3 choices that our expert likes

Welcome to our PGA Tour betting tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert forecaster 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, and is a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow him on X at @LasVegasGolferand you can read his early picks below for the PGA Championship, which begins May 14 at Newtown Square, Penn.

“I intended to make this course my masterpiece, but to this day I realize that I built it better than I knew.”

Legendary golf course designer Donald Ross said that approx Aronimink in 1948, site of this year’s 108th PGA Championship, 20 years after the golf course opened. Legendary golf historian and design restoration master Gil Hanse was brought to Newtown Square, Penn., along with his partner, Jim Wagner, in 2016 to work their magic and transform Aronimink back into the major championship caliber Ross had originally envisioned.

More than 150 players, including 20 PGA club professionals, will head to the Philadelphia area next week for the second major championship of 2026. What better place to hold one of golf’s crown jewel events than in America’s birthplace in the country’s 250th anniversary year? Hot dogs, apple pie and possibly some fireworks if we can correctly land the champion and this year’s Wanamaker Trophy winner.

Stretching to nearly 7,400 yards, Aronimink will play a par 70 for this year’s championship. The fairways have been made slightly wider by Hanse, who also did some tree removal and added 100 sand bunkers to what is now a total of 174 that complete this layout. The fairways have quite a bit of slope, creating uneven lies when first negotiating long iron approach shots onto classic Ross-style greens full of bumps and lumps and shaved runoff areas.

Today’s PGA Championship has been a bomber’s paradise. Brooks Koepka has won three in the last 10 years. Bryson DeChambeau has been the runner-up in each of the last two. Heavy courses for drivers like Quail Hollow, ValhallaAND Oak Hill have been the norm for this test in recent years. However, I believe Aronimink may favor accuracy over distance off the tee. Total drive (distance plus accuracy) is definitely a skill set that makes sense as I believe finding the right positioning on fairways trumps raw length. Long iron game from uneven lies, hitting the green not only in regulation but also on the best specific areas of the greens, and outstanding short game skills all figure into my initial profile of how to best pick Aronimink.

We saw this golf course several times before the restoration when it hosted the AT&T National. The last time we saw him was after the remodel at the 2018 BMW Championship, when Keegan Bradley defeated Justin Rose in a playoff. For courses that have some crossover features, look no further than other Ross models we see regularly. Pinehurst No. 2 hosted the US Open in 2014 and in 2024. Sedgefield Country Club is the annual host of the Wyndham Championship and Detroit Golf Club has been hosting the Rocket Mortgage Classic for six seasons now. Oak Hill hosted the PGA Championship in 2013 and in 2023, another Ross design, and then, of course, East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, where for several decades now, they’ve played the Tour Championship.

Early bets

Xander Schauffele (18-1)

I currently have three shows in my pocket. Schauffele is one of the shorter shots, essentially trading as the fifth or sixth favorite on the board at this time. He, of course, is a former PGA champion, winning at Valhalla in 2024. Schauffele is arguably Donald Ross’ biggest specialist on Tour, having won at East Lake and finished runner-up three times. He was third at Aronimink in 2018, seventh at Pinehurst in 2024 and was 18th at Oak Hill in 2023. In Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards, he ranks 14th on Tour. He ranks 20th from 200 yards or more. Schauffele is third on Tour in Scrambling and is 42nd in Strokes Gained: Putting. In the end, he is 45th in driving distance and 65th in driving accuracy. Current form seems to be on point too with back-to-back finishes of 3-4-9-12 in his last four starts.

Russell Henley (56-1)

For so many years, Henley was simply thought not to be tall enough to compete on some of the game’s biggest courses. While he has risen to a top 10 player in the world in recent years, he has won at Bay Hill and twice finished in the top 5 at Augusta National. He checks almost every box for me that went into Aronimink, except that the iron game has been a bit in 2026. But, he just finished third at the Masters a month ago. Also of note, since 2019 when the PGA Championship moved to May on the calendar, every winner had finished in the top 10 at the Masters the month before, except for Phil Mickelson in 2021. 2020 doesn’t count because the Masters was played in November of that year. As for Ross’ other designs, Henley was seventh at Pinehurst in 2024, has four top-10 finishes, including a runner-up at Sedgefield, a top 10 at Detroit Golf Club and has finished second, third and fourth at East Lake Golf Club.

Rickie Fowler (100-1)

A long shot before we leave and I’m sticking to the Donald Ross angle. Fowler was runner-up at Pinehurst in 2014, 19th at Oak Hill in 2013, has been runner-up twice at East Lake and won in a playoff at Detroit Golf Club in 2023. He also finished eighth here at Aronimink in the 2018 BMW Championship. Strokes Gained: Putting, eighth in proximity to holes from 175-200 yards and is 28th in Total Driving.

I will continue to rely on the accuracy angle more than sheer power and as Hanse said about his remodel and this championship, it will be about the short game. The ability to read these greens, undulations, scrambling, ups and downs in level. It’s a Ross tradition for winners to be placed on and around the green and I believe with Mother Nature’s cooperation, that’s what we’ll end up with here in Philadelphia next week. Stay tuned as I’ll be posting my full Tuesday card here.