6 picks our expert loves

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 host and regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sports betting, and is a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow Brady on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the 2025 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.

We have reached November and that means only the final three FedEx Cup Fall events remain for the 2025 season. We begin this final push in Los Cabos, Mexico, for the World Wide Technologies Championship. Next week it is onto Bermuda for the Bermuda Championship, and finally, we conclude in St. Simons Island, Georgia for the RSM Classic. No more breaks in the action, no more weeks off in between and possibly no more job next year. When the final putt is holed in Georgia in three weeks, players will need to find themselves ranking in the top-100 in the standings in order to keep full PGA Tour status in 2026.

First stop: El Cardonal at Diamante, a Tiger Woods design that features especially wide fairways, no rough, and massive greens. It is a par 72 course that stretches to over 7,400 yards. There is noteworthy elevation change throughout the layout and plenty of undulation on the greens. As is often the case with the tropical, coastal locations, the golf course is wall-to-wall Paspalum grass. For many years, the World Wide Technologies tournament was played in Riviera Maya, just east of Cancun, Mexico. This will be just the third time the championship has been held in Cabo San Lucas at Tiger’s place.

I guess as we move closer to “Turkey Day” it is appropriate that we have a “birdie fest” — or should I say feast? Okay, sorry. Back to golf. Yes, the scores ought to be low this week with not much wind in the forecast. Thursday is currently expected to see the most wind but still, only forecasting 10-15 mph. Golf oddsmaker, Jeff Sherman, at the SuperBook in Las Vegas, has made the winning score proposition bet Under/Over 262.5, which translates to 25.5 under par. Eric Van Rooyan won this championship two years ago at 27 under and last year it was Austin Eckroat getting to 24 under par.

With that, I have looked at Birdies or Better Gained this week, along with Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and on approach. It is interesting to note that with these greens being so large, hitting them in regulation is not terribly difficult but when they are missed, scrambling presents one of the more challenging tests on Tour. I also looked at how players fare on long par 4s — those measuring between 450-500 yards.

The correlated courses this week are pretty easy to find. Courses with incredibly wide fairways, Paspalum greens. The Plantation Course at Kapalua has some of the widest fairways on Tour and huge putting surfaces — albeit they are Bermudagrass. Same thing with TPC Craig Ranch. Wide fairways and big greens but different turf species. Vidanta Vallarta, where they play the Mexico Open, is very similar to what we have this week and so is Corales Golf Club, where they play the Corales Puntacana Championship in the Dominican Republic. The Grand Reserve, where they play the Puerto Rico Open, is a Paspalum based course and the Black Desert Resort in St. George, Utah, where we were just two weeks ago — this course too has especially wide fairways and massive greens. You do get similar fields playing all of these events, sans much of the big-time star power, but many of the same names continue to show up toward the top of the leaderboards.

I played six outrights in total. Four of them are at triple-digit odds but I have seen a lot of volatility in the market early in the week. Si Woo Kim is a WD, so this has shifted the market slightly too. As always, shop around for the best prices.

Michael Thorbjornsen (24-1)

With the course designer being from Stanford, why not pick a fellow Cardinal to win at El Cardonal? Thorbjornsen has been a very trendy pick for a couple of seasons now and I have avoided diving in for the most part. This may be the first time I’ve ever bet on him to win, I can’t recall for sure. Anyway, I like the timing and the venue this week for him to possibly get that first win that does seem to be on the verge of happening sometime very soon. He has a 13th and a third-place finish in his last four starts and was runner up this past spring at Corales Puntacana. Over the last 24-rounds, he ranks 11th in this field for SG: Off the Tee, is second on approach, third for Birdies or Better Gained and is No. 1 for Greens in Regulation Gained.

Garrick Higgo (24-1)

The big-hitting, lefty South African, who attended UNLV, was one better than Thorbjornsen in winning the Corales Puntacana Championship this past April. Prior to that, he was 12th in Puerto Rico and as of late, he’s finished top 10 in each of his last three starts. Higgo also finished sixth here in Los Cabos last November. He is very solid in the stats, across the board. If he finds a hot putter for a few days, he ought to be in the mix once again.

Isaiah Salinda (105-1)

Now we get into the triple-digit prices and I’m going back to another Stanford University connection. It is also worth noting that Salinda is currently 104th in the FedEx Cup standings, so he will need to perform well over these final three weeks if he plans on playing on Tour in 2026. He finished third at the Mexico Open earlier this season and two weeks ago in southern Utah, Salinda ranked 11th in that field for the week in SG: Off the Tee, was eighth on approach, No. 1 in Greens in Regulation, and ranked 17th for Scrambling. Over the last 24 rounds, he ranks 10th in this field for SG: Putting (Paspalum).

Matti Schmid (105-1)

Schmid is a big-hitter from Germany who will be a regular on Tour in 2026 and over the past two seasons, he has performed his best on this week’s correlated courses. In 2024, he finished 10th in Puerto Rico, 11th at Corales, and was fifth at Black Desert in Utah. Earlier this season, he was sixth in Puerto Rico and ninth at Corales. Over the last 24 rounds, Schmid ranks sixth in this field for Birdies or Better Gained.

Ben Kohles (115-1)

Over the last 24 rounds, Kohles ranks No. 1 in this field for SG: Approach, fourth in Greens in Regulation Gained, and is 13th for SG: Putting (Paspalum). He finished 20th two weeks ago in Utah, shooting four rounds in the 60s. For the week, he ranked 13th on approach, third in Greens in Regulation, and fourth for Driving Accuracy. This past spring, Kohles finished 25th at the Mexico Open and in 2024 he was sixth in Puerto Rico and runner-up at TPC Craig Ranch.

Justin Lower (130-1)

Lower may have the best resume of all on these types of golf courses. In 2024, Lower finished third at Vidanta Vallarta, fourth at Corales Puntacana, and was runner-up here in Los Cabos. Over the last 24 rounds, he is eighth in this field for SG: Putting (Paspalum). He found his groove two weeks ago at Black Desert as well, finishing third. And the timing is excellent for his form to resurface as he currently sits 110th in the FedEx Cup standings.

Who Chirp Golf players are picking this week

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