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 Tour Championship, which gets underway on Thursday in Atlanta.
So far this fall, we’ve seen the NFL play games in Australia, Brazil, and London. The PGA Tour FedEx Cup Fall resumes this week in Japan as the global push continues in both of these leagues.
This week’s event is the Baycurrent Classic at Yokohama Country Club, roughly 30 minutes outside of Tokyo, and it brings with it a limited but star-studded 72-player field.
This is the second year in a row that this event will take place at Yokohama CC. It is a no-cut format with an $8 million purse, the largest of the Fall Swing. The tournament will use holes 1-16 from the West Course at Yokohama and the 17th and 18th holes from the East Course. It is a unique Par 71 set up with three par 3s, two par 5s, and 13 par 4s. The golf course is of average length at just over 7,300 yards. Xander Schauffele is back to defend his title, winning last year with a score of 19 under par.
Yokohama Country Club was built in 1960, but noteworthy in today’s handicap was the 2016 renovation performed by Coore & Crenshaw, who are also responsible for the design of the Plantation Course at Kapalua and the renovation of Pinehurst No. 2 back in 2010. Like one will find at those two courses, Yokohama, too, features wide fairways for the most part. Last year, players were able to find the fairways here at roughly a 10 percent higher clip than Tour average. The fairways are heavily tree-lined however, and carry a steep penalty when they are missed off the tee, with 3- to 4-inch rough adding to the potentially difficult recovery. Like we see at TPC Craig Ranch, TPC Southwind and East Lake Golf Club, the fairways at Yokohama feature Zoysiagrass. The greens are large, Bentgrass surfaces.
The forecast is not calling for much wind but players did feel some effects of Typhoon Halong last year in this area. We know for sure that the course has been soaking up some significant rain and ought to play on the softer side – with temperatures topping out in the mid 70s. I looked at Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, Good Drives Gained, Scrambling, Par 4 Scoring, Hole Proximity from 150-200 yards, and Strokes Gained: Putting (Bentgrass).
It is difficult to draw too many conclusions with comp courses because we have only seen this property once before on Tour but we mentioned some of the crossover in turf species and Coore & Crenshaw design. As far as the layout, I believe it is also similar to TPC Scottsdale (WM Phoenix Open) and TPC Toronto, where they have held the Canadian Open the last two seasons.
Note, here in the states, this golf tournament begins on Wednesday evening at 11 p.m. ET.
Certainly Matsuyama is Japan’s most celebrated professional golfer, and he fits the profile well here, being a tremendous ball striker and scrambler. He’s also won before at TPC Southwind and has finished third at TPC Craig Ranch, both courses that feature Zoysiagrass fairways. Matsuyama also won recently a Kapalua, another Coore & Crenshaw design and was sixth at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst in 2025. He’s finished top 10 at East Lake four times, has won in Phoenix twice, and was 20TH here at Yokohama last fall. Over the last 20 rounds, Matsuyama ranks top 10 in this field for SG: Approach, SG: Ball Striking, and SG: Par 4s.
The Englishman was 10th here last year and has also finished fourth at TPC Craig Ranch (CJ Cup Byron Nelson). He finished up this season on the PGA Tour with a couple of top 10 finishes and has carried that over to the DP World Tour with a couple more top 10s last month. Over the last 20 rounds, he ranks second in this field for SG: Approach and is sixth for SG: Par 4s.
Smalley finished fourth here at Yokohama last year and he’s finished 13th at both TPC Craig Ranch and TPC Toronto. He ranks ninth in this field for SG: Approach and is top 15 for Hole Proximity from 150-200 yards. Smalley’s length and accuracy off the tee, combined with his hole proximity numbers and the fact that he ranks 19th in this field for SG: Putting (Bentgrass) makes it very understandable as to why he has had success at this golf course.
Yu is another from the ball striker mold who is especially good off the tee. He finished 20th here last year and was third at TPC Toronto in 2025. He’s also been as high as 16th at TPC Scottsdale. Yu ranks 23rd on Tour in Total Driving and is 10th in this field for Good Drives Gained over the last 20 rounds. He ranks top 10 in this field for Hole Proximity from 150-200 yards, in SG: Par 4s, and ranks third in Scrambling.
I can’t quit Suber! He is definitely a ball striker and also a player that looks like he is going to get his first Tour win sometime soon. He’s finished fourth at TPC Craig Ranch and has gone 18-4 the last two years at TPC Toronto. Suber ranks fifth in this field for SG: Approach, eighth for SG: Ball Striking, and is seventh in Scrambling over the last 20-rounds.
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