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 Wells Fargo Championship, which gets underway Thursday in Charlotte, N.C. Along with Kannon’s 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 heard that bell ring, it is signifying that recess is over and it’s time to get back to work.
While we are definitely not downplaying the recent team win by Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry at the Zurich Classic or Taylor Pendrith’s breakout victory at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson last week, we are recognizing the fact that the stakes are being taken up a few notches for the next couple of weeks in the world of golf.
It begins this week in Charlotte, N.C., at Quail Hollow Club. For the second straight season, the Wells Fargo Championship will carry Signature Event status. All of the luminaries are here, except for Scottie Scheffler — who continues to anxiously await the birth of his first child — and also Ludvig Aberg, who withdrew late Monday night, citing lingering soreness in his knee.
Following this week’s final tune-up, we head to Louisville, Ky., for the season’s second major, the PGA Championship.
Quail Hollow Club provides an ideal pre-major test as it too has held a PGA Championship (2017) and most recently, hosted a Presidents Cup in 2022. It is what we like to call a “Big Boy” golf course, as evidenced by its par-71, 7,500-plus-yard specs. My first thought when coming into “Wells Fargo Week” is always Total Driving (a combination of driving distance and driving accuracy). One must be both long and straight here off the tee, as that is where the path to success begins. Secondly, I always think of Torrey Pines, home to the Farmers Insurance Open, because Total Driving is one of the top priorities there as well. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of another Tour event where Total Driving is nearly as important as it is at both Torrey Pines and Quail Hollow. Each one of my selections this week ranks 50th or better on Tour in Total Driving.
Down the fairway, Strokes Gained: Approach is paramount, as it is nearly each and every week. When you include Quail Hollow’s lengthy par 3s, most of the approach shots this week will come from 175-200+ yards. It is also one of the more difficult courses on Tour to hit greens in regulation, so doing that successfully will be important this week, but so too will be scrambling, as greens will be missed in regulation quite often.
I looked at who performs well on Par 4s that measure 450-500 yards and SG: Putting (Bermudagrass). Lastly, I looked at Bogey Avoidance. When we have a difficult, major-like test, mistakes can be magnified, so limiting them will likely help one separate and move up the leaderboard.
2024 Wells Fargo Championship odds: Last week’s winner is this week’s long shot
I have already mentioned Torrey Pines. Other golf courses we see on a regular basis that match up with the Quail Hollow layout and skill-set requirements are: Bay Hill (Arnold Palmer Invitational), TPC Scottsdale (WM Phoenix Open), Corales Golf Club (Corales Puntacana Championship), Winged Foot (2020 U.S. Open), and Olympia Fields, where the BMW Championship has been held (last year and in 2020).
We had an excellent week last week, cashing with three top-20 finishers and nearly got home on an outright win with Alex Noren. Here’s to more of the same this week in the Queen City.
Sahith Theegala (35-1)
A bit of an outlier price I was able to find here on the 2023 Fortinet Championship winner but I’m okay with anything at 30-1 or better. Theegala has come up big in big events recently. He has top-10 finishes at Bay Hill, Torrey Pines, and TPC Scottsdale. An interesting note I found from a friend, Dave Tindall, a golf tipster in the U.K. with BetFair: Theegala’s last six events putting on Bermudagrass, he’s had no finish worse than ninth and has two runner-ups. Over the last 36 rounds, he ranks 10th in this field for SG: Off the Tee, 17th in Greens in Regulation Gained, 22nd in Scrambling, and is No. 1 in SG: Putting (Bermudagrass).
Si Woo Kim (42-1)
Kim has finished top 12 in his career at both Torrey Pines and TPC Scottsdale and comes off of a 13th-place finish last week at the Byron Nelson, where he ranked fifth in the field for SG: Approach. Over the last 36 rounds, he ranks 10th in this field for the same metric. He’s fifth for SG: Off the Tee and 16th in Bogey Avoidance. He has yet to miss a cut this season and ranks 22nd on Tour in Scrambling.
Byeong Hun An (45-1)
We cashed a top-20 finish with An last week in Texas and if it were not for a few missed short putts last Sunday, he may have been your outright winner. Surprisingly, An gained more than three strokes on the field with the putter last week. If he keeps that up, he is going to win soon. I’m going back to the well with the Cal Bear this week, first and foremost, because the driver is his weapon. He was second in the field last week in Driving Distance, 11th for SG: Approach, and 11th in Greens in Regulation. He has top-10 finishes at both Bay Hill and Phoenix and is ninth in this field for Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards. It is worth noting that An finished 28th here in 2017 when Quail Hollow hosted the PGA Championship.
Corey Conners (55-1)
Conners is at the very top in this field in a couple of different categories. He is No. 1 for Greens in Regulation Gained and No. 2 for SG: Approach over the last 36 rounds. He is also 13th in SG: Off the Tee and 14th in Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards. Conners finished eighth here last season which was also against a Signature status field. Is it maybe motivational to see his fellow countryman, Pendrith, win last week? Possibly. I imagine it can’t hurt. The President’s Cup is in Montreal this fall with Mike Weir serving as Team Captain. Watch out for the Canadian players to be especially focused over the course of this summer as we near those Presidents Cup team selections.
Adam Schenk (66-1)
Schenk was another player on our card last week who had an exceptional tournament, cashing a top-20 ticket for us in the process. He was ninth in the field last week for SG: Off the Tee and third in Greens in Regulation. To go along with that, he has an excellent short game, ranking 60th on Tour in SG: Putting and 46th in Scrambling.
Matthieu Pavon (135-1)
It was not long ago that I went back and looked to see if this price had changed. Sure enough, it was down to 110-1. I guess I’m not the only one that thought 135 was a good buy (110-1 would be my low point, by the way). I would not want to take lower than that. Let’s remember, this is only a 69-player field, so getting triple-digits seems pretty valuable on almost anyone. But I especially like taking a flyer on guy who I think can win. He won at Torrey Pines earlier this season and finished 12th at the Masters last month. Over the last 36-rounds, Pavon ranks 18th in this field for SG: Approach and is 17th on the Par 4s measuring 450-500 yards. I mentioned earlier that each of these selections is in the top-50 on Tour for Total Driving. Pavon, specifically, is 15th.
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