Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour betting tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator, Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and frequent guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network dedicated to sports and sports betting, and is a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow Brady on Twitter at @LasVegasGolferand you can read his picks below for the 2026 Players Championship, which begins Thursday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
The Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s grandchild event, is here. And how glorious it is. It’s not a big competition, and hopefully it won’t be another one except for the latest push of this. TPC Sawgrass is a stunning golf course, without a doubt one of the best in the world and the masterpiece of world-class designer Pete Dye. Can we just leave other things to sports alone? The players are popularly known as the “big five” and I’d like to keep it that way – please. The Masters, PGA Championship, US Open, and Open Championship are different. Players are smart as they are, and they are the best.
Okay, get off the soapbox and move on to disability. TPC Sawgrass is a truly classy design. The paint was brought to PGA Tour headquarters in Ponta Vedra Beach, Fla., to create this very, arena-like exhibition space that explores every fiber of the human game. No two holes run in the same direction. With the exception of the four par 3s, half of the holes favor draws and half cater to fades. Water entered all but one of the 18 holes. It is a profound test of precision, emotion, and strength. The finishing stretch, holes 16, 17, and 18, are arguably the best closing holes in the game, and 17 is an island that can be seen from all over the world.
The golf course is a par 72 which equals 7,400 yards. The fairways are very narrow, with a fair bit of firmness, and the Bermudagrass greens are smaller than normal. The forecast calls for temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s all week with winds ranging from 10-20 mph.
Results over the years for The Players have been poor. Almost everyone who has done well here has also missed multiple cuts. We’ve had marquee winners like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, Davis Love III, Scottie Scheffler, and Rory McIlroy. We’ve also seen Stephen Ames, Jerry Kelly, Ian Poulter, Fred Funk, and Tim Clark seem to play well here at TPC Sawgrass on a regular basis. Predicting the winner of The Players to me sounds like one of the biggest challenges in the entire Tour calendar but that doesn’t mean the formula here is a mixed bag. Rather, it is very clear what needs to be done in this song. Batting is A, No. 1. Iron game, approach shots — if the ball doesn’t look good, it won’t be your week. Off the tee, accuracy is preferred over distance, and finally, Scrambling. Getting yourself out of trouble needs to be done successfully time and time again.
The 2026 Players Championship staff picks wins, sleepers to watch
By:
Jessica Marksbury
The correlation is strong and the rest is simply one of the Pete Dye designs we see regularly on Tour, such as TPC River Highlands (Travelers Championship), and Harbor Town (RBC Heritage). Sedgefield Country Club (Wyndham Championship) has had a surprising amount of crossover success with TPC Sawgrass. I also looked at Innisbrook (Valspar Championship), Waialae Country Club (Sony Open), and did not deny success at the American Express in La Quinta, Calif., or as two of the four rounds were played at Dye’s Stadium Course in PGA West.
Russell Henley (30-1)
Henley impressed in defending his title last week at Bay Hill, finishing sixth. He was ranked 13th in the SG: Off the Tee category and was ranked No. 1 in Scrambling. His record in the corresponding courses is extensive, with top 10 and 20 finishes up and down. He has been runner-up at TPC River Highlands and Sedgefield, and won the Sony Open. Henley finished eighth in the American Express earlier this season. He does everything very well, he is one of the most accurate in the game, and in 2026 the putter is shooting, ranked 24th on the Tour in SG: Putting.
Rickie Fowler (50-1)
Yes, I will go there. It’s been a long time coming but it will certainly be something to see Fowler add a second Players Championship to his resume and the way he’s been going lately, it’s enough for me to risk a few shekels on him to do it again. Fowler will miss the rest of the season and was ninth last week in Orlando, where he ranked ninth in SG: Off the Tee, second in Scrambling, eighth in Greens in Regulation, and fifth in Driving Accuracy. Like the Henley, everything works well and the putter. After last week’s top-10 finish at Bay Hill, Fowler moved up to No. 60 in OWGR. He has three more events to win or crack the top 50 to qualify for the Masters. I bet the push is on.
Maverick McNealy (65-1)
McNealy missed the 2023 season with an injury but since then, we’ve seen him become one of the best players in the world, currently ranked 25th in the OWGR. He finished ninth here at Sawgrass and has two top-5 finishes at Harbor Town. McNealy was 10th earlier this season at Torrey Pines and has finished 13th twice, including last week at Bay Hill. He is ranked 53rd in Tour SG: Approach, 30th in SG: Off the Tee, 36th in Scrambling, and 40th in Par 4 Scoring.
Shane Lowry at the 2026 Genesis Invitational.
Getty Images
Shane Lowry (70-1)
The Irishman missed the cut last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and I’m not that surprised by how it went down last week for Lowry at the Cognizant Classic. But I expect him to be ready to bounce back this week from an eighth-place finish and four top-20 finishes. He was in the top 10 in all the corresponding courses and had two third-place finishes at the RBC Heritage. Lowry has been playing amazing golf so far this season and unlike last year, the putter has found its place again in 2026, ranked 35th on the SG Tour: Putting. I was hoping for 50-1 this week on Lowry, so 70 feels like a pretty good return.
Adam Scott (80-1)
The 45-year-old Australian was another tour veteran who came to mind this week, like Fowler. Both former Players champions have been playing exceptional golf until 2026. Scott was fifth in the field last week at Bay Hill for Driving Distance. It’s amazing that this guy can still really hit it. You remember, he was there at the US Open combine last year at Oakmont. In addition to his win at TPC Sawgrass, Scott has finished in the top 10 three times and in the top 20 six times. He also finished second and seventh earlier in the Wyndham Championship. Four weeks ago, Scott was fourth at Riviera. Last week he was 11th at Arnie’s place, where he was ranked 12th in the field in both SG: Approach and Scrambling. Scott is ranked 26th on the Tour in Ball Striking.
Sahith Theegala (92-1)
It’s been a minute since the Pepperdine University star has been on the PGA Tour, but it looks like he’s back. Theegala has three top-10 finishes this season, including eighth at American Express and sixth last week at Bay Hill, where he placed eighth in SG: Approach and 10th in Scrambling. He finished ninth here at the Players and finished second at Harbor Town and TPC River Highlands. Theegala has been fit at the start of the season but suffered a stroke on the field last week. It continues this week, you will be in the mix again.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout (100-1)
We’re in the triple digits. Bezuidenhout finished 13th here at Sawgrass in back-to-back visits in 2023 and 2024. He was eighth last week in Puerto Rico when he ranked 12th in Driving Accuracy and fourth in Greens in Regulation. Bezuidenhout ranks 56th on Tour this season in SG: Approach, 21st in SG: Putting, 33rd in driving accuracy, and 45th in Scrambling. He has a previous top 10 finish at the Valspar Championship and a runner-up finish at the 2024 American Express.
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