Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour game tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator, Brady Kannon. An experienced golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and regular 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 @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read their picks below for the 2026 Tour Championship, which kicks off Thursday in Atlanta.
PGA Tour golf is back.
The FedEx Cup Fall Series begins this week with the first of eight “tweener” season events taking place between now and Thanksgiving. First stop: Asheville, NC, for the inaugural Biltmore Asheville championship, which is played at the Cliffs at Walnut Cove. For a handful of players in the field this week, this new event will be the final deal for next week’s Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club, just outside of Chicago.
Nestled in a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains at an elevation of more than 2,000 feet, this Jack Nicklaus design sits right between the protected boundaries of the Pisgah National Forest and the Blue Ridge Parkway. I’ve driven this way before and while I haven’t been to the golf course in person, I’ve seen the place, and gosh, it must be gorgeous. The first nine is played through some old farmland while the second nine enters a more mountainous landscape. Elevation change, uneven lies, heavily treed fairways…this must be really visually spectacular.
A lot is on the line for those players which finished the 2026 regular season ranked 51st or worse in the FedEx Cup standings. The top 50 are already exempt for next season with entry to Signature Events. The rest of the group will try to finish in the top 125 to keep their Tour cards. Those who finish between 126-150 will be awarded conditional status in 2027, and those who fall outside the top 150 will lose their PGA Tour cards. There are currently only five players in the field this week who are in the top 50.
The golf course is relatively short by Tour standards, a par 71 measuring under 7,300 yards. The fairways are wide, but they are bordered by an extremely penal rough, measuring almost six inches in height. The greens are a mixture of Bentgrass and Poa Annua and are smaller than average size. I looked at Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Putting (Bent / Poa), Good Drives Gained, Scrambling, Birdie or Better Percentage, and Hole Proximity from 200+ yards. There are four relatively short par 5s, nine medium-length par 4s and five par 3s that each measure close to or better than 200 yards.
We don’t have a course history to go by here, but the golf course layout reminds me TPC Deere Run with fairways wide and rough. I used Deere Run (John Deere Classic), TPC Toronto (Canadian Open), Detroit Golf Club (Rocket Classic), and Silverado in Napa (Campionato Procore) as what I believe are reasonable comps.
The field consists of 135 golfers and there is a standard cut of 36 holes for the top 65 and links.
Davis Thompson (28-1)
I’m not one to gravitate toward what I believe will be popular games, but without knowing much about what this golf course provides, I’m going with a proven winner, who is from this area of the country, and was on a very good run before his season ended in the Wyndham Championship. Thompson finished 7-8-14 to close the regular season and won the John Deere Classic in 2024. The eighth place was in the Rocket Classic, where he shot all four rounds in the 60s. In the last 24 rounds, Thompson is No. 1 in this field for SG: Approach and is sixth in Birdie or Better Percentage.
Kevin Yu (40-1)
Yu won a Fall Series event for us a few years ago when he captured the Sanderson Farms Championship. This is a driver-heavy golf course and has also fared well on our comp courses – finishing 15-21-20-6 in four visits to TPC Deere Run and was third at TPC Toronto in 2025. Yu is 20th in this field in the last 24 rounds for Good Drives Gained and is the No. 1 for Birdie or Better.
Jackson Suber (42-1)
We tested at least a couple of times recently on Suber and he came close when he finished fourth at TPC Toronto and sixth two weeks later at the John Deere Classic. His form over the summer was one of the best on the Tour and he finished sixth in the Rocket Classic in 2025. In the last 24 rounds, Suber is No. 1 in this field for Hole Proximity from 200+ yards.
Rico Hoey (70-1)
I think we should have some longshots on the card because with a new place, the guessing game becomes much harder and the variance of who can find the winner’s circle this Sunday is probably even greater than we are used to. Hoey is an excellent driver of the golf ball, ranked 31st on Tour in Total Driving. He finished ninth in Napa last year, was 15th and sixth in Detroit, and was 11th at the John Deere in 2025. He is sixth in this field in the last 24 rounds for Hole Proximity from 200+ yards.
Mackenzie Hughes (75-1)
We know the man has a short game. He is sixth in this field for SG: Putting (Bent / Poa) and is 28th in Scrambling. He was as high as 16th at the Deere and 14th at the Rocket Classic. Hughes finished seventh and fourth in 2025 and 2024 at Napa. Over the last 24 rounds, Hughes is sixth in this field for Birdie or Better Percentage.
