5 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 host and regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network dedicated to sports and sports betting, and is a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow Brady on Twitter at @LasVegasGolferand you can read his picks below for the 2026 Texas Children’s Houston Open, which begins Thursday.

There are currently 93 players in the field for next week’s Masters Tournament, golf’s first major championship of the year. The winner of this week’s Valero Texas Open will join that lucky group next week in Augusta, Ga. if not already qualified.

There are 132 players scheduled to do it starting Thursday at The Oaks Course at TPC San Antoniothe host course for this tournament since 2010. The golf course is one of the toughest tests on the PGA Tour circuit. It’s a Greg Norman design with Sergio Garcia acting as Player Consultant. It’s a pretty meaty 18 holes, spanning nearly 7,500 yards and playing to par 72. The four par 5s are usually rated as the toughest collection of such holes on Tour.

Of course, one thing we have to negotiate in this part of the country and during this time of year are the prevailing Texas winds. What the forecast calls for in San Antonio this week is interesting: with a predicted low of 20 degrees Thursday through Sunday, expect winds anywhere from 10-25 mph over four days and a few occasional thunderstorms to boot.

The fairways on the Oaks course are tight. It’s punishingly tough, but not insane, and the fairways are tree-lined and heavily wooded in spots. The greens are medium in size and are a Bermudagrass base. They are overlaid with Poa Trivialis, but as I noted last week with similar plots in Houston, with the temperatures we’ve been experiencing in the Southwest, it’s likely that Bermudagrass is coming out of its winter dormancy and playing more of a factor in these plot plots than maybe normal in late March or early April.

Strokes Gained: Approach, Greens in Regulation, Good Drives Gained, Driving Accuracy, Scramble and Par 5 Score are probably the main areas of emphasis around TPC San Antonio. I also looked at Avoiding Bogey and Strokes Gained: Putting.

Linking the courses together with TPC San Antonio is difficult as there aren’t many obvious connections. TPC Summerlin – the former home of the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas makes sense to me the way it is Silveradohome of the Fortinet Championship in Napa. I also used Port Royal Golf Club (Bermuda Championship), Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas (Charles Schwab Challenge) and TPC Southwind (FedEx St. Jude).

two weeks ago, we landed correctly on Matt Fitzpatrick and last week, we got runner-up in Nicolai Hojgaard. Let’s see if we can continue the good fortune this week and get some of our guys in the running.

Sepp Straka (27-1)

The University of Georgia product has been playing outstanding golf lately. In three of his last four starts, he finished runner-up (Pebble Beach), 13th (Riviera) and eighth three weeks ago at TPC Sawgrass. His greatest areas of strength are scoring the Principle 5, Driving Accuracy, Greens in Regulation and Avoiding Bogeys. He was 22nd here at San Antonio in 2023 and was fifth at Colonial in 2024. Straka was 14th at Napa and finished runner-up at TPC Southwind in 2022. I like his current form and his ability this week. He should be well rested and ready to fight.

Alex Noren (36-1)

Attending Oklahoma State and being a long time DP World Tour player, Noren definitely knows how to play in the wind. He has finished in the top 15 both times in two previous trips to San Antonio and has been as high as second in Bermuda and third at TPC Summerlin. His driving accuracy, approach game and short game have been excellent so far this season and he is ranked 32nd in the field over the past 24 rounds at Par 5s. It’s hard to gauge how the big boys (Aberg, Fleetwood, Henley, etc.) will handle this week with Georgia on their minds, but I like Noren as a top player in the world, a little further down the board, and still very much looking for his first win on American soil – no matter what happens next week.

Thorbjorn Olesen (55-1)

It has been a shaky start to the 2026 season for the Dane, missing four of his six starts, but it was his sixth start last week that he finished 14th at Houston. In that field, Olesen ranked fifth for SG: Approach and was 19th in Greens in Regulation. He was ninth in that field for SG: Tee to Green and won in almost every category except putting — where he lost just 0.15 strokes to the field. A repeat performance this week would likely be very good. A slight upgrade could put it in contention. Olesen finished fifth here last year and was 14th in 2024.

Jordan Smith (84-1)

I’m not against a return to the well for the Englishman even though he dipped a bit last week in Houston, finishing 44th. His ball-striking remains excellent, as he ranked 13th in that field last week for SG: Off the Tee, 22nd in approach, 19th in putting greens and was 29th in Driving Accuracy – all indicators for me this week a few hours west in San Antonio. While Smith is a veteran on the DP World Tour, this is his first full trip on the PGA Tour – so no history on our interconnected courses exists. It is interesting to note however, that he has never missed a cut on a Greg Norman designed golf course.

Vince Whaley (150-1)

We previously mentioned the thought of the Masters coming up next week and how that plays into this week’s handicap. I don’t think it’s a bad week to try some long shots as more often than not someone other than the favorites wins here. The last two winners, Brian Harman and Akshay Bhatia, have both been odds of better than 60-1, and since 2010, we’ve had at least half a dozen winners with triple-digit prices — so let’s try one here. Whaley had a solid top-30 finish last week in Houston, where he ranked 25th in the field for SG: Approach and was 19th for SG: Putting. He’s really shown an ability to play in windy conditions, finishing 11th last season at Colonial, twice finishing in the top 16 at TPC Summerlin and posting three straight top-10 finishes in Bermuda. If the approach game continues again this week, he has a hot enough shooter to make something happen.