Ryan Gerard looks for his second career win on the PGA Tour when he competes at this week’s Cognizant Classic at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He enters as the favorite at +1600, with Shane Lowry at +1700 from FanDuel Sportsbook. Gerard, 26, has three professional wins, including his lone PGA Tour victory at Barracuda Championship last July. Last week at the Genesis Invitational, Gerard tied for 28th, 12 strokes back.
This year’s Cognizant Classic gets underway at 6:45 a.m. ET on Thursday from the PGA National – Champion Course at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The tournament with a $9.6 million purse will be played on a par-71 course measuring 7,223 yards. Besides Gerard and Lowry, other favorites include Nicolai Hojgaard (+1900), Rasmus Hojgaard (+2200), Michael Thorbjornsen (+2200) and Keith Mitchell (+2700). Joe Highsmith is the defending tournament champion, winning the 2025 event by two strokes over Jacob Bridgeman and J.J. Spaun. Highsmith is +15000 this year in the PGA odds.
Before making any 2026 Cognizant Classic picks, you need to see the 2026 PGA Cognizant Classic predictions and best bets from golf expert Brady Kannon.
Kannon is an elite golfing betting handicapper with more than 30 years of experience in the industry. He’s hit eight major outright winners since 2013, and hit six PGA winners, including 110-1 longshot Harris English at the Farmers Insurance Open, in 2025. In the fall of 2022, he hit outright winners in three consecutive weeks: Russell Henley (40-1), Tony Finau (18-1) and Adam Svensson (150-1).
Last season, he hit Hideki Matsuyama (22-1), Harris English (110-1), Ludvig Aberg (25-1), Ben Griffin/Andrew Novak (25-1) in New Orleans, Tommy Fleetwood at the Tour Championship (14-1) and Hideki Matsuyama (20-1) at the Hero World Challenge. Additionally, he’s 25-17-4 on head-to-head bets since joining SportsLine.
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Now, Kannon has focused his attention on the 2026 Cognizant Classic field and locked in his best bets sleepers and golfers to avoid. You can only see them here.
Top 2026 Cognizant Classic expert picks
One of Kannon’s 2026 Cognizant Classic predictions: He’s completely fading Gerard, the favorite, avoiding him in outright bets and advises to go against him in head-to-head bets as well.
“We saw a 26-year old born in the latter half of 1999 win last week at Riviera but I am not banking on yet another ‘Party like it’s 1999’ happening again for a second straight 26-year old this week in Palm Beach Gardens,” Kannon told SportsLine. “Gerard is a very good player who notched his first PGA Tour win in his rookie year last season. He began this year red-hot, with two straight runner-up finishes but now in this watered-down field, he is at the very top of the board as the betting favorite — being priced the same if not lower than Shane Lowry. It is a very different world, going from 30-40-50-to-1 longshot to lone favorite and now being “expected” to win the golf tournament.” See who Kannon is backing at SportsLine.
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How to make 2026 PGA Cognizant Classic picks
Kannon has revealed his best bets, and his top outright pick is a surprising golfer going off at higher than 45-1. He’s a perfect course fit, and anyone who backs him could hit it big. You can only see who it is at SportsLine.
What are the best bets for the 2026 PGA Cognizant Classic, and which overlooked golfer shoulder you target? Check out the 2026 PGA Cognizant Classic odds below, then visit SportsLine to see Brady Kannon’s top picks for the 2026 PGA Cognizant Classic, all from the expert who nailed four outright winners last season.
2026 PGA Cognizant Classic odds, field
See the full PGA Cognizant Classic picks, best bets and predictions here.
(odds from FanDuel and subject to change)
Ryan Gerard +1600
Shane Lowry +1700
Nicolai Højgaard +1900
Rasmus Højgaard +2200
Michael Thorbjornsen +2200
Keith Mitchell +2700
Daniel Berger +2700
Brooks Koepka +3000
Aaron Rai +3300
Alex Smalley +3300
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen +3300
Davis Thompson +3300
Will Zalatoris +3500
Max McGreevy +3500
Richard Hoey +4000
Johnny Keefer +4000
Christiaan Bezuidenhout +4000
Haotong Li +4000
Thorbjørn Olesen +4000
Nico Echavarria +4000
Max Homa +4500
Kristoffer Reitan +4500
Michael Brennan +4500
Jordan Smith +4500
Mac Meissner +4500
Mackenzie Hughes +4500
Chris Kirk +4500
Sami Valimaki +5000
John Parry +5500
Tom Kim +5500
Stephan Jaeger +5500
Ricky Castillo +5500
Seamus Power +6000
Garrick Higgo +6000
Matt Wallace +6000
Doug Ghim +7000
Kris Ventura +7000
Jesper Svensson +7000
Kevin Yu +7000
Zecheng Dou +7500
Austin Eckroat +7500
S.H. Kim +7500
Joel Dahmen +7500
Kevin Roy +7500
Eric Cole +7500
Gary Woodland +7500
David Ford +8000
Dan Brown +8000
Billy Horschel +8000
Adrien Dumont de Chassart +8000
Dylan Wu +8000
Luke Clanton +8000
Emiliano Grill +8000
Vince Whaley +8000
David Lipsky +10000
Mark Hubbard +10000
Chandler Blanchet +10000
Davis Riley +10000
Keita Nakajima +10000
Sudarshan Yellamaraju +10000
Takumi Kanaya +10000
Beau Hossler +10000
Taylor Moore +10000
Austin Smotherman +10000
Lee Hodges +10000
Erik van Rooyen +10000
Matt Kuchar +10000
Karl Vilips +10000
Isaiah Salinda +10000
Blades Brown +10000
Steven Fisk +10000
Andrew Putnam +10000
Matti Schmid +10000
Chad Ramey +10000
Adrien Saddier +10000
Sam Ryder +10000
Adam Hadwin +10000
Jackson Suber +10000
Chan Kim +10000