RSM Classic 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 2025 RSM Classic, which kicks off Thursday in St. Simons Island, Georgia. In addition to Kannon’s recommended plays, you’ll also see data 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.

If we had tried to reach the top 100 of the FedEx Cup standings, we probably would have achieved our goal. We had second place in Utah, fourth and eighth place in Cabo San Lucas, and two third places last week in Bermuda. While our 2026 Tour card would certainly be safe, getting paid for that ever-elusive outright winner hardly remains out of our reach.

On to St. Simons Island and “Glory’s Last Shot.”

The RSM Classic at Sea Island is the final stop of the 2025 FedEx Cup Fall and the final chance for players to crack the top 100 of the standings, securing their full PGA Tour status for 2026. This is essentially a block party for some of the players in this week’s field, as they live in the immediate or nearby area or regularly practice at Sea Island’s facilities.

These are two difficult situations to hinder. Do we want to land on a player who is all the way into the top 100 in the bubble, assuming he will have enough motivation to play well this week? Or is that a lot of pressure to deal with? Can someone simply “flip a switch” and suddenly play at a higher level because of what is at stake? Is this just a few days of golf for locals, close to home, on a course they are very familiar with?

Personally, I haven’t paid much attention to any of these situations. I’m fortunate to have played the Seaside Course at Sea Island a few years ago and have a feel for what it takes, regardless of one’s ranking or hometown. It’s a shorter course, a par 70, just a hair over 7,000 yards. Three of the four rounds are played on this side, while one round for each player takes place on Thursday or Friday on the Plantation Course, the easier of the two, a short par 72, further inland, away from the coast.

The main defense here is the wind that often picks up on the Atlantic coast, but this week’s forecast doesn’t expect much more than 10 miles per hour on any of the four days. Golf oddsmaker Jeff Sherman of the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas has set the winning score bet at Under/Over 260.5, which means 21.5 under par.

Skill-wise, it’s all about finding the right spot on these relatively wide fairways, setting up a good approach to these larger-than-average greens, and making a few putts in what should be another Fall Swing birdie fest. Approach play from 100-175 yards will be key. Accuracy off the tee, proximity to the hole from this distance and scoring on the 12 par 4s will be most important in my opinion.

I feel like the connectivity with the correlated courses is strong this week. Shorter coastal courses in Bermuda. Courses where accuracy trumps distance, hitting greens according to the rules and dealing with potentially windy conditions. We tend to see a lot of the same names appear on the leaderboards across all of these courses. I specifically looked at Sedgefield Country Club (Wyndham Championship), Waialae CC (Sony Open), Colonial CC (Charles Schwab Challenge), Harbor Town (RBC Heritage), Port Royal (Bermuda Championship) and Pebble Beach.

Here’s to the golf gods shining on us this week and finding that winner amid many recent close calls. I stayed away from the favorites this week because 50-1 is the shortest price I’ve played.

Nico Echavarria (50-1)

Already a two-time winner on Tour in his young career, Echavarria is one of the very best putters in this field and recently finished second at the Sony Open and here at Sea Island in 2024. He is very stable in all the metrics I have considered and ranks 35th in Greens in Regulation Gained over the last 24 rounds. In two of his last three starts he finished fourteenth and ninth.

Seamus Power (65-1)

The Irishman is one of those players currently on the outside, sitting 130th in the FedEx Cup standings. He has scored seven times in a row and finished 11th last week in Bermuda, a tournament he will win in 2022. I love the short approach game for Power as he is top 5 in this area for Hole Proximity from 100-150 yards. He finished in the top 5 twice here, was third at Colonial, sixth and twelfth at Harbor Town, and ninth, fifteenth and seventeenth at Pebble Beach.

Mac Meissner (70-1)

It’s been a nice run for the young player from nearby Charleston, SC, as he hasn’t missed a cut since July. During that period, he finished second at the Wyndham Championship in August and was 12th there in 2024. He also had a fifth-place finish at Colonial and a 21st at the Sony Open. His approach play is excellent, ranking sixth in this field for SG: Approach over the last 24 rounds, third in Greens in Regulation Gained and fifth in Hole Proximity from 125-150 yards.

Stephan Jaeger (100-1)

Maybe it’s the coastal connection, as there isn’t much other similarity between Sea Island and Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, but interestingly the last two RSM Classic winners, Maverick McNealy and Ludvig Aberg, finished 2-1 respectively at the Genesis Invitational earlier this season when it was held in Torrey. Jaeger is also a guy who has done very well at Torrey Pines – and he has done so at some of the associated courses this week. He has been in the top 30 twice here at Sea Island, top 20 at Harbor Town and Bermuda, top 15 at the Wyndham, and was third at the Sony Open in early 2025. Over the last 24 rounds he is in the top 40 in this field for better on the Par 4s, in Hole Proximity from 100-175 yards, and for SG: Putting (Bermudagrass).

Kris Ventura (100-1)

Ventura is ranked 121st in the standings and is another player well on his way to breaking into the top 100. He has finished 11-21-27-34 in his last four FedEx Cup Fall events and was fourth at Torrey Pines earlier this season. He makes a number of birdies, hits the greens in regulation, is an excellent putter and ranks in the top-45 in the field for Hole Proximity from 100-175 yards. Ventura finished 16th at Colonial in May of this season.

Lee Hodges (105-1)

Hodges, a player at Alabama, is very familiar with golf in this part of the country and with Bermudagrass. He is also right on the border of the FedEx Cup standings, sitting in 103rd place at this event. Last year he finished fifth here and in 2024 he also finished twelfth at the Charles Schwab. Earlier this season, Hodges finished tenth at the Sony Open. He is very accurate off the tee, hits the greens in regulation and over the last 24 rounds, Hodges is in the top 25 in this area for Hole Proximity from 100-175 yards.

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