PGA Outrights and Best Bets for the 2025 Cognizant Classic

The Florida Swing kicks off this week at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Formerly known as the Honda Classic, this is an event that I will forever link to the DFS Open and the start of the pandemic. 

As I was returning home from my trip to the first, and only, DFS Open, I remember reading stories about the first confirmed cases in the United States. Hopefully this week the only outbreak we see is my golfers climbing the leaderboard. 

Let’s jump right in and talk about what it takes to succeed at PGA National. 

Course Fit

The host venue this week is the Champion Course at PGA National. It’s an area that is littered with water everywhere. Even the surrounding neighborhoods all seem to have some sort of water surrounding them. The course is no different as there is water in play on 15 holes with this course yielding some of the highest number of water balls each season. 

That plays a role in the first split stat we are going to look at this week, which is past performance on hard courses. The last few years were an exception to the rule, but historically this is a course that surrenders more bogeys than it allows birdies. That is very rare on the PGA Tour, so it easily falls into the tough course bucket if the last few years prove to be outliers and it returns to its normal scoring conditions. 

One thing that stood out to me this week was the change of leadership in terms of agronomy at PGA National. Keith Einwag took over the role last February, and this is his first time running the event here at PGA National. He came from Innisbrook, one of the toughest scoring environments on the PGA Tour. I would guess, as long as weather cooperates, they want to return this back into a tough test after the field bullied it a bit over the last two years. We can keep an eye on the pre-tourney pressers to see if we get any nuggets in that regard. 

Off the tee, this course doesn’t allow golfers to grip it and rip it everywhere but, the big hitters still have areas to pick and choose their battles and find an edge through power. 

On approach, golfers have a lot of high-leverage shots with water in play early and often at PGA National. So when targeting a golfer, I do want them to be strong in approach or around-the-green (course management). 

For turf, we’ll see overseed from tee-to-green and then bermudagrass greens. There will be a lot of happy Southerners and East Coasters who are happy to get back on bermuda after dealing with choppy poa over the last month. 

The green speeds at PGA National typically bottom out at 12 feet on the stimp, but they can get up to 14 feet so I’d certainly bucket this as a course with fast greens as they try to get them rolling quick whenever the weather cooperates. Of course, with a new director of agronomy, that could be amplified or he could take a conservative approach in his first year running the show. 

So for our split stat search I want to keep it simple and stick to the splits that really matter here. That would be over-performance on courses with bermudagrass and performance on tough courses, relative to each golfer’s baseline. 

• Isaiah Salinda
• Christopher Gotterup
• Byeong Hun An
• Russell Henley
• Bud Cauley
• Shane Lowry
• David Skinns
• Keith Mitchell
• Webb Simpson
• Austin Eckroat

Salinda caught my eye as a core round-four showdown target last week and he delivered. Now he heads to a course where the splits line up in his favor, I may have to dip back into that well. 

Head over to the Split Stats page to see who the top performers are in these split stat categories.

Outright Odds

Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:

Not even a single golfer in the teens, this is one of the most wide-open events that we’ve seen all season. Our sims at FTN agree as the PGA Betting Model doesn’t have any golfer exceeded 5% in win equity and the sims I ran had Lowry leading the way at just 4.9%. 

Cognizant Classic Free Golf Bets

Shane Lowry Top-10 Finish (+250)

As I just shared above, I thought Lowry was fairly priced in the outright market, but where Lowry excels is consistency and grinding it out on tough courses. 

He leads the field in course monster score at PGA National (+10). Historically golfers with a monster score of 8 or better have posted top 10s in 33% of their starts when facing a similar field size. And no, that’s not a 1-in-3 sample size, it’s closer to a 50-event sample. 

He leads the field in weighted baseline performance. Looking at similar instances of the top baseline being relatively low like his but still leading the field, they went on to post top 10s at a 38% clip. 

In both cases, his expected top 10 rate hovers at 33% or higher but his market price is sitting below 30% expectation. 

Eric Cole to Win (80-1, one-fourth each-way for 5 places)

Two years ago I pegged Kirk and Cole here and they went on to finish 1-2 in a playoff that week. I’m going back to Cole this week as we kick off the Florida Swing. Over the last two years, Cole’s strokes gained putting on bermuda is more than half a shot better per round when comparing it to his putting performance on poa or poa triv, which is what he’s seen over his last five starts. I’m willing to dismiss his cold putter entirely and because of that cold putter, we are getting some good value on Cole this week. 

Gary Woodland Top-20 Finish (+333)

If you’ve been around FTN for a while you know we love some Gary Woodland. It’s no surprise then that we’ve noticed his steady return to form over the last six months. During that time he ranks fourth in strokes gained ball-striking behind only Pendrith, Kitayama and Lowry. Those others are all top of market, but Woodland is still lurking in the middle of the pack. 

During his run of returned ball-striking prowess, Woodland has posted top 33s in six of his last eight starts with three of those doubling as top 20s. 

Woodland also has four top 10s on his PGA National resume and sports a win at Innisbrook, the course where the new director of agronomy is coming from. Let’s embrace the comeback story and hop on board here. I may also sprinkle a little top 10 action here before the event starts. 

Keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays.