNLV Rebel golfer should be very familiar with the area and the type of conditions he’ll be experiencing in nearby Ivins, Utah. Hall ranks very high in this field for SG: Approach and Par 4s measuring 400-450 yards – but he is elite in terms of Birdies or Better Gained and putting. He is coming off his first Tour victory three months ago, winning the ISCO Championship in Kentucky, and recorded a top-10 finish last year at Vidanta Vallarta.

Who are Chirp Golf players picking this week?