Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert forecaster Brady Kannon. An experienced golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and frequent guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network dedicated to sports and sports betting, as well as a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow Brady on Twitter: @LasVegasGolferyou can read below his picks for the 2025 Hero World Challenge, which takes place in the Bahamas on Thursday. In addition to the dramas recommended by Guanyin, you can also see the following data: Chirp Golf, a mobile app offering free tournaments and daily fantasy golf tournaments You can win cash and prizes in every round and tournament.
As the calendar turns to December and winter temperatures are approaching, who wouldn’t want to attend Tiger’s golf tournament in the Bahamas? If you happen to be one of the lucky 20 players in the Hero World Challenge taking place in Albany this week, it’s going to be a pretty good gig.
This is our last column for 2025. Next up is the Sony Open in mid-January, and the 2026 PGA Tour season is about to kick off. Normally, our target would be Kapalua, Maui, but due to drought in northwest Maui, the 2026 Sentinel program has been canceled. Interestingly, I played the Plantation Course at Kapalua last summer and was warned of dry weather. In the days leading up to our reservation we had some typical afternoon mist, which is common in Hawaii, and I barely noticed anything drought-like. Fast forward to the end of October, and it was announced that the PGA Tour event, which began in 1999, would not be held in 2026. What a disappointment. Mother Nature has dealt some harsh blows to Maui in recent years.
Heading to the Caribbean/Atlantic, where the Tour has been going for a few weeks. Adam Schenk won the Bermuda Championship about a month ago, and then Sami Valimaki, back in the United States, won the RSM Classic before the Thanksgiving break. Now we’re going on a short trip to the Bahamas off the southern tip of Florida, and then we’ll have about six weeks of rest.
Albany Resort is located on New Providence Island in the Bahamas, about 20 minutes from Nassau. The championship golf course is a par 72 and stretches for just over 7,300 yards. This Ernie Els-designed course opened in 2010 and has hosted the event since 2015. A two-time Open champion, Els compared the course to similar designs at the Open. He said cheering reminded him of Australia’s sand strip courses.
The following are the previous winners of the Hero World Challenge:
2024 – Scotty Scheffler
2023 – Scotty Scheffler
2022 – Viktor Hovland
2021 – Victor Hovland
2019 – Henrik Stenson
2018 – Jon Rahm
2017 – Ricky Fowler
2016 – Hideki Matsuyama
2015 – Bubba Watson
The golf course is a relatively flat, links-style golf course with sand, water hazards and dunes bordered by narrow fairways. The green is on the smaller side and the turf is all bermudagrass. Els’ reference to a British Open-type design makes sense when looking at the list of past winners, as there are plenty of Open Championship successes on that list. In terms of skill sets, Total Driving and Hitting stand out to me, and the success of the WM Phoenix Open comes to mind as well, with multiple past champions also lifting trophies in Albany.
The golf course has a unique layout, with 5 par 5 holes, 5 par 3 holes and 8 par 4 holes. In addition to total strokes and strokes taken, I looked at five-stroke scores, approach scores, putting scores (Bermuda grass), crawl and hole approach from 175 yards to over 200 yards.
As for related courses, we have already mentioned the connection between design and open rotation courses. Specifically, I looked at Royal Troon, Royal Liverpool and Royal Portrush. At home, I watched TPC Scottsdale, where they compete in the aforementioned WM Phoenix Open, TPC Craig Ranch (Byron Nelson), and TPC Southwind (FedEx St. Jude).
In this column, 2025 is shaping up to be a solid year. We had a lot of close calls and a few wins. Matsuyama started this back in January in Kapalua. We also found the winner’s circle at Torrey Pines for the Farmers Insurance Open and Genesis Invitational. We hit Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin right in New Orleans and ended the season with Tommy Fleetwood at the Tour Championship. Most recently, we helped Europe win the Ryder Cup by a score of 1-3. We’ve rightly followed Scotty Scheffler each of the last two years at the Hero World Challenge. Let’s see if we – and he – can get a hat trick.
Scotty Scheffler (+140)
It’s truly something to see at this price and the next closest competitor is around 12-1. Two years ago, I was about 4-1 with Scheffler. Last year the number was +225. My feeling is that he really should be worth less than money, as crazy as that is. Over the past 24 rounds, for every stat I looked at this week, Scheffler is either No. 1 or No. 2 in that area except SG: Putting (Bermuda Grass), where he is No. 5. Incidentally, he has won twice at Royal Portrush, TPC Craig Ranch and TPC Scottsdale.
Hideki Matsuyama(+1800)
Matsuyama basically came in second place in all of my obstacles. He joins Scheffler on holes ranging from 175 yards to over 200 yards, and he’s one of the best scramblers in the world. He won here in 2016, at TPC Southwind in 2024, and, like Scheffler, has won twice in Phoenix. Matsuyama finished 16th at Royal Portrush last summer, 13th at Royal Liverpool in 2023 and 14th at Royal Birkdale in 2017, with Els specifically mentioning the latter when he said Albany reminded him of the Open’s design.
Finally, thank you to all my readers for another wonderful year. Happy holidays and see you in Waiaire in January.
