2026 BMW Championship Expert Picks: Betting Patrick Cantlay, Really?
Written by: Justin Carlucci
Published: Tue Aug 18, 2026, 8:00 am ET
Read Time: 10 minutes
golf
The FedExCup Playoffs have reached the BMW Championship, and we are down to the final 50 golfers. The BMW Championship odds board is loaded with elite names, but it is also one of the tougher weeks of the year to find a number worth betting. This is where I'm looking for value with my BMW Championship expert picks rather than forcing action on a bunch of players priced at 20/1 or shorter.
The playoffs can sometimes feel a little strange. The majors understandably take most of the steam, and the PGA TOUR season is winding down. Still, there are two tournaments left and plenty of golf to bet.
Scottie Scheffler straight-up dog-walked everyone at the St. Jude last week. Before we move on to the top golf bets for the BMW, check out the action at our top online sportsbooks.
2026 BMW Championship Expert Picks & Odds (Aug. 20)
The BMW Championship odds are extremely short at the top, so I'm not betting huge. My golf picks this week are built around a small card of players who either pop in my model, have a strong event profile, or possess the length and ball-striking upside to make noise in a 50-player field.
Notable BMW Championship odds via Lucky Rebel:
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Scottie Scheffler +280
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Rory McIlroy +1600
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Sam Burns +1600
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Ludvig Åberg +1800
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Tommy Fleetwood +1800
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Cameron Young +2000
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Xander Schauffele +2000
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Matt Fitzpatrick +2200
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Hideki Matsuyama +2500
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Si Woo Kim +2500
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Viktor Hovland +2500
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Chris Gotterup +3000
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Patrick Cantlay +3000
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Wyndham Clark +3000
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Collin Morikawa +3500
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Jake Knapp +4000
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Justin Thomas +4000
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Russell Henley +4000
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Tom Kim +4000
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Maverick McNealy +4500
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Kurt Kitayama +5000
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Michael Thorbjornsen +5000
Bellerive Country Club Course Information
- Location: St. Louis, Missouri
- Par & Length: Par 70, 7,448 yards
- Course Difficulty: Medium
- Field: 50 golfers, no cut
When building BMW Championship picks this week, I'm prioritizing players who are long enough to handle the 7,448-yard par 70 but accurate enough to avoid the rough. Strong approach play is always important, but keeping the ball in play gives golfers a much better chance to attack Bellerive's greens.
If you're just getting into golf betting, here's how to bet on golf!
BMW Championship Best Bets: Top Expert Golf Picks This Week
Quick note on structure: the odds in each player header are the Lucky Rebel win odds. My main exposure comes in the each-way markets listed below each player. I'm splitting small units between five-place tickets for a little safety and higher three-place prices for more upside.
Here are my BMW Championship picks:
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Patrick Cantlay +2800, E/W 5 places and +4500, E/W 3 places
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Michael Thorbjornsen +5000, E/W 5 places and +8000, E/W 3 places
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Michael Brennan +5500, E/W 5 places and +10000, E/W 3 places
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Justin Rose +6600, E/W 5 places and +11000, E/W 3 places
These BMW Championship picks are smaller-unit plays because the board is difficult and the field is loaded. My golf picks this week are more about taking reasonable prices on upside than trying to force a huge position. I'll have roughly 1.3 to 1.5 units in play across the full card.
Patrick Cantlay +3000 — Lucky Rebel Sportsbook
Best Bets: +2800, E/W 5 places and +4500, E/W 3 places
We'll start with Patrick Cantlay, who is popping as a value in my model and ranks inside the top 10 this week. I get it: the guy has been frustrating. He does not win nearly as often as you would like for a player of his caliber, and it can feel painful betting him against the best players in the world.
Of all my BMW Championship picks, Cantlay is probably the clearest example of buying a player whose current results do not fully match the level of ball-striking. The wins have not come recently, but the ceiling remains high enough to justify these each-way prices.
The ball-striking has been ridiculous. According to Data Golf, Cantlay gained 1.71 true strokes on approach last week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship and 1.69 at the Rocket Classic in his previous appearance. He has had countless spike approach weeks this year and has been one of the most consistently strong ball-strikers on TOUR.
BMW Championship Top Expert Pick: Patrick Cantlay
The frustrating part is that he has had only one real spike putting week this season. But he is certainly capable of catching fire with the flat stick, and that is all we need. Give us one good putting week, Patrick.
Cantlay played Bellerive in 2018, but that was a long time ago, so I am not putting much stock into one start. What matters more is that he has been a BMW Championship baller regardless of venue. The tournament moves around every year, and Cantlay has found ways to contend wherever it has gone.
Dating back to 2017, he has nine BMW appearances with two victories, a solo second, a T9 and two more top-15 finishes. Two of his eight PGA TOUR wins came at the BMW Championship. That is an absurd tournament-specific resume.
The field is smaller this week too. Fewer golfers can randomly get scorching hot and leapfrog him on the board. If Cantlay keeps striking the ball as he has been, finds enough fairways and finally gets even one spike putting performance, he absolutely has winning upside – even if it feels disgusting.
Michael Thorbjornsen +5000 — Lucky Rebel Sportsbook
Best Bets: +5000, E/W 5 places and +8000, E/W 3 places
Next up is Michael Thorbjornsen. The kid has been hot, and there has been a real streak of young winners on TOUR lately. Length plays at Bellerive, and Thorbjornsen certainly has that.
He is long off the tee, but he is not just a bomb-and-gouge player. He has gained accuracy relative to the field in each of his last five appearances, which is a really encouraging profile for a long player at a demanding course.
He is one of my more speculative golf picks this week, but the BMW Championship odds give us enough of a price to take a swing on his length, accuracy and upside.
Thorbjornsen won the Rocket Classic in a weaker field, but he has also flashed in stronger settings. He posted a T3 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and a T7 at the Scottish Open recently. The ceiling is clearly there.
The one thing we have not consistently seen is a massive spike in any single area. He has not been running red-hot with the irons, putter or driver in the way some TOUR winners do before taking down an event. That makes this more of a splash bet than a core play.
Still, the length, the accuracy trend and the smaller field make him interesting. If the young-winner trend continues and Thorbjornsen finds one ceiling week at the right time, he could be in the mix on Sunday.
Michael Brennan +5500 — Lucky Rebel Sportsbook
Best Bets: +5500, E/W 5 places and +10000, E/W 3 places
Michael Brennan is less accurate than Thorbjornsen off the tee, but the length is extremely appealing. He is another 24-year-old with plenty of upside and a game built to make noise when the driver and irons cooperate.
Thorbjornsen is probably more well-rounded, but Brennan can really move it off the tee, and his approach game is usually sound. The kicker here is that he has gained true strokes putting in each of his last four appearances.
That run includes a T24, a T15, a win at the Wyndham Championship, and a T42 last week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
His length is what really pulls me in. If Brennan finds a positive outlier week in terms of fairways, he can set himself up for a splash finish. The smaller field also gives this type of high-variance bomber a little more of a path to the top of the leaderboard.
Justin Rose +5000 — Lucky Rebel Sportsbook
Best Bets: +6600, E/W 5 places and +11000, E/W 3 places
We'll close with Justin Rose, and yes, this is another bet on a guy who does not win all that often. But Rose plays incredibly well in big tournaments. He has been big-game hunting for a while, and he has already won this calendar year at the Farmers Insurance Open.
Even if he has been a little inconsistent overall, you cannot knock the season he has had. Rose finished T13 at The Players Championship, T3 at the Masters, T10 at the PGA Championship, T12 at the Memorial and T11 at the U.S. Open. The guy shows up when the fields are strongest.
Last week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship was interesting. Rose had a pretty terrible tournament through three rounds, then came out Sunday and shot the low round of the week with a 64. Maybe he found something.
He had a strong week on approach and has gained strokes putting in each of his last four tournaments. That is exactly the profile I want at a number this big: a player with real big-event history who might be trending in the right direction after a strong Sunday finish.
The market is pricing Rose like a long shot, but at this price, he's one of my favorite BMW Championship picks at the longer end of this card. At 66/1 for five places and 110/1 for three places, these are just amazing odds for a player who has repeatedly stepped up on the biggest stages.
What Is an Each-Way Golf Bet?
An each-way bet is really two bets in one: a win bet and a place bet, stacked on the same golfer for equal stakes. If your golfer wins, both halves cash. If he finishes inside the listed places but does not win, the win half loses, but the place half still pays at a fraction of the odds.
That structure matters for golf picks this week because the BMW Championship has only 50 players, no cut, and a very top-heavy odds board. A five-place ticket gives you a little more coverage, while the three-place ladders offer bigger returns if one of these longer shots truly contends.
The number of places is set by the sportsbook. In this case, I'm using five-place markets for a little more protection and three-place ladders for much higher prices.
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Carlucci spent nearly a decade as a reporter, editor, and on-air talent in the Poconos. His transition into the fantasy sports and sports betting industries began in 2016 with roles at Daily Fantasy Insider and Daily Roto Sharks, which led to positions at Better Collective (RotoGrinders). During this period, his work gained national recognition through regular contributions to the New York Post and featured appearances on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. Carlucci has also contributed to Fantasy Alarm and most recently served as Managing Editor at Third Planet Media (Props.com), where he led content strategy, editorial direction, and served as the forward-facing voice of the brand through live streams and podcasts. You can also find his work at Matthew Berry's Fantasy Life and Hard Rock Digital. He's for some reason a die-hard Titans and 76ers fan and has developed trust issues from "trusting the process." Follow him on X @ThejCarlucci!
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