Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sport betting. You can follow on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the World Wide Technology Championship, which gets underway Thursday in Mexico. Along with Kannon’s recommended plays, you’ll also see data from Chirp Golf, a mobile app that features both Free-To-Play and Daily Fantasy golf contests where you can win cash and prizes with each round and tournament.
The FedEx Cup Fall is back and it continues on international soil for another week. Prior to taking a week off last week, the Tour was in Japan for the Zozo Championship and now it is in Los Cabos, Mexico, for the World Wide Technology Championship at El Cardonal at 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 that finish between 51st and 60th at the end of the fall, will earn spots into two Signature Events, the AT&T Pebble Beach and the Genesis Invitational.
There’s a lot on the line here at El Cardonal at Diamante, a Tiger Woods-design making just its second-ever appearance on the Tour calendar. For many years, this event had been held at El Camaleon Golf Club located along the Riviera Maya outside of Cancun, Mexico. Erik van Rooyen won the inaugural event at Tiger’s place last season.
Van Rooyen got it to 27 under par at this par-72 course that stretches to over 7,450 yards. The fairways are especially wide with no rough to speak of, and the greens are very large. Without much wind to contend with last year, the players were able to bring the course to its knees. The forecast is not calling for much wind again this year, and here in Las Vegas at the Westgate SuperBook, the winning score proposition bet has been set at Under/Over 25.5 under par. So, very low scores are expected once again.
With that, we must take into account Birdies or Better Gained this week in our handicap. I also looked at Strokes Gained: Approach and SG: Off the Tee. There is not much here as far as distance versus accuracy off the tee with the fairways being so wide, but I figure I want a player is who is very efficient off the tee, and if he can gain on the field in this category, then I believe that to be an advantage. I also looked at Greens in Regulation Gained, Scrambling, and how players perform on the Par 4s measuring between 450-500 yards, as six of the 10 here at El Cardonal do.
During this FedEx Cup Fall, I feel we have seen a couple of courses recently that provide some crossover with this week’s track. Both Black Desert Resort in Utah and TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas feature wide fairways, very little rough, and bigger than average greens. Vidanta Vallarta, home to the Mexico Open, is also very similar with wide fairways, big greens, and the Paspalum grass surface being present throughout the course like we have here at Diamante. I also looked at TPC Craig Ranch, Port Royal Golf Club, Detroit Golf Club, the Plantation Course at Kapalua, Corales Puntacana, and Pebble Beach. Again, wide fairways, big greens, and some similarities in turf species, coastal location, and elevation change being the connective tissue.
Ben Griffin (28-1)
We were on Griffin once earlier during this FedEx Cup Fall and it is not surprising that we find ourselves backing him again. He’s one of the classier players in these less-than-star-studded fields we have been experiencing and he’s been playing well. He also carries a bit of extra motivation, sitting at 60th in the FedEx Cup Fall standings. He does nearly everything really well that we are looking at this week. He ranks seventh in this field for SG: Approach over the last 36 rounds. He’s eighth in SG: Putting (Paspalum) and 12th in GIR Gained. Griffin ranks 17th on Tour in Scrambling and is 58th in Birdie Average. I like some of the recent results as well. Griffin was 13th at TPC Craig Ranch (CJ Cup Byron Nelson) back in May. Fifth at the John Deere in July, seventh at the Wyndham in August, 11th at the Black Desert Championship in October and just shot 66-64 over the weekend in Japan at the Zozo.
Harris English (33-1)
Even though the stats may not say so completely, English is definitely one of the more accomplished players in this field, and on top of that, he happens to be coming off of two straight top-10 finishes at two of our correlated courses, a sixth in Utah and a ninth in Las Vegas. Like Griffin, English too sits in that 51-60 window in the FedEx Cup Fall rankings, needing to hold serve in order to qualify for those aforementioned Signature Events. He’s excellent off the tee, able to get it out there with some distance and accuracy, which ought to translate into plenty of birdie opportunities. English ranks 10th on Tour in SG: Putting and is fourth in this field for Scrambling over the last 36 rounds. English has a win to his credit at Kapalua, and at this tournament’s former home, on Paspalum greens, along with two fifth-place finishes. It was back in 2018 that he finished fifth at Puntacana Corales, another coastal course featuring Paspalum.
Sam Stevens (36-1)
Stevens is a younger up-and-comer that has started to catch my eye. He’s made 22 of 27 cuts this year and has finished top-20 six times. He’s played in four FedEx Cup Fall events and finished top 40 in each one. He’s got a great deal of distance off the tee, ranking eighth in this field for SG: Off the Tee over the last 36 rounds. He is also 14th in the field for Birdies or Better Gained and 15th in Scrambling. Stevens ranks 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 is easy to mix the two names up and yes, they are both in the field this week. Cameron Young is the much higher-profile player and is one of the favorites this week at around 20-1, but I am going to go with the much longer shot. Carson Young is coming off of 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 took 14th last year at TPC Craig Ranch. He’s very efficient off the tee per his Driving Accuracy and he’s solid all the way around, really, with birdies, on approach, on the Par 4s, and with the putter, as he is 23rd in this field for SG: Putting (Paspalum) over the last 24 rounds.
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