6 choose our favorite expert

Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour betting tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator, Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and frequent 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 @LasVegasGolferand you can read his picks below for the 2026 Texas Children’s Houston Open, which starts Thursday.

We wrapped up the Florida Swing with our first winner of the season in Matt Fitzpatrick. Let’s see if we can continue our winning ways over the next two weeks deep in the heart of Texas – and of course, in Augusta, Ga., as the first major tournament of the year approaches.

Moving on to the Lone Star State is the Texas Children’s Houston Open and Memorial Park Golf Course for the first of two finals before the Masters. Min Woo Lee is your defending champion here in Houston and No. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who has finished second here three times, was scheduled to play in the event for the seventh time in a row. As of Tuesday morning, Scheffler resigned, citing family reasons. He did not commit to the competition until the last minute last Friday and ended up dropping out as it was rumored that the Schefflers are expecting a second child. It remains to be seen if Scheffler will play next week at the Valero Texas Open or if we won’t see him again until Masters week, which starts on Monday, April 6.

It changes the odds board significantly where Scheffler was once a prohibitive favorite at around +300 to now be a non-starter. It’s unfortunate that we don’t get to see Scheffler play this week and secondly, prices are dropping for everyone who is still scheduled to play. The good news is that in theory, Scheffler’s absence gives our picks the best chance to win. We will see.

Memorial Park is the longest course at nearly 7,500 yards and is only par 70. The highways are very wide by tourist standards and the tolls are very low and non-punitive. Green plants are large and show a great deal of repulsion. It’s a bomb track and he’s the one we’ve seen win here since we moved to this golf course six seasons ago. Tom Doak redesigned the course with Brooks Koepka serving as Player Coordinator. Koepka missed the cut here in 2021 but finished fifth in 2020. He is on the field this week after ending a back-to-back at Florida on 9-13-18.

Finding points around Memorial Park can be very difficult. Last year was heavily affected by rain and soft conditions with Lee reaching 20 under par. In the previous four editions, the average winning score was less than 13 under. This week’s Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook winning score proposal betting is Under/Over 264.5, which means 15.5 under the category.

I’m looking at Driving Distance this week, Strokes Gained: Ball Hitting, 450-500 yard Par 4s, Hole Proximity from 200+ yards, Scrambling, Bogey Avoidance, and Strokes Gained: Putting (Bermudagrass). One may find indications that these plants are dominated by Poa Trivialis but with the continued hot temperatures in the Southwest, this once-quiet Bermuda is waking up ahead of schedule and should be prominent in the turf equation this week in Houston.

We realized that this is a long, difficult golf course with drivers and so, I went that way until I got to the par courses. I used Torrey Pines (Farmers Insurance Open), Quail Hollow Club (Truist Championship), Country Club of Jackson (Sanderson Farms), and Vidanta Vallarta (Mexico Open).

With the Scheffler WD, I will use the current values ​​for my selection ​​​​​​​​​rather than what I found when I made my games.

Jake Knapp (20-1)

It was a missed cut in the Players Championship last time we saw Knapp but before that, he started the season with 11-5-8-8-6, and now he’s coming to a golf course that I believe really suits his game – long and requires good contact on the greens. He didn’t have a 27 here last year but has two top-5 finishes at Torrey Pines and a 2024 win at Vidanta Vallarta. Knapp is ranked eighth on Tour in Driving Distance, 65th in SG: Approach, second in SG: Putting, and fourth in Scrambling. I think he will be the favorite this week but I can’t ignore what we all see and how well he should fit this course in Houston.

Nicolai Hojgaard (25-1)

Like Knapp, Hojgaard is one of the longest hitters in the game and is off to a good start to the season with the putter. He finished second at Torrey Pines in 2024 and was eighth last year in Mexico. In addition to driving and putting, Hojgaard ranks 10th on Tour in Scrambling, 28th in Hole Proximity from 200+ yards, and 18th in Bogey Avoidance.

Rickie Fowler (30-1)

We tested Fowler a few weeks ago at TPC Sawgrass where he finished 42nd. He will miss the rest of the season and is now ranked 61st in the OWGR. This will be the last event in which he can break into the top 50 to qualify for The Masters. Fowler has a top-10 finish at Torrey Pines, was 16th last year at the Sanderson Farms Championship, and was huge at Quail Hollow Club with a top-10 finish and a win in 2012. Fowler is ranked 18th this season on Tour in Ball Striking, ninth in SG: Putting, 17th in Avo in Scrambling4 Points.

Ryan Gerard (33-1)

Gerard started in 2026 which saw him finish the race in two consecutive weeks. The spotlight quickly grew and became incredibly bright as his success was hard to miss. Things have cooled off for a minute for Gerard now and it feels like it might be the right time to go back. After those two second-place finishes, he took 11th at Torrey Pines, where he was 15 last year. He tied for 17th in Mexico, was eighth at last year’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, and finished ninth here in Houston last season in his first tour. Gerard is ranked 15th on the Tour in Ball Striking and sixth in SG: Approach.

Jordan Smith (65-1)

The Englishman is now working full time on the PGA Tour after years of success on the DP World Tour. He has missed just one cut in seven starts this season, finishing 16th at Phoenix last month and third at Valspar last month. In that field, on the most difficult golf course, Smith ranked fourth in SG: Off the Tee, 13th in approach, 12th in Driving Distance, and was No. 1 in Greens in Regulation. He is ranked second on the Tour in Ball Striking behind only Collin Morikawa.

Patrick Rodgers (80-1)

A journeyman and Stanford Cardinal still looking for his first win on Tour, Rodgers has always been a great putt player, and we saw that play all the way to Quail Hollow in 2015, a top-20 finish at the Country Club of Jackson, a sixth-place finish and a second-place finish at 10th-Vanares with a top-10 finish at the Vidare Va10 in Vidare and a top-four finish at the Vida 10. About all that’s missing is that first win. Rodgers has not started in nine games this season. He was 16 here in Houston last year.