4 picks our gambling expert loves

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 Sony Open, which gets underway Thursday in Hawaii. Along with Kannon’s recommended plays, you’ll also see data from Chirp Golf, a mobile app that features both free-to-play and daily fantasy golf contests where you can win cash and prizes with each round and tournament.

Here we go again! The 2026 PGA Tour season tees off this week at Waialae Country Club on the island of Oahu. It is the Sony Open, serving as golf’s “Opening Day,” and kicking things off as per usual in the Aloha State.

Due to drought-like conditions in west Maui, The Sentry, normally being the very first event of the New Year and the new season, was cancelled back in October. The good news is the Plantation Course at Kapalua has come back around and apparently conditions are favorable once again. The bad news is there are rumblings that the Tour may be getting rid of the two-week Hawaiian swing all together going forward — in an effort to further avoid crossover with the NFL. Here’s to hoping they don’t. I don’t believe I am alone in saying that it is always a wonderful welcome to the new season, fighting off chilly temperatures stateside, and seeing the majestic, crystal-blue ocean waters of Hawaii in the backdrop of the season’s first golf action. If the Masters feels like it always ushers in the spring season, for me, the Hawaii tournaments signal new beginnings, warmth, anticipation, excitement, and that golf is back from its winter hibernation. I’m not sure La Quinta, Calif., and the American Express tournament can hold a candle to that.

But that is a conversation for another day. Golf in Hawaii is indeed upon us in 2026 and it is time to start picking winners once again. We began last season with a winner on Hideki Matsuyama at The Sentry and we finished last year with winners on Tommy Fleetwood at the Tour Championship and Matsuyama again at the Hero World Challenge in December.

Waialae Country Club is a short, narrow, tree-lined, par-70 golf course that favors accuracy over distance. It’s really a polar opposite from what the players typically face the week prior at Kapalua. It reminds me a bit of going from Augusta National to Harbour Town in April. Like Harbour Town, Waialae is a coastal, wall-to-wall Bermudagrass course that can be largely affected by wind and also features smaller than average sized greens. The forecast is calling for typical Hawaiian temperatures in the high 70s this week and winds ranging from 10-20 mph. That is not brutally windy but certainly enough to play a part in this week’s storyline.

As far as skill sets, I looked at Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Putting (Bermudagrass). I looked at Birdies or Better Gained, Scrambling, Driving Accuracy, Greens in Regulation Gained, 400-500 yard Par 4s, and Hole Proximity from 125-175 yards.

Course form is very strong at the Sony Open, meaning players that tend to go well here, do so regularly. Especially when we get a little wind, as we are expecting this week, we see many of the same names and same types of players populate the Sony Open leaderboards. This also extends over into the correlated courses. Shorter, coastal, often windy location, Bermudagrass-based golf courses like the aforementioned Harbour Town, home to the RBC Heritage — Matt Kuchar, Zach Johnson, Webb Simpson — these guys have had a great deal of success at both tournaments. Let’s also add in Sea Island (RSM Classic), Colonial CC (Charles Schwab Challenge), and El Camaleon along the Riviera Maya not far from Cancun, Mexico, which hosted the World Wide Technologies Championship from 2007 to 2022.

Ben Griffin (18-1)

2025 was a coming out party for Griffin, with three wins and a spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup team. One of those wins came at Colonial. He’s also been as high as 12th here at the Sony and has finished eighth and 15th before at the RSM Classic. He ranks especially high in this field over the last 24 rounds in SG: Approach, SG: Putting, Birdies or Better Gained, Scrambling, and on the 400-450 yard Par 4s. He arrives in form as well, having finished 11-9-12-10-2-1 in his last six starts.

Maverick McNealy (30-1)

McNealy earned his first-ever PGA Tour victory in November of 2024 at the RSM Classic at Sea Island. He was not able to defend his title just a few months ago because he welcomed his first child into the world. I actually like this situation quite a bit, often referred to as the “nappy factor.” We have seen golfers achieve great success in the past following the birth of a child as it often provides new perspective, a calming, a happiness, and a renewed focus to provide for the family. McNealy checks a great deal of the traditional boxes too, having finished top 10 here previously, top 20 twice at Colonial, top 5 twice at Harbour Town, and three consecutive top-12 finishes at El Camaleon. 

Chris Kirk (48-1)

The veteran Georgia Bulldog is a classic fit for the Sony Open, having finished top 5 here three times in his career. He has multiple top-10 finishes at each of the correlated courses and has wins at both Sea Island and Colonial. Like Griffin, Kirk also arrives in good form, having closed out the 2025 regular season with finishes of 14th, fifth, and ninth. Over the last 24 rounds, Kirk has been excellent on approach, with his wedge play, on the Par 4s, and ranks 12th in this field for SG: Putting (Bermudagrass). 

Seamus Power (110-1)

I decided to throw a longshot into the mix as well — and maybe one also wants to try this for a top-20 finish or something like that — but Power checks many of the same boxes as the shorter priced players, he just doesn’t have nearly the same pedigree. He has been dealing with nagging injuries. However, as a Las Vegas resident, I have heard that he is feeling completely healthy heading into the new campaign. Power’s last Tour victory came at the Bermuda Championship, another coastal, wind-swept, shorter golf course. This type of track suits his game. He finished 11th in Bermuda two months ago and followed that up with a seventh-place finish at the RSM Classic, where he’s also finished top 5 twice. He’s very accurate off the tee and excellent with the wedges. He’s been as high as third here at the Sony in the past and has top-10 finishes at both Harbour Town and El Camaleon.  

Who Chirp Golf players are picking

This information will be updated as soon as it’s available.