Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, where we share our favorite bets for the upcoming action. This time around, it’s the Fortinet Championship, which gets underway Thursday at Silverado Resort, in Napa, Calif. Along with our recommended plays, you’ll also see data from Chirp, a free-to-play mobile platform that features a range of games with enticing prizes, giving fans all kinds of ways to engage in the action without risking any money.
It’s almost fall in Napa, harvest season. Talk about a good time to make some picks.
The Fortinet Championship, at Silverado Resort, marks the start of the 2023 FedEx Cup fall season, a seven-event run that gives players outside the top-50 bubble a chance to rack up FedEx Cup points that might help that gain access to big events next year.
That’s just one of several subplots.
Justin Thomas is in the field, a Ryder Cup captain’s pick on a quest to find his form before the big showdown in Rome. Max Homa is on hand, too, the two-time defending champ looking for three-peat.
He’s the current betting favorite, followed on the board by Thomas, Sahith Theegala, Stephan Jaegar and Cam Davis.
Over the course of the fall season, $56.6 million in prize money will be doled out to the players.
Might as well make a little haul of our own.
Mark Hubbard to win, +5,000
This is close to a home game for the California native, who has had something of a coming-out this year, with five top 10s and a FedEx run that took him all the way to the Tour Championship. At last year’s Fortinet, Hubbard finished T21, a showing that could have easily been stronger had it not been for a slight Sunday stumble. Hubbard is still looking for his first Tour win. At these fairly robust odds, we’ll place some shekels on the prospect that he gets it done.
Matt Kuchar to win, +6,000
Though it’s been four years since Kuchar’s last win on Tour, the Human ATM keeps cashing in, banking $2.8 million so far this season, with four top 10s and eight top 25s in 24 appearances. At 45, Kuchar, more than ever, needs to pick his spots, and Silverado is a position player’s course, nicely suited to Kuchar’s precise, pea-shooter game.
Max Homa, Cam Davis and Justin Thomas to all make the cut. -125
It can be hard to pull the trigger when you’re risking juice (in this case, $125 to win $100), but this option is too tempting to resist. Homa’s been here, done that twice already. He’s the two-time defending champ. Davis is coming off a strong, steady summer. And Thomas is that’s sports-world cliche: a man on a mission to reclaim his game. Against a less-than-Hall-of-Fame field, we’re willing to wager that all three members of this trio will be around for the weekend.
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