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 BMW Championship, which gets underway on Thursday in St. Louis, Mo.
And there he goes again. After threatening week after week and finishing runner-up five times already this season, Scottie Scheffler added to his win the first month of the season with a second victory — this one coming in the final month of the season — and with only two tournaments remaining, he may not be done yet.
I felt on Saturday last week that if Scheffler went into the final round with a three-shot lead, the FedEx St. Jude Championship was done and he would be the champion. Rather, he went into Sunday with a two-shot lead and I thought the chasers had an outside shot. Of course, here in this column, we were on Sam Burns at 24-1, who was in the final pairing with Scheffler and trailing by two. I was wrong. After only a handful of holes on Sunday at TPC Southwind, it was in the bag. Mr. World No. 1 sucked much of the excitement out of the event and went on to hammer the field by eight strokes.
Guess what? The golf course, Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, host of this week’s BMW Championship, is another perfect fit for Scheffler. The oddsmakers are not arguing, dropping last week’s price of around 5-1 on Scheffler to win, to around 3-1 this week. All is normal in the world of golf again. Like a classic Grateful Dead theme, Scheffler introduced the melody early on, cacophony then ensued for an extended period of time, and then in winding down toward the end, he has brought us back around full-circle and landed us gently on our feet once again. It was yet another terrific dance and we’re now perfectly set up for a two-week encore.
So, is it that simple — we play Scheffler this week and that’s it?
Nah. Let’s see if we can beat him again.
Round 2 of the FedExCup Playoffs, as noted, shifts to Bellerive in St. Louis, which we last saw in 2018 when Brooks Koepka held off Tiger Woods and Adam Scott to win the PGA Championship. Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed this golf course in 1960. Five years later, it hosted the U.S. Open, which was won by Gary Player.
This is once again a no-cut event but the field has been trimmed to the top 50 in FedEx Cup points. Next week is the grand finale, the Tour Championship, where only the top 30 in the standings after this week’s results will advance. East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta once again plays host where the FedEx Cup and $20 million will go to the winner.
Jones’ son Rees performed some redesign work at Bellerive in the early 2000s and again in 2013. Today, we have a lengthy par 70 that nearly touches 7,500 yards. The fairways are relatively wide and, just like last week in Memphis, feature Zoysiagrass. The rough is penal but that didn’t dissuade the bombers back in 2018. In addition to Koepka, Woods, and Scott, big hitters like Gary Woodland, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, and Thomas Pieters were also among those making up the top six on the leaderboard eight years ago.
The greens are very large, Bentgrass surfaces with deep bunkering providing a protective border. The course is very straightforward. The challenges will be in the execution. Finding fairways, sharp long-iron approach shots, a deft touch around the greens and likely a hot putter will win the week.
I looked at Total Driving, Driving Distance, Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Par 4s, Hole Proximity from 150-200+ yards, Scrambling, and 3-Putt Avoidance.
There are quite a few bomber-friendly, ball-striker courses that I believe can lend us some clues as to who may perform well here in St. Louis. Detroit Golf Club, where we were just a few weeks ago for the Rocket Classic made my list as did regular PGA Tour stops, TPC Scottsdale (WM Phoenix Open), TPC Craig Ranch (Byron Nelson), Bay Hill (Arnold Palmer Invitational), and Memorial Park (Houston Open). I also used a few courses we see on occasion, Olympia Fields where Viktor Hovland won the BMW Championship in 2023, Southern Hills, home to the 2022 PGA Championship, and finally Royal Portrush where — guess who? — Scheffler won the 2025 Open Championship.
I’m going with six combatants on the card this week to see if we can take down that guy. What’s the price on Scheffler outright vs. Xander Schauffele, Hideki Matsuyama, Chris Gotterup, Viktor Hovland, Wyndham Clark, and Jake Knapp? Scheffler would be a slight underdog at +112 according to golf oddsmakers Sam Cooney and Jeff Sherman at Circa Sports in Las Vegas. The fictional six-player “field” would be roughly -112. Cooney and Sherman also made this week’s winning score number Under/Over 262.5, meaning 17.5 under par.
So, I guess we’re a slight favorite to get him this week. We’ll see.
Xander Schauffele (18-1)
Seemingly slipping under the radar, Schauffele quietly finished runner-up a few weeks ago at the Rocket Classic in Detroit. He took seventh last week where he gained strokes on the field just about everywhere and ranked fifth in that field for Driving Distance. He’s been runner-up, third, and 10th twice in Scottsdale. Schauffele finished eighth at Olympia Fields in 2023, 13th at Southern Hills, and was seventh last summer at Royal Portrush. Over the last 24-rounds, he ranks sixth in this field for Scrambling and fourth in Total Driving. One of the best in the world seems to be kind of a forgotten man as of late. That could be the right time to jump in.
Hideki Matsuyama (30-1)
It is hard not to think this guy is going to be close once again this week. His last six starts, going back to the Travelers Championship in late June, have resulted as such: 14-14-3-5-7-7. For me, much like Scheffler, Matsuyama fits the mold beautifully this week. Total Driving, long iron play, Scrambling – and hope for a hot putter. Over the last 24 rounds, he ranks top 5 in this field in Hole Proximity from 150-200+ yards. He is No. 1 in Scrambling and in SG: Par 4s. He’s finished runner-up in Houston, top 6 in Detroit and at Bay Hill, a winner twice and a runner-up twice in Phoenix, and was 16th last July at Royal Portrush.
Chris Gotterup (32-1)
Earlier this season in Phoenix, we were on Matsuyama and Gotterup clipped us in a playoff. He was sixth this season in Houston and third last summer at Portrush. Gotterup ranks second in this field for Driving Distance and ninth in Total Driving over the last 24 rounds. He is 15th in this field for SG: Putting (Bentgrass). He won for the third time this season six starts ago at the John Deere Classic. The young bomber ought to flourish at this golf course this week.
Viktor Hovland (34-1)
I was not jumping on board with the tremendously popular selection of Hovland last week but I will dive in here. I’ve always felt the PGA Championship was likely the major best suited for Hovland and of course, that is much of what we have here in terms of golf course and set up. Hovland was shaky at times last week but did rank ninth in that field for SG: Approach and was third for Greens in Regulation. He ranks second in this field for Total Driving and in Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards over the last 24 rounds.
Wyndham Clark (38-1)
Clark finished runner-up to Scheffler at Bay Hill a few years ago and was fourth at Portrush when Scheffler captured the claret jug last summer in Northern Ireland. He got past him on Father’s Day this year to win the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Clark can bomb it off the tee, flush the long irons, and tops it off with an excellent short game. Over the last 24 rounds, he ranks third in this field for Scrambling. He is 13th for SG: Putting (Bentgrass) and fourth for SG: Par 4s. He won at TPC Craig Ranch back in May and was fifth last week in Memphis where he ranked 11th in that field for SG: Approach.
Jake Knapp (43-1)
Another player here who carries a big stick and a deft touch around the greens. Knapp was seventh last week in Memphis and finished eighth earlier this season in Phoenix and sixth in Houston. He’s been as high as fourth at the Rocket Classic. Over the last 24 rounds, he ranks 13th in this field for SG: Approach, 15th in Driving Distance, and is No. 1 is this field for Hole Proximity from 175-200 yards. Currently sitting at 35th in the FedExCup standings, Knapp needs to finish in a 3-way tie for 16th this week — or better — in order to qualify for next week’s Tour Championship.
