RSM Classic betting guide: 5 picks our gambling expert loves this week

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 RSM Classic, which gets underway Thursday in St. Simons Island. 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 fall is finished, and so might be your PGA Tour card.

Yes, it is the RSM Classic this week in St. Simons Island, Georgia at the Sea Island Resort, and it is the final event of the FedEx Cup Fall season. Players finding themselves outside of the top 125 in the FedEx Cup Fall standings at the conclusion of this week’s tournament, will not receive fully exempt status on Tour in 2025.

Here are the players, in order of current ranking, on either side of bubble. Sami Valimaki is not in the field this week at the RSM Classic.

120 – David Skinns
121 – Sami Valimaki
122 – Sam Ryder
123 – Zac Blair
124 – Joel Dahmen
125 – Wesley Bryan
126 – Henrik Norlander
127 – Daniel Berger
128 – Hayden Springer
129 – Pierceson Coody
130 – S.H. Kim

From a handicapping perspective, it is interesting to note that two weeks ago, Austin Eckroat was your winner at the World Wide Technology Championship — and he was already fully exempt for 2025 going into the tournament, sitting inside the top-50 in the standings. He had no added pressure to perform. Last week in Bermuda, Rafael Campos entered the week ranked 147th in the standings. He was definitely playing with some added incentive and necessity. The point is, we can do our best to play sideline psychologist but it’s hard to handicap motivation, mindset, pressure, etc. Sure, there are situations that often appear somewhat obvious and have stood the test of time historically in handicapping, but here specifically, trying to predict a golfers performance in a particular week, based solely upon where they sit in the FedEx Cup rankings, is unreliable.

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This is not to say that I don’t take it into consideration when we reach these points in a golf season. No, I do not ignore it, but it is like a “must-win” game in NFL Football. Just because a team must win, doesn’t mean they will. I often say, if you “must win” you must not be that good. One wouldn’t be in such a situation if they were really good. So, banking on a player that sits 128th in this week’s standings to suddenly flip a switch and play that much better in order to get themselves into the top 125 is not where I want to place the foundation of my handicap.

The foundation of my handicap is going to begin with the golf course and what skill sets will likely be most important for success. Here at Sea Island, we have two courses, the Plantation Course and the Seaside Course. Each player will play the Plantation Course once, on either Thursday or Friday, and the Seaside Course will host three of the four rounds. They are both short, par-70 courses, just slightly over 7,000 yards. The Plantation Course typically plays about a shot-and-a-half easier than the Seaside Course. I have actually played the Seaside Course and without any wind, the course plays relatively easy. The fairways are wide by Tour standards but placement and Driving Accuracy has shown to be a key ingredient here in St. Simons. I also looked at Strokes Gained: Approach, Greens in Regulation Gained, Birdies or Better Gained, the Par 4s measuring between 400-450 yards, hole proximity from 100-175 yards and Strokes Gained: Putting (Bermudagrass).

For corollary courses, it is very similar to last week at Port Royal: a shorter, coastal track, Bermudagrass, etc. Last week we used Pebble Beach, Colonial CC, and Waialae CC. I used those courses again, Port Royal, and also TPC Southwind, El Cardonal at Diamante, and Harbour Town, home to the RBC Heritage.

It is also worth mentioning that a significant number of players in the field this week either live in the Sea Island area, practice here on a regular basis or went to school nearby. Bottom line, there are a number of players this week that are extremely familiar with this property.

If you have come here looking for who is going to finish second this week, you’re in the right place as we’ve had the runner-up now two weeks in a row in Carson Young and Andrew Novak. Let’s see if we can close out the season with one better.

At the time of writing, I have not yet seen the pairings for the tournament. I do recommend taking a look when they are released as it could matter in terms of the wind and a possible draw bias. Right now, it looks like the wind is going to blow all day on Thursday in the neighborhood of 20 mph. It is supposed to die down on Friday but possibly more so in the afternoon than the morning. Just a guess, but an early start time Thursday on the easier Plantation Course might be the ideal draw.

Seamus Power (34-1)

It has been a very good fall swing for Power, who has two 11th-place finishes, a 13th, and was 23rd last week in Bermuda, a tournament he won back in 2022. His last event over the summer was the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind, one of our correlated courses, where he finished 10th. Here at the RSM Classic, he’s gone 5-4 in his last two visits. He’s also finished as high as third at Waialae (Sony Open) and sixth at Harbour Town. The shorter, coastal, more accuracy-based courses seem to be in his wheelhouse. Over the last 36 rounds, Power is really solid, ranking inside the top 40 or better across all of the stats I considered this week.

Justin Lower (50-1)

We spoke earlier about handicapping motivation and mindset. Lower was emotional a few weeks ago at the podium and spoke about how it is very difficult for a journeyman PGA Tour player and that the new rules are making it even more difficult. It looks as if that has inspired him as he went on to finish runner-up that week in Los Cabos and followed it up with a fifth-place finish last week in Bermuda. I am going to continue to ride the hot hand here. He is an excellent wedge player, one of the best in this field from 100-150 yards, makes a ton of birdies, and is No. 1 over the last 36 rounds on the 400-450 yard Par 4s. He also ranks 29th on Tour in SG: Putting. 

Matt Kuchar (60-1)

Kuchar is kind of like the original Seamus Power-slash-Justin-Lower-type player. Doesn’t hit it far, hits it straight, magical short game, great putter, etc. He’s won at Harbour Town, he’s won at Waialae, multiple top-10 finishes at Colonial. He’s exactly the type of player we would expect to have success at this type of golf course. And oh, by the way, he calls the St. Simons area home too, so he is plenty familiar with this golf course. The current form looks good too as Kuchar has grabbed four top-15 finishes in his last seven starts.

Daniel Berger (70-1)

We’re going to give him one more shot and it could be the last shot for a minute as he currently sits on the outside looking in at 127th in the FedEx Cup Fall standings. Again, we have spoken about this and I am not basing my entire handicap on Berger’s need to play well in order to get to 125th or better, but I do like the fact that he is a proven veteran with pressure-cooker experience like major championships, Ryder Cups and Tour wins. That doesn’t hurt. But everything else makes sense too. He’s won at Colonial, he’s won at Pebble Beach, he has won twice at TPC Southwind, and between Harbour Town and Waialae, he has three top-15 finishes and two top-10s. If the putter cooperates this week, he should fare well, and Bermudagrass has always been his best surface.

Michael Kim (75-1)

Kim’s only Tour victory came at the 2018 John Deere Classic — another shorter-type course with a watered-down field — somewhat similar to what we have here. And I love his last three starts, finishing fifth, 30th, and 12th last week at Port Royal. Over the last 36 rounds, Kim is 18th in this field for Greens in Regulation Gained, 16th for SG: Approach, and is 23rd in Birdies or Better Gained. He’s been as high as sixth at Colonial, 20th at Waialae, and 11th at Pebble Beach.

Who Chirp Golf players are picking this week

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