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 FedEx St. Jude, which gets underway Thursday at TPC Southwind in Memphis. 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.
Scottie Scheffler hoisting the claret jug last month at Royal Portrush brought a close to the 2025 major championship season. Cameron Young earning his first-ever Tour victory last week at the Wyndham Championship, put an end to the PGA Tour regular season. And now we begin the postseason, the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and the pursuit of the FedEx Cup.
The top 70 players in FedEx Cup points qualify for tournament No. 1 at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tenn., for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, but only 69 are in the field this week as Rory McIlroy has decided to skip this event. This is a no-cut tournament and when the dust settles on Sunday, the top 50 players in FedEx Cup points will not only advance to round two next week at Caves Valley for the BMW Championship, but those 50 players will also become qualified for every Signature Event in the 2026 PGA Tour season.
TPC Southwind has been a mainstay on the Tour schedule for over 35 years. This will be the fourth straight year that it serves as the host venue for round one of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The par 70 that stretches to well over 7,200 yards was designed by Ron Pritchard with player consultation from Fuzzy Zoeller and Hubert Green. Not exactly household names as far as golf design but their work here in Memphis has received some of the highest praise of any course on the Tour schedule. The players really like and respect this golf course. There are 11 water hazards, plenty of doglegs, it is narrow off the tee and the Bermudagrass greens are smaller than average targets.
Accuracy off the tee is more important than distance here and with the small greens, hitting them in regulation is extremely important — as is Scrambling when approach shots fail to hit the putting surface. In total, I looked at Strokes Gained: Ball Striking this week, Strokes Gained: Approach, Good Drives Gained, GIR Gained, Scrambling, Par 4 Scoring (450-500 yards), and Hole Proximity from 150-175 yards as this will be the distance for which the majority of approach shots are struck. I also looked at Strokes Gained: Putting on fast, Bermudagrass greens.
I feel like the correlated courses are fairly strong this week. We have a lot of similarities with other golf courses and also crossover success when comparing leaderboards. Pebble Beach is known for its very small greens, with premiums placed on GIR and Scrambling. Waialae Country Club (Sony Open) and Sea Island (RSM Classic) are Bermudagrass based, accuracy-driven par-70 courses. Innisbrook, home to the Valspar Championship, is a similar shot-maker’s stern test of golf, and a course that matches up well with TPC Southwind. Finally, I see many of the same skill sets needed for success at both Hamilton and St. George’s Golf & Country Club, recent hosts of the RBC Canadian Open.
We correctly landed on Hideki Matsuyama here in this column last season. Let’s see if we too can successfully defend our title.
Matt Fitzpatrick (28-1)
The Englishman currently sits 12th in the Ryder Cup standings for the European team. He will need to continue his excellent play that has been taking place this summer here in Memphis, coming off of four-straight top-10 finishes and five in his last eight starts. He’s been as high as fifth here in the past as well as at the Valspar, and has been sixth at Pebble Beach. He’s doing everything well as of late and over the last 24 rounds, ranks 12th in this field for Greens in Regulation Gained, 13th for Good Drives Gained, 14th in Scrambling, and 11th on the 450-500 yard Par 4s.
Ben Griffin (40-1)
Similar to Fitzpatrick, Griffin has the ball striking and the scrambling dialed in at the moment. He’s been one of the hottest players in the game over the last three months, finally missing consecutive cuts at the John Deere Classic and the Open Championship, but he came back nicely last week with an 11th-place finish at the Wyndham. Griffin finished runner-up at Hamilton Golf & Country Club at the 2024 Canadian Open, hasn’t ever missed a cut at the Sony Open, and has a top-10 finish at Sea Island as well.
Harris English (45-1)
English has been playing tremendous golf all season, winning at Torrey Pines and twice finishing runner-up to Scottie Scheffler at the PGA and Open Championships. He is long and straight off the tee and has a magic short game. He has four top-10 finishes at the Sony Open, two at the Valspar, and one at the RSM Classic. I expect yet another good week from the guy who is hanging on to the sixth and final automatic spot in the U.S. Ryder Cup team standings.
Maverick McNealy (50-1)
It was just a few months shy of one year ago that McNealy earned his first-ever PGA Tour victory at the RSM Classic. He has also had great success at Pebble Beach, the Sony Open, was seventh at Hamilton in Canada in 2024, and finished 12th here in Memphis last season. McNealy has made the cut in every major championship this season and has recorded four top-5 finishes. I expect him to play well again this week.
J.J. Spaun (50-1)
It has been a life-changing season for Spaun and it all got started at the Sony Open in Hawaii when he finished third. He’s a premier ball striker who is accurate off the tee, is a solid scrambler, and over the last 24-rounds, ranks 20th in this field on the 450-500 yard Par 4s and 21st for SG: Putting (Fast Bermudagrass).
Nick Taylor (90-1)
Taylor has found the winner’s circle at a couple of our correlated courses, taking home top honors at Pebble Beach in 2020 and winning the Sony Open just earlier this season. Before missing the cut a few weeks ago at the Open Championship, Taylor was on a run, finishing 4-13-23-17-22 in his prior five starts. Accuracy off the tee, Greens in Regulation, and the 450-500 Par 4s are some of his strongest suits — and he also comes equipped with a very solid short game.
Who Chirp Golf users are picking this week
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