Welcome to our PGA Tour betting tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator, Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and frequent guest 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 @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the weekend at the 2026 US Open.
We’re almost two rounds of golf into Championship Sunday at the 126th US Open at Shinnecock Hills and thankfully, the big story isn’t the questionable conditions of the golf course, as we’ve seen the last two times this major tournament has been played in Southampton, NY.
In our preview article earlier this week, we talked about the USGA needing to be able to cooperate with Mother Nature. The greens are kept slow, deliberate, and receive periodic watering to prevent them from completely wilting and becoming unplayable. We noticed that the fairways are set up on the wide side, giving the USGA some wiggle room as it allows them to be tighter and faster over the weekend. So far, in my eyes, I feel that everything is going very well. We are getting a very good test of golf which is incredibly demanding, as the US Open should be, and I believe it will be very difficult in these last 36 holes.
The only outsider, it seems, is Wyndham Clark who hits his irons well, and for two rounds, he’s been carrying a red putter. The 2023 US Open champion is four goals clear of the seven-under par. 2022 US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, Sam Stevens, Tom Kim, and Xander Schauffele are all tied for second at three under. Collin Morikawa is two years younger. Sam Burns and Justin Thomas are six back at one place and Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are both on par for the tournament. The last two US Open champions, JJ Spaun and Bryson DeChambeau, missed the cut, dropping to four over par.
Five of our seven pre-tournament picks to win the US Open have gone into the weekend. Patrick Reed was one of the week’s top picks, finishing fourth in 2018 and finishing 12th in the Masters and PGA Championship earlier this season. He missed the cut by one shot, and our long-shot pick Daniel Berger didn’t really come close, with a 10-over-par trunk-slammer.
So where do we go from here? We are already in both Schauffele and Fitzpatrick. Tommy Fleetwood may not be out of it at one point, and Kurt Kitayama got himself back into contention today with a round of 68, so he’s now second to take the win.
Here are a few games I can think of for Moving Day in Shinnecock.
Top-10 Finish
Sam Burns (+145)
A major tournament appears to be in Burns’ future and will likely be this week. He threatened at Oakmont last summer, finishing seventh, and was seventh again this year at the Masters. He was fourth just three weeks ago at the Memorial. Burns gets almost twice as many strokes into the field as he approaches and has almost a full hit with the putter. The putter has certainly been a weapon for Burns throughout his career and I wouldn’t be surprised to see his current fitness improve even more. When we identified related golf courses earlier this week that could point to signs of success at Shinnecock, we mentioned Colonial Country Club (Charles Schwab Challenge) and Innisbrook (Valspar Championship). Burns won at Colony in 2022 and won at Valspar in back-to-back seasons.
Maverick McNealy (+270)
McNealy followed up with a round of 72 on Thursday and 68 on Friday to stay even for the weekend and tied for 11th place. He’s getting strokes everywhere but most notably, tee to green, where he’s currently ranked 18th in the field. I also like the fact that his putter was basically neutral, getting a shade less than half a stroke on the course. To me, this means his putter has a lot of room to heat up over the next two days, and McNealy is a very good putter – after all, he grew up on Poa Annua greens at Pebble Beach and has competed at other California courses with similar putting surfaces at Shinnecock, Torrey Pines and Silverado. I believe his tee-to-green game will remain consistent and I feel there is a lot of room for improvement. A top-10 finish seems out of reach for him.
If you picked some of our pre-tournament picks and you’re already at Schauffele and Fitzpatrick, I say stay tight. Otherwise, I prefer Fitzpatrick over Schauffele at this point if you’re looking to enter. Schauffele has been a machine at the US Open and I wouldn’t be surprised to see what he does again, but his biggest success so far has been tied to the putter. The rest of his game needs to improve a bit if he’s going to add a third major championship to his resume.
Matt Fitzpatrick (7-1)
I really like the way the Englishman is going through the first two days. He is ranked sixth in the field in SG: Approach and seventh in SG: Tee To Green. He also gains about a stroke and a half on the field both around the green and the putter. Everything is going very well for Fitzpatrick but nothing is so bad that we could see some regression. He walks slowly. He is coming off second place last week in Canada and has won three times this season. I think he is a strong bet to take his second US Open championship.
