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 Open Championship, which gets underway on Thursday in Southport, England.
It is possible that we could have England winning in America this Sunday and an American winning in England. The World Cup Final will kickoff at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon in New Jersey — which ought to be around the same time that the 154th Open Championship is crowning its Champion Golfer of the Year at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England.
Our job here is to try to correctly predict who exactly it will be hoisting that Claret Jug on Sunday in what will be golf’s final major championship of the year. We introduced a few of our selections right here last week.
It is now officially Open Championship Week and I have since arrived at a few more conclusions — or theories, anyway, as a part of my handicap.
The latest reports are telling us that Birkdale will play firm and fast. There has been very little rain in the area as of late and the golf course is dry and off-color. The forecast is calling for warm temperatures and moderate wind. Given these conditions, I believe a greater premium will be placed on accuracy off the tee. Players will have decisions to make, trying to take a shorter club and avoid the pot bunkers or to use driver to blow past all of the trouble with the risk of finding some nasty rough. No matter which strategy is employed, precision will be required.
Specifically, I have looked at Driving Accuracy, Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Putting (Slow Greens), Bogey Avoidance, Scrambling, and Hole Proximity from 150-200 yards.
We noted possible correlations between Harbour Town, Waialae, Colonial, and Royal Troon in our Early Bets article last week. I am adding Sea Island (RSM Classic), TPC Southwind (FedEx St. Jude), and Pebble Beach to our comps. These courses certainly fit the mold with being shorter than average, having below-average-sized greens, and being susceptible to wind. Pebble Beach offers an especially interesting twist in that many winners at Royal Birkdale — Jordan Spieth, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, and Mark O’Meara — have also won at Pebble. Hat tip to my friend Dave Tindall (@DaveTindallGolf) for being someone I saw point this out.
Matthew Baldwin, Thomas Detry, and James Nicholas will be the first to tee off on Thursday at 1:35 a.m. ET. The clock is ticking. Let’s get to the remaining selections on our outright winner card.
This is one that I played a little while back. I liked his chances at the Travelers Championship and at the Scottish Open – and I knew if he were to win one of these pre-Open tune ups, his price would drop. As it turns out, the Big Swede was less than impressive the past few weeks and his price has gone in the other direction. The fact remains that Aberg appears to be a good fit for Royal Birkdale. His first-ever PGA Tour win came at Sea Island in 2023. He has two top-10 finishes at Harbour Town, including fourth earlier this season. Aberg owns a ninth-place finish at TPC Southwind, a 17th at Colonial, and was runner-up at Pebble Beach in 2024. Over the last 36 rounds, he ranks fifth in this field for SG: Approach, 30th for Driving Accuracy, and is 36th for SG: Putting (Slow Greens).
Speaking of Pebble Beach, this man is a recent winner at this location. The Englishman captured the golf world as a 17-year-old amateur in 1998 when he finished fourth at Birkdale. Can he ascend a few spots higher at 45 years old? I believe he can. He was runner-up to Xander Schauffele at Troon in 2024, is a past winner at Colonial, has been as high as runner-up at the Sony Open, and won at TPC Southwind last August. Rose ranks 17th in this field for SG: Approach over the last 36-rounds. He is 31st in Driving Accuracy and 23rd for SG: Putting (Slow Greens).
Speaking of Pebble Beach. Haha. Here we go again. Morikawa was a winner there back in February of this season. Of course, he won the Open Championship at Royal St. George’s in 2021 and it was earlier in that season that he finished seventh at the Sony Open at Waialae. Morikawa has been runner-up and fourth at Colonial, top 10 three times at Harbour Town (including fourth earlier this year), was 16th at Troon in 2024, and has been as high as fifth at TPC Southwind. The new father does just about everything extremely well and it also now seems we are once again getting him 100 percent healthy.
Another Englishman that would make quite a splash, winning on his home turf, but really, that is not an angle I care to lean on at all. More so, I like what kind of links golf skills he has, his accuracy off the tee and the fact that over the last 36 rounds, Hatton ranks No. 1 in this field for SG: Putting (Slow Greens). He is also a recent winner roughly six weeks ago at Valderrama in Spain. Hatton finished fifth at Royal Troon in 2016, has been as high as third at Harbour Town, eighth at Colonial, and 13th at Waialae. I mentioned the links prowess. He won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship a record three times — back-to-back in 2016 and 2017 and again in 2024.
The price on Kim to win this week has been steadily declining but took its biggest dip after he finished top 10 last week at the Scottish Open, where he ranked No. 1 in that field for Driving Accuracy and was 21st in SG: Putting. It was his third top-10 finish in his last five starts. He’s been having a phenomenal season and it began back in January when he took 11th at the Sony, a tournament he won in 2023. Kim later finished third at Harbour Town. His record at The Open is not tremendous, but his game has been in 2026. I still like him this week at 50-1 or better.
A winner on Tour three times last year, including at Colonial, Griffin is 0-for-3 in Open Championships as far as making it to the weekend. I still believe he is a good play though if one is looking to take a stab with a longshot. In addition to his victory last year at Colonial, he followed that up with a third-place finish there this season in his title defense. He’s been 12th and 19th at the Sony and 15th and eighth at Sea Island. Griffin finished ninth at TPC Southwind last August. Over the last 36-rounds, he ranks ninth in this field for Bogey Avoidance and is eighth in Scrambling.
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