The PGA Tour sticks around the Lone Star State another week for the 2026 Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. This is the 80th renewal at Colonial and the longest-running event on TOUR.
Unfortunately, the field strength doesn’t match the prestige of winning the plaid jacket at Colonial. There is only one top-10 guy in the Official World Golf Rankings playing in this week’s Charles Schwab: 2025 U.S. Open champion, J.J. Spaun.
Regardless, we are entering the dog days of summer, where there are fewer things to bet on, making golf all the more important to degenerates like myself.
With that in mind, here are my five outrights for the Charles Schwab with a few placement bets as insurance. (The “u” stands for “unit,” aka, how much I’m staking on the bet.)
The following odds are based on my previous bets on the golfers listed below. Subject to change.
🇺🇸 Justin Thomas +2500 at DraftKings (0.8u) and top-10 with ties +265 (1u) at Kalshi
🇺🇸 Alex Smalley +3500 at DraftKings (0.57u) and top-20 with ties +152 (1u) at Kalshi
🇺🇸 Gary Woodland +5700 (0.35u) and top-20 with ties +252 (0.5u) both at Kalshi
🇺🇸 Max Greyserman +6100 at DraftKings (0.33u)
🇰🇷 Tom Kim +8374 at Kalshi (0.24u)
🇺🇸 Austin Eckroat +11527 at Kalshi (0.17u)
JT’s Happy Places are crossover courses to Colonial: Harbour Town, Innisbrook, Southern Hills, Pebble Beach, TPC Sawgrass and Accordia Narashino.
Thomas won the 2025 RBC Heritage at Harbour Town, the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills and THE PLAYERS Championship in 2021 at TPC Sawgrass. He has four top-10s in the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook, a T6 at Pebble Beach two years ago and a T2 in the 2024 ZOZO Championship at Accordia.
Meanwhile, JT is trending up, with a T23 in the Cadillac Championship, 13th at the Truist Championship and T4 at the PGA Championship in his last three starts. Those are two signature events and a major.
Since it’s easy to chip and score around the greens at Colonial, JT’s world-class short-game should suit him well here. Plus, there are a lot of short wedge shots at this place and JT is great with scoring clubs.
Ultimately, given his ceiling, pedigree, lead-in form and course fit, the 16-time PGA TOUR winner should be closer to the first- or second-betting favorite, hence the value at +2500, down to +2000.
Credit to Steve Bamford on the Golf Betting System Podcast for pointing this out, but Smalley is giving off “Ben Griffin vibes.” Griffin got his first solo PGA TOUR win at last year’s Charles Schwab and showed similar trending form as Smalley this year.
Griffin won the 2025 Zurich Classic team event, then finished T8 at the PGA Championship a few weeks later, before winning the Charles Schwab. Smalley finished T2 at this year’s Zurich, T7 at the Cadillac, T17 at the Truist and T2 at the PGA Championship in his last outing.
Per DataGolf.com, he has the second-most total strokes gained in this field, behind the betting favorite, Ludvig Åberg, over the last five tournaments. Smalley has the most strokes gained in this field compared to his baseline expectation.
Smalley’s weak short-game has prevented him from getting his first win on TOUR. However, he has gained strokes with his putter in five consecutive starts, and again, it’s easy to get up and down around the greens at Colonial.
We are getting a good number for Woodland because Colonial is supposedly a bad course fit, and he is still dealing with complications from a brain tumor that nearly ended his career. Because of this, Woodland’s Texas Children’s Houston Open in March is one of the best stories on the PGA TOUR this season.
Furthermore, he has three other top-20 finishes in his last eight starts, including a T14 at the Valspar Championship at another tough course. Woodland missed the cut at the 2026 PGA Championship in his last start because he was a mess on the greens.
Yet, Woodland struck the ball well at the PGA Championship and has gained strokes putting in four of his five visits to Colonial: T11 last year, T45 in 2024, missed cut in 2022, T14 in 2021 and ninth in 2020.
Also, it’s difficult to separate yourself from the field off the tee at Colonial. But if anyone can, it is Woodland, who ranks fourth in this field for Strokes Gained: OTT this season, per Betsperts Golf.
Lastly, Colonial has small greens and Woodland won the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, which has some of the smallest greens on TOUR.
The Duke Blue Devil gained a career-best 11.2 strokes with his irons last week in THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson, where he was T9, and his third-best iron performance was at last year’s Charles Schwab while finishing T22.
Greyserman has gained strokes on approach vs. the field in five straight starts, according to DataGolf.com, and has finished better in each event, including a T14 at the PGA Championship.
He was the runner-up in the 2024 Wyndham Championship and finished T2 at the ZOZO later that fall, both at crossover courses to Colonial.
Finally, his betting odds at Bookmaker, which is a sharp offshore oddsmaker, are shorter than the legal U.S. sportsbooks. If a golfer’s odds are shorter at Bookmaker, it usually means he is taking sharp action.
I’m going back to the well with Tom, even though he finished T54 at the Byron Nelson last week when I bet him and he never sniffed contention. Nonetheless, Kim ranks fourth in my model at Bet The Number and fifth at Betsperts Golf.
The South Korean comes in with good form, ranking eighth in this field for Strokes Gained (SG): Tee-to-Green over his last 24 rounds. Colonial is a tough course, where golfers could be out of position often, and Kim ranks 15th in this field in scrambling this season.
Over his last 28 rounds, Kim ranks fourth in this field for SG: Approach. He is sixth in proximity to the hole on approach shots from 125-175 yards, per Bet The Number, and most of the approach shots at Colonial come from 125-175 yards.
The Oklahoma State alum was a four-time All-American in college and has two PGA TOUR wins at only 27 years old. He is starting to find some form with four straight made cuts, including two top-20s: T10 at the Valero Texas Open and T19 at the Myrtle Beach Classic.
Eckroat is another good ball-striker with a bad short-game. But he has gained strokes around the greens over his last four tournaments, and with the putter in three of those events. Eckroat is fourth on TOUR this year in proximity to the hole on approach shots from 125-150 yards and fourth from 150-175 yards.
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I’m using Woodland here since I burned the top-three betting favorites, Åberg, Russell Henley and JT, and Smalley will be more popular because of trending form and course fit. Honestly, though, I’m doing so poorly this season that I should omit this from my PGA TOUR best bets articles.
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