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 Travelers Championship, which gets underway Thursday in Cromwell, Conn. 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 wave of golf momentum continues this week in Cromwell, Conn., with another signature event, the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands.
Off a thrilling finish at the U.S. Open and a historic result at the Memorial prior to that, the best players in the game have assembled again this week (well, Rory McIlroy has withdrawn) for an event that has often gone on beyond 72 holes. Five of the last 13 editions of the Travelers Championship have been settled in a playoff. If you want to bet on that happening again, the odds are roughly 4-1.
TPC River Highlands is a short, Pete Dye design. It is a par 70 that plays less than 6,900 yards. The crowds are a big part of the draw here and that is part of the reason that the PGA Tour is making this an elevated event for the second straight season. Scoring will be easier than what we’ve seen the past two weeks. The average winning score over the last five seasons is better than 18-under par.
For that reason, I looked at Birdies or Better this week, along with Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, and Par 4 Scoring. I also looked at Strokes Gained: Total on Dye designs and shorter golf courses as well.
Courses that match in layout and style for me this week are Sedgefield (Wyndham Championship), East Lake (Tour Championship), TPC Sawgrass, TPC Deere Run, and TPC Southwind.
We have a smaller field this week with the Signature Event-status and McIlroy’s withdrawal, leaving 71 players in the mix. With that, I found four selections this week that I like for both an outright win and a top-20 finish.
Tommy Fleetwood (35-1)
Fleetwood managed to cash a top-20 finish for us last week at Pinehurst, in large part because of his excellent finishing round on Sunday, firing one of the lower rounds of the day at 68. I like playing on players the following week that finish in a flurry as Fleetwood did. As I did last week, I also feel TPC River Highlands makes a lot of sense for the man who is very accurate off the tee and can rack up birdies as an excellent putter. Over the last 24 rounds, Fleetwood ranks 12th in this field, on average, for par-4s ranging in 300-450 yards. While the spotlight was on the Englishman last week to possibly win for the first time in the United States, maybe it happens this week with the shine of the event throttled down a bit.
Corey Conners (39-1)
Another player that comes in off an excellent week last week. Conners was incredibly steady at Pinehurst, shooting rounds of 69-70-71-70, good enough for a top-10 finish, his second in the last three weeks. He is money in the stats this week, most notably ranking third for SG: Approach and fourth for Birdies or Better over the last 24 rounds, along with eighth in Hole Proximity from 150-175 yards. It is always about the putter for Conners but he feels like a very hot player right now and the timing could be right — with a pretty juicy price to boot.
Sepp Straka (40-1)
This is another guy that makes my card this week that felt like a very sexy pick last week. But while nobody else is looking, I like sneaking him in here. His fit for this type of course or why he was a good play last week hasn’t changed. Simply the perception and amount of attention has. He’s finished top-8 in three of his last five starts. He is 15th in the field this week for SG: Off the Tee, 11th in SG: Approach, ninth on the par-4s measuring 300-350 yards, third on the 400-450 yard par-4s, and sixth in Hole Proximity from 150-175 yards. He also won at one of our correlated courses, TPC Deere Run, and was runner-up at TPC Southwind.
Tom Kim (50-1)
Kim fell off a bit last week in the final round, shooting a 76 on Sunday but prior to that recorded rounds of 71-68-71. This tells me the form is still very strong for a guy that hasn’t missed a cut in over two months. Kim can rack up the birdies, ranking eighth in this field for Birdies or Better over the last 24 rounds. He’s also very accurate off the tee and sits 10th on average in this field on par-4s measuring anywhere from 300-450 yards. Kim also ranks third in this field for Hole Proximity from 125-150 yards — and one of his three wins on Tour came at Sedgefield CC at the Wyndham Championship.
Who Chirp Golf players are picking this week
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