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 Cognizant Classic, which gets underway Thursday in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. 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.
Forty-five days and six golf tournaments remain on the PGA Tour schedule before they put the first peg in the ground at Augusta National Golf Club for the 2025 Masters. The Florida Swing begins this week at the Champion Course at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. for the Cognizant Classic as the march toward the season’s first major championship is officially underway. In shifting from the west coast to the southeast, we go from Poa Annua greens, mountains, elevation change, and the Pacific Ocean to flatlands, palm trees, sand bunkers, Bermudagrass, and often, those infamous Florida winds. Welcome to the next four weeks on Tour in the Sunshine State.
PGA National has been changed to a par 71 recently, converting what was a very lengthy par 4 to a relatively short par 5 on the inward nine. What was originally a George and Tom Fazio design in the early 1980s, has been tweaked several times in the last 20+ years by Jack Nicklaus. The course now stretches to nearly 7,200 yards and is well-known for a brutal finishing stretch of holes (15, 16 and 17) called “The Bear Trap.”
For what is one of the tougher golf courses on the Tour calendar, water comes into play on nearly every hole and there are 60 sand bunkers to negotiate, surrounding relatively large Bermudagrass greens and bordering narrow fairways. Ball-striking is at a premium here, and really throughout the Florida Swing. Work off the tee is very challenging at PGA National and many players will club down, favoring accuracy over length. Well over half of the approach shots this week will come from 125-200 yards and the numbers will show that approaches from 150+ yards at this course are the most difficult on the circuit. With that, Scrambling will of course be crucial this week as well, because greens will be missed and players will be forced to get up and down often.
Now, we can pump the brakes on all of this perceived difficulty somewhat as there has been some rain in the area leading up to this tournament and the forecast is looking like the wind will be less of a factor than is often the case. A soft golf course with very little wind will keep more balls in the fairways and on the greens in regulation. The average winning score in 13 of the past 15 editions of this event is less than 9.5 under par. Chris Kirk won at 14 under in 2023 and Austin Eckroat got it to 17 under last year. Note, these last two years have been as a par-71 golf course versus what used to be a par 70. The winning score proposition bet this week at the SuperBook in Las Vegas is 268.5, meaning 15.5 under par.
J.J. Spaun (70-1)
The consummate ball striker, Spaun has made a career for himself nearly on this skill set alone. Over the last 36 rounds, he is No. 1 in this field for SG: Approach. He ranks ninth for SG: Ball Striking and is third in Hole Proximity from 125-150 yards. Spaun also lines up quite nicely on the correlated courses this week with ninth and 11th-place finishes in Napa, a 12th and a third coming earlier this season at the Sony Open, and two sixth-place finishes at the Zozo Championship.
Jhonattan Vegas (85-1)
The big hitting Venezuelan has played this event 10 times in his career and has only missed the cut once. Six times has he finished top 30 with a fourth place in 2017 being his best effort. Vegas also has a top-10 finish at Silverado, where he’s made five of six cuts, and an 11th-place finish at the Zozo this past October. He ranks sixth in this field for SG: Ball Striking over the last 36 rounds, 10th for SG: Approach, 18th for SG: Off the Tee, and is 28th for Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards.
Nico Echavarria (100-1)
Speaking of the Zozo Championhip last October, Echavarria was your winner there and then began his 2025 season with a runner-up finish at the Sony Open, falling to Nick Taylor in a playoff at Waialae Country Club. He is another Florida resident who has played here many times, finishing 21st last year. We spoke about this golf course being especially difficult on approach from 150 yards or more. Echavarria ranks second in this field for Hole Proximity from 150-175 yards over the last 36 rounds. He is 13th for Good Drives Gained and also 16th for SG: Putting (Bermudagrass). 100-1 seems plenty generous for a guy who not only makes sense at this course, but has won twice on Tour in the last two seasons.
Ben Kohles (200-1)
Now for our really long bomb, and yes, he too is a Florida resident. Kohles is deadly accurate off the tee and ranks 15th on Tour in Ball Striking. Over the last 36 rounds, he is fourth in this field for Good Drives Gained and is No. 1 for Hole Proximity from 150-175 yards. Kohles comes in off a top-25 finish in Mexico where he closed with a round of 65. He is currently 15th on Tour in SG: Putting.
Who Chirp Golf users are picking this week
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