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 2026 WM Phoenix Open, which gets underway Thursday in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Gotterup, Scheffler, and Rose — that’s a pretty darn good start to the 2026 PGA Tour season — and it’s all happening out west, where on Sunday, a winner will emerge from a loaded field at the WM Phoenix Open, only to be followed by the NFL crowning its Super Bowl champion at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. While much of the country is freezing, the West Coast Swing is steaming.
“The Greatest Show on Grass” returns to TPC Scottsdale, in its usual time slot, acting as the pre-party before the Big Game, and many of golf’s best players are here in the desert to get a Super Week off and running.
Just to give one an idea of the collective energy in the sports world out west this week, look no further than some of the proposition bets being offered at sportsbooks in Las Vegas. At the Westgate SuperBook, the wager is “Who Will Have More?” and it pits former WM Phoenix Open champ Nick Taylor’s final round score versus Kenneth Walker III’s rushing yards.
And of course, let’s not forget the over 700,000 fans that will be cheering, jeering, booing, hissing, and yes, drinking at TPC Scottsdale this week, most notably on the famous par-3 16th hole.
The golf course is a Tom Weiskopf and Jay Moorish design, redesigned in 2014 by Weiskopf. It is a par 71 and stretches to nearly 7,300 yards. The fairways are wide and the greens are large. The putting surfaces are a Bermudagrass base, overseeded with Poa and Bentgrass. This time of year in the desert, the greens are typically firm and fast. For many years, this tournament was a bit of a birdie-fest and much of it was about putting. Since the redesign, it has been much more about ball-striking and really emphasizes that more than most events on Tour.
I looked at Strokes Gained: Approach, Off the Tee, and Strokes Gained: Ball Striking this week. I looked at Greens in Regulation, Scrambling, work on the par 4s and 5s, and Hole Proximity from 150-200 yards. We are not necessarily relying on one skill set this week but again, an overall lean toward flushing the golf ball with the driver and the irons. The past winners here are examples of exactly that: Scheffler, Fowler, Matsuyama, Koepka…
The results here are also very “sticky,” meaning the same names and types of players tend to perform well here year after year. In fact, the aforementioned Scheffler, Koepka, and Matsuyama have each won here twice. Recently I have noticed a strong connection with Bay Hill, where they play the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Scheffler has also been victorious twice there. I also looked for correlations at the Philadelphia Cricket Club (2025 Truist Championship), Pinehurst No. 2 (2024 U.S. Open), TPC Craig Ranch (Byron Nelson), and Black Desert Resort, home to the newly-added Tour event in Southern Utah that is also a Weiskopf design.
With it being such a party atmosphere out west this week, I felt it appropriate that for my outright winner selections, I’d best pick a six-pack.
Hideki Matsuyama (26-1)
We noted that Matsuyama is a two-time champion here at TPC Scottsdale. He’s also finished runner-up, fourth, and eighth. We know he is a ball striker extraordinaire, and he is also one of the game’s very best scramblers, ranking sixth in this field over the last 24 rounds. He is also top 10 in this field for Hole Proximity from 150-200 yards. The season is off to a good start for Matsuyama as well, with two top-15 finishes in two starts. Spoiler alert: He could be ready to capture a second green jacket in a couple months too.
Sam Burns (36-1)
I wanted to find a couple of the shorter-priced contenders this week not named Scheffler. With the quality of the field, I figure we get a quality winner, so I did not want to simply load up on long-shots. Burns definitely fits in nicely with his history here of two recent top-6 finishes. He’s been top-5 at the Byron Nelson twice and has top-10 finishes at both Bay Hill and the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst. In his only start this season, he was 27th two weeks ago at the American Express — but he hasn’t missed a cut in 10 months and closed out last season with fourth, seventh, 13th, and 11th- place finishes. His short game is lights out. If the approach play shows up this week, so will Burns at or near the top of the leaderboard.
Kurt Kitayama (77-1)
A UNLV Rebel and Las Vegas resident, Kitayama is no stranger to desert golf. He’s never missed a cut in three tries here at Scottsdale with his best finish being eighth. Ball Striking is definitely his strength and he’s proven he can win against the best, taking top honors at Bay Hill in the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational. He is solid across the board in the stats this week and ranks fourth in this field over the last 24 rounds for SG: Ball Striking.
Keith Mitchell (85-1)
Mitchell is one of the very best in the game off the tee. Last season, he ranked 12th on Tour in Total Driving, 13th for SG: Off the Tee, 19th in Greens in Regulation, and 11th in Ball Striking. He is yet to miss a cut this season and comes off an 11th-place finish last week at Torrey Pines where he led the field in SG: Tee to Green. He’s made six cuts in seven tries here in Phoenix and has finished top 10 once, top 20 twice, and top 25 once. He’s never missed a cut at Bay Hill and has been top 6 twice, and last year at the Truist Championship at the Cricket Club, he took seventh.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout (100-1)
We were on the South African last week at the Farmers Insurance Open and he produced a solid week. I believe he has a good chance to do so again here. He’s been as high as fourth here in Scottsdale and has never missed a cut at Bay Hill, having finished top 10 once and top 20 three times. Over the last 24 rounds, Bezuidenhout ranks top 10 in this field on the par 4s and par 5s, and is 22nd for SG: Approach.
