Farmers Insurance Open Betting Guide: 6 picks our betting expert loves this week

Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour betting tips column, featuring tips from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator, Brady Kannon. A veteran golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and regular 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 Farmers Insurance Open, which kicks off Thursday in La Jolla, California. In addition to Kannon’s featured plays, you will also see promos from Chirp Golf, a mobile app that offers both free-to-play and daily fantasy golf competitions where you can win money and prizes at every round and tournament.

Preseason is over and it will be nothing but big-boy golf on the PGA Tour for the next few months as the battle for the first major championship of the season heats up. Resort golf and birdie festivities give way to Torrey Pines, a 7,765-yard par-72 beast and two-time US Open venue perched high above the Pacific coast in beautiful La Jolla, California.

It’s the 2026 edition of the Farmers Insurance Open and this year’s headliner is one Brooks Koepka, who is making his first PGA Tour appearance since announcing his departure from the LIV circuit just over a month ago. The five-time major champion has missed the cut here at Torrey Pines in his last three outings, although he did finish fourth here in 2021 when the South Course hosted the US Open.

The South Course will be responsible for three of the four rounds played this week. Each player plays the North Course once before the 36-hole cut on Friday afternoon. I always felt that Total Driving was one of the most important skills on this golf course. Obviously it’s a very long course and the fairways are also narrow and the rough paths are thick, so riding long and straight is a big factor this week. The greens are Poa Annua, a spongy, typically coastal surface that many players struggle with when putting. Seven of the par 4s on the South Course measure over 450 yards and many of the approach shots on this course will come from 200 yards or more. The lack of greens in regulation will be common with those types of approach issues and so scrambling becomes another key factor in gathering some of the most crucial skills this week.

The connection between Torrey Pines and some of this week’s correlated courses is strong. A few of my favorites are Quail Hollow Club, home of the Truist Championship, formerly the Wells Fargo – and also the site of last year’s PGA Championship (won by a man named Scheffler). And the Country Club of Jackson, home of the Sanderson Farms Championship. We see many of the same names appearing in the rankings between these three tournament locations. I also used two former US Open venues, Los Angeles Country Club and Winged Foot. Finally, I added Corales Golf Club where they play the Puntacana Championship. Both Torrey Pines and Corales are particularly long coastal golf courses with atypical putting surfaces.

Last season we outscored Harris English 110-1 here at the Farmers. I’m going to try to make another triple figure bomb this year with a few on this week’s card.

Taylor Pendrith (40-1)

The big Canadian has regularly topped the leaderboard at Torrey Pines in recent years. He has never missed a cut in four attempts here and has finished in seventh, ninth and sixteenth places. He was 10th and fifth at Quail Hollow, 11th at Corales and finished 23rd at Winged Foot at the 2020 US Open. Over the past 24 rounds, Pendrith ranks 18th in this field for driving distance, 48th for scrambling and 36th for strokes gained: putting (Poa Annua). He is also off to a good start this season, just like two weeks ago in Hawaii where Pendrith finished sixth.

Keegan Bradley (46-1)

Total Driving has been a hallmark of the 2025 US Ryder Cup team captain since he arrived on Tour. Last season he finished 31st on the track in that category. Bradley has finished in the top 10 three times in his career here at Torrey Pines and also in the top 20 three times. Last season he finished eighth at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow and was top 5 twice at Sanderson Farms. Over the past 24 rounds, Bradley ranks 30th in the field for scrambling and 24th for bogey avoidance.

Nicolai Hojgaard (50-1)

It was two years ago that I picked Hojgaard to win here and he finished second. He also finished second at Corales and was 41st at Quail Hollow in last year’s PGA Championship. Last week Hojgaard finished fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour, so I like the form coming in. Over the past 24 rounds, he ranks 37th in this field for SG: Putting (Poa Annua), 11th for SG: Approach, eighth for Driving Distance and 28th in Hole Proximity from 200+ yards.

Patrick Rodgers (65-1)

I can’t remember if I’ve ever picked Rodgers to win before and now I’m going with him for the second time in as many weeks. He is an excellent driver of the golf ball and ranked 33rd on Tour in Total Driving last season. He comes in this week at 10th in this field for SG: Off the Tee and 12th for SG: Approach. He finished in the top 9 here four times, if you count his third-place finish last year at the Genesis Invitational, which was moved to this course. Rodgers has finished second at Quail Hollow, placed in the top 20 twice at Sanderson Farms and has even finished 11th at Corales Puntacana.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout (105-1)

And here come the triple digits. Will we see two longshots in a row at Torrey Pines? Bezuidenhout is not a big hitter, but he is very accurate off the tee and ranks 18th in this field over the last 24 rounds for SG: Approach – where he is also fifth on the 450-500 yard Par 4s and seventh ahead of Bogey Avoiding. Bezuidenhout has finished a whopping 16th at Quail Hollow and has finished sixth twice at Sanderson Farms. He is ranked 50th in this field for SG: Putting (Poa Annua) and has had very solid results in the past, both here at Torrey Pines and at Pebble Beach, which also features a pure Poa Annua putting surface.

Andreas Novak (108-1)

This newcomer to the PGA Tour finished third and 13th at the Farmers Insurance Open here last season and three weeks later at the Genesis Invitational. Shortly afterwards, he achieved his first Tour victory in the team event at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Novak finished strong last season with two top-10 finishes at FedEx St. Jude and in his hometown at the RSM Classic on Sea Island. He ranks 20th in this field for Hole Proximity over 200 yards over the past 24 rounds and is an excellent putter, as evidenced on the Poa Annua surface at Torrey Pines and at Pebble Beach, where he finished 13th last season. I have a feeling a solo win for the young man is coming in 2026.