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 U.S. Open, which gets underway on Thursday.
And here we are, once again, on the doorstep of a major championship. It feels like we have been building toward this for some time. Did the lookahead to the 2026 U.S. Open begin immediately after Aaron Rai hoisted the Wanamaker Trophy at Aronimink last month? Did it begin at Colonial Country Club when we noted that course can be a sign of U.S. Open-type things to come? Maybe it began eight years ago, after Brooks Koepka tapped in for bogey on the 72nd hole to finish 1-over par and win his second straight United States Open – the last time we were at Shinnecock Hills on Father’s Day for America’s National Championship.
Located on the South Fork of Long Island in Southampton, New York, Shinnecock Hills is one of the most highly regarded golf courses in the world. It is one of the original founding five golf courses of the USGA, and this Thursday will mark the sixth time it has hosted a U.S. Open. Exposed to all the elements, the golf course is virtually treeless and sits less than 20 miles south of Peconic Bay and just a few miles north of the Atlantic Ocean. It makes for a sandy, wind-swept, coastal, links-style, brutal test of golf that has only seen three players finish under par over the course of the last four U.S. Opens it has hosted.
While we can praise its demands and the level of difficulty it presents for what many consider the hardest golf championship of them all, the USGA has also been heavily criticized for mismanaging Shinnecock in 2018 and, especially, the U.S. Open in 2004. It is a very difficult and delicate balance: trying to bring a golf course to the extremes without letting it get out of control – and to do this at Shinnecock, where the location invites changes in the weather almost immediately, the battle with Mother Nature can very easily be a losing one.
Fast-forward to 2026 and we have a course with nearly 50-yard-wide fairways, five-inch rough, and the “schmutz” or the “gunch,” also known as knee-high wispy heather and fescue that sits one step further off the mark than the rough and will swallow both golf balls and U.S. Open championship hopes in one fell swoop. The point is that it appears the USGA has given itself plenty of width in the fairways to let them get plenty firm and fast without them becoming unfair. The greens are very large, sloped and undulated, primarily Poa Annua with a bit of Bentgrass blended in. What is interesting about the greens, however, is the fact that they play so “small.” Despite the actual square footage being well above the Tour average, with all the humps, bumps, and shaved runoff areas, the small proper landing areas make hitting and staying on the greens two very different and challenging pieces of the puzzle. Add in the wind, sunshine, lack of moisture and green speeds, and here we have the balance the USGA is trying to negotiate between now and Sunday evening.
This all boils down to the winning score number that Jeff Sherman (@Golfodds) has posted at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook of Under/Over 278.5, which translates to 1.5 under par.
The forecast calls for temperatures reaching the mid-70s to low 80s, with some chances of rain here and there and plenty of wind throughout the four days, with Thursday and Friday appearing to be the windiest, with possible gusts of better than 30 MPH. Yes, I imagine there will be carnage – but let’s hope the USGA can dance with Mother Nature, and together they can provide the perfect test.
We noted two weeks ago in our Early Betting Guide our positions on Xander Schauffele (20-1), Tommy Fleetwood (25-1), Matt Fitzpatrick (25-1) and our longshot play on Daniel Berger (180-1). I have since added three more mid-priced selections and another longshot.
Every season, I like to look at who does well at Colonial as I believe it can translate into U.S. Open success. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, I guess, as it was Henley who overcame our selections of Eric Cole, Ryan Gerard and Mac Meissner to win in Fort Worth at the end of last month.
Henley is a shorter-knocker, plodder-type player, but he’s also won at Bay Hill, contended at Augusta National and Torrey Pines, and in the last five years or so, ascended to be one of the finest golfers on the planet. He was 10th last year at Royal Portrush and fifth the year prior at Royal Troon. Henley finished 10th last summer at Oakmont and was seventh the year before at Pinehurst. He is No. 1 on the PGA Tour in both Driving Accuracy and in Scrambling. He is 33rd in Strokes Gained: Putting and ranks second in Proximity from 150-175 yards. His next act may be a major championship victory.
Reed has never jumped off the page to me as a “U.S. Open type” player. The Jim Furyk, Jeff Maggert, Corey Pavin, Lee Janzen type stuff, right? Reed is more of an imagination, artistry, short game wizard than a fairways and greens plodder – but Shinnecock is a different type of beast than, say, a more traditional U.S. Open setup like an Olympic Club.
The coastal, wind-swept location and links-style layout make it very Open Championship-like. The creativity needed around these green complexes is very Masters-like. And that is where Reed checks the boxes. With wide fairways and emphasis on the short game, that is a Patrick Reed wheelhouse – as evidenced by his fourth-place finish here in 2018. Reed was also 12th at Royal Troon in 2016 and has finished in the top 10 three times at the Valspar Championship — another of our correlated courses — including twice as a runner-up. Despite a much-abbreviated playing schedule as he returns to the PGA Tour after leaving the LIV circuit, Reed finished 12th at The Masters and 10th at the PGA Championship last month. I expect him to contend again this week.
I saw the UNLV Rebel here in Las Vegas when I was out running some errands last weekend. As we continue our weekly search for outright winners, maybe this was an attempt to put a clue right in front of my face. Not sure if I believe in that stuff, but the play absolutely makes sense in my mind – if the young man can find a hot putter for a few days.
Kitayama is currently playing excellent golf, with top-10 finishes at two straight Signature Events — Harbour Town and Doral — followed by a 10th-place finish at the PGA Championship and a top-25 finish at The Memorial two weeks ago. He is one of the very best in the game as far as Ball Striking, Total Driving, Greens in Regulation and Proximity from 150-200 yards. And actually, his short-game numbers are not terrible. Being able to consistently find fairways and greens should give Kitayama an excellent chance. If he can chip and putt just average or better, I believe he is an excellent stab at a big number. In my mind, he’s very J.J. Spaun-esque from 2025 at Oakmont.
I have been tempted to add another selection here, toying with Viktor Hovland, Tyrrell Hatton, Patrick Cantlay, etc., but I have decided to wait until Friday or even Saturday evening and see if there is an in-game play that makes sense. So I am saving a few bullets for later – if needed – but hopefully, we are able to cut in successfully and dance with the USGA and Mother Nature to have a perfect trip.
Here are the initial four picks from our early betting preview.
On May 17, I made my first U.S. Open play to win the championship outright. Fleetwood was listed at 20-1 just about everywhere and I didn’t love that number. I saw 25 pop up and jumped on it. As it stands currently, 28-1 or 30-1 appears readily available. Fleetwood shot a course-record 63 on Sunday in 2018 to nearly catch Koepka, ultimately coming up one shot short. One can argue that the U.S. Open has been Fleetwood’s best major, with three top-five finishes and a 16th-place finish at Pinehurst in 2024. The Englishman has also been 16th twice and third once at the Valspar Championship. He was fifth at Southern Hills in 2022. Fleetwood ranks ninth on Tour in driving accuracy, 56th in SG: Approach, and sixth in SG: Around the Green. If the similar putting surface turf means anything — and it does — Fleetwood was fourth this year at Pebble Beach and seventh at Riviera.
Four days after making a play on Fleetwood, I added another Englishman to the card. Fitzpatrick has won three times already this season, including the Valspar Championship, and won the U.S. Open in 2022. Like Fleetwood, he, too, finished fifth at Southern Hills in 2022. He currently ranks fourth on Tour in SG: Approach, eighth for SG: Around the Green, seventh for Greens in Regulation, and sixth in driving accuracy. Fitzpatrick finished 12th at Shinnecock in 2018.
Schauffele won two majors in 2024 — the PGA Championship and the Open Championship (at Royal Troon, by the way) — but like Fleetwood, his most successful major throughout his career may also be the U.S. Open. He was sixth at Shinnecock in 2018. He’s played in the national championship nine times and hasn’t ever missed the cut. His worst finish is 14th, and he’s been top 10 seven times. He was seventh at Pinehurst in 2024 and 13th at Southern Hills in 2022, and has gone 12-5-12-4 in four consecutive visits to the Valspar Championship. Schauffele ranks 18th on Tour in total driving, 29th for SG: Approach, 28th in SG: Putting, and 11th in scrambling.
Time for a long bomb. I have seen anywhere from 100-1 to as high as 200-1 on Berger to win the 2026 U.S. Open. He was sixth at Shinnecock in 2018 and was seventh at Torrey Pines (poa annua greens) at the 2021 U.S. Open. Speaking of poa annua, Berger also has a win at Pebble Beach. We noted in our preview of the Charles Schwab Challenge that Colonial Country Club can be a good indicator of possible U.S. Open success, and Berger has won at Colonial. He has finished as high as 11th at the Valspar and was eighth at Royal St. George’s in 2021. Berger ranks 10th for SG: Approach this season and 45th in driving accuracy. It feels like a pretty darn good resume for a player in the neighborhood of 200-1.
We’ll be back on June 16 for our complete outright card for the 126th U.S. Open Championship and the third major of 2026.
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