Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, where we share our favorite bets for the upcoming action. This time around, it’s the RSM Classic, which gets underway Thursday at the Sea Island Golf Club in St. Simons Island, Ga. Along with our recommended plays, you’ll also see data from Chirp, a free-to-play mobile platform that features a range of games with enticing prizes, giving fans all kinds of ways to engage in the action without risking any money.
If you’ve been following our lead in this space this season, you probably haven’t banked enough for retirement yet, but you did cash in nicely last week, when we picked Camilo Villegas as our long-shot winner in Bermuda — 100-to-1, baby!
As the Tour rolls into Sea Island this week, let’s keep the momentum rolling on our end, too.
The event is the RSM Classic, the final one of the regular season and a last chance for players outside the top 125 to secure exemptions for 2024. Spots in two early season signature events — the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational — are also on the line.
Adam Svensson is the defending champ, and the field is a healthy mix of young guns and veteran winners, a number of whom call Sea Island home.
As usual, we’re making three picks: a favorite, a contender, and a long shot. Here goes.
Favorite: Eric Cole, +2,500
At these same odds, you could take a trendier pick in J.T. Poston, and we wouldn’t blame you, as this is a home game for him. Course knowledge matters. Then again, so does recent form, and few in this field have been sharper of late than Cole, who finished T3 and T2 in his last two starts, at the Shriners Children’s Open and the Zozo Championship, respectively. Cole is not a bomber, and little in his stats suggests “world-beater,” but he keeps it in play, makes birdies in bunches and is deeply allergic to three putts. Bottom line: it can be hard to beat a guy who doesn’t beat himself.
Contender: Matt Kuchar, +3,500
We know what you’re thinking: Kooch can’t close. At least, he hasn’t done so since 2018, when he notched his last Tour win. But a lot of stars align for the veteran this week, a former Sea Island resident who has been flashing fine form of late, with a T7 and a T2 in his last two starts. One week after Villegas turned the clock back, we’re looking for another graybeard to do the same.
Long shot: Patton Kizzire, +15,000
At 130th in the current FedEx standings, Kizzire heads into the week with plenty of incentive. And he doesn’t have to travel far. He lives on Sea Island, and the Tom Fazio-designed host course is his home track. At these long odds, we’ll risk a small wager on the local boy.
Who Chirp users like this week
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