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Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, that includes picks from GOLF.com’s professional prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a daily visitor on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio community dedicated to sports activities and sport betting. You may comply with on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you may learn his picks under for the Black Desert Championship, which will get underway Thursday in Ivins, Utah. Together with Kannon’s beneficial performs, you’ll additionally see knowledge from Chirp Golf, a cellular app that options each Free-To-Play and Every day Fantasy golf contests the place you possibly can win money and prizes with every spherical and event.
First issues first: That was enjoyable, hitting our 120-1 choice on the Sanderson Farms Championship with Kevin Yu grabbing his first-ever Tour win in a playoff over Beau Hossler. However the celebrating is over and it’s time to head west for the third of eight FedEx Cup Fall occasions this season.
The PGA Tour returns to the state of Utah for a full-field championship for the primary time since 1963. The Black Desert Championship on the Black Desert Resort in Ivins, Utah, is making its debut on Tour and its first of 4 scheduled annual appearances through the FedEx Cup Fall swing.
The golf course has been open for lower than two years. It’s a Tom Weiskopf design and was his remaining piece of labor earlier than his passing in 2022. It’s a resort course with extensive fairways and enormous greens. It’s situated in southern Utah, solely a two-hour drive northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The course sits at roughly 3,100 toes above sea stage and is spectacular visually, because the bentgrass fairways and greens weave their means round outcroppings of black lava rock, all surrounded by a red-orange, mountainous desert backdrop.
The course will play as a par 71 at slightly below 7,400 yards. It is going to play shorter than this quantity, nonetheless, with the elevation. It’s the second straight week on Tour wherein we’re seeing little or no star-power within the area, however you possibly can determine will probably be one other week that includes an excessive amount of birdies. A brief, resort-style course with extensive fairways ought to not be an excessive amount of of a take a look at for any Tour professional. It’s possible that Weiskopf made these fairways extensive and these greens massive due to the excessive winds that may typically blow by way of this space. However the forecast this week isn’t calling for something over 15 mph presently, and three of the 4 days are topping out at 10 mph.
Clearly, we have now not seen this golf course earlier than on Tour, so our information of the way it will play is restricted versus a daily Tour cease. With the extensive fairways and elevation, I imagine driving distance and Strokes Gained: Off the Tee will likely be a bonus. I checked out Strokes Gained: Method as iron play could also be an important statistic this week. Discovering these massive greens in regulation shouldn’t be too troublesome however getting it near the opening and making birdies will possible set the tempo. I’ve personally performed one other close by resort course on this southern Utah space with equally massive greens, and that led me to additionally contemplating 3-putt avoidance this week.
So far as correlated programs, I don’t imagine there are wonderful matches however I used different Weiskopf designs that we see that do have some crossover-characteristics: Torrey Pines (North Course), TPC Scottsdale, and TPC Craig Ranch. I additionally used Vidanta Vallarta in Mexico as a consequence of the truth that, like Black Desert, it options very extensive fairways and bigger than common greens.
Now let’s see if we will make it two weeks in a row within the outright winner class.
Daniel Berger (40-1)
Berger has been a specialist all through his profession on Bermudagrass greens and we noticed that floor final week on the Nation Membership of Jackson, the place he completed seventh. He’s additionally fared fairly effectively all through his profession at TPC Scottsdale with finishes of tenth, eleventh, seventh and ninth over time. Berger has additionally completed third and thirteenth at Weiskopf’s TPC Craig Ranch, residence to the Byron Nelson since 2021. We’re on bentgrass this week however I’m going to lean a bit on the Weiskopf connection and belief that his present kind holds for no less than one other week. For a man that was as soon as one of many easiest on the planet earlier than taking practically two years off as a consequence of harm, I’ve been eager to land on him accurately when that elite stage of play lastly resurfaces. During the last 36 rounds, Berger ranks eleventh on this area for SG: Off the Tee and is twentieth for Birdies or Higher Gained.
Andrew Novak (40-1)
Novak took eighth final yr at TPC Scottsdale and has completed eighth and fifteenth on the Mexico Open at Vidanta. He hasn’t missed a lower in practically 5 months and is available in off of a top-25 end final week. He is among the easiest on this area in all of the stats I thought-about this week. Most notably, he ranks thirteenth on this area for SG: Method, ninth for Birdies or Higher Gained, and twelfth for SG: Placing (Bentgrass).
Justin Decrease (55-1)
Decrease is coming off a top-30 end final week and a top-10 end previous to that in Napa on the Procore Championship. He was third earlier this yr on the Mexico Open at Vidanta and recorded a top-25 end on the Byron Nelson. He’s a birdie machine, rating fifth on this area for Birdies or Higher Gained during the last 36 rounds. He’s additionally seventh for SG: Par 4s measuring 400-450 yards. Fascinating to notice, there are two drivable Par 4s on this course however the different 9 common roughly 470 yards in size. Nonetheless, once you issue within the elevation, these should play extra like 400-450 yard Par 4s. Lastly, Decrease is among the easiest putters on this area, rating fifth for SG: Placing (Bentgrass) during the last 36 rounds.
Harry Corridor (55-1)
The Las Vegas resident and former UNLV Insurgent golfer should be very accustomed to the world and the kind of situations he’ll expertise in not too far-off, Ivins, Utah. Corridor ranks very excessive on this area for SG: Method and on the Par 4s measuring 400-450 yards — however he’s elite so far as Birdies or Higher Gained and placing. He comes off his first Tour win three months in the past, profitable the ISCO Championship in Kentucky and recorded a top-10 end final yr at Vidanta Vallarta.