The PGA Tour season may already be underway, but the Waste Management Phoenix Open still feels like its unofficial opening ceremony.
Sitting at the intersection of football’s finale, a full-blown desert party and the first real glimpse of Augusta on the horizon, this tournament carries an outsized sense of importance.
The atmosphere and the venue always attract a star-studded field, and this year’s iteration is no different.
Scottie Scheffler, who is already 1-for-1 on the season after his triumph at Torrey Pines a fortnight back, is in his usual position atop the betting board.
Scheffler has +220 odds to win the Waste Management for the third time in his career (2022, 2023).
There is no other golfer in the single digits (Rory McIlroy is skipping the trip to the desert), and there is only one other player, Xander Schauffele, inside 20/1 at FanDuel Sportsbook.
Schauffele, who has four top-10 finishes here, including a runner-up in 2021, is 17/1.
Si Woo Kim (25/1), Cameron Young (25/1) and Hideki Matsuyama (27/1) round out the top five and are the only other players under 30/1.
Matsuyama, like Scheffler and Brooks Koepka (who will be a trendy pick at 45/1), is a two-time winner at TPC Scottsdale.
And while plenty of the big guns have won here in the last decade, the past two winners came from the clouds. Nick Taylor was a triple-digit long shot in 2024, and Thomas Detry was 100/1 before lifting the trophy last year.
We’ll hope for some similar magic in 2026.
2026 Waste Management Phoenix Open picks
Jordan Spieth (60/1, bet365)
We’re closing in on four years since Jordan Spieth’s last PGA Tour victory, but if there was ever a place for him to break his schneid, it would be TPC Scottsdale.
Spieth has six top-10 finishes in nine starts at the Waste Management since 2015, and he has four top-six showings in his last five trips to the Valley of the Sun.
The 32-year-old has played a pretty light schedule over the last calendar year, but he started his 2026 campaign with a more-good-than-bad outing at the Sony Open.
Betting on golf?
Sepp Straka (88/1, DraftKings)
Sepp Straka enjoyed a breakout 2025 with a pair of victories in the first half of the campaign, but he started 2026 on the wrong foot, missing the cut in his only start (American Express).
Apparently, that singular performance was enough to drop the Austrian all the way down to long-shot territory. We’ll buy the dip.
It took Straka a few attempts to get anything going at the Waste Management, but he put together his best result with a 15th-place finish a year ago.
We’ll hope for more of the same on a course that should be a fit for the former Georgia Bulldog’s skillset.
Billy Horschel (300/1, bet365)
At 39 years old, Billy Horschel’s best playing days are likely behind him. But that doesn’t mean we won’t see the former Florida Gator pop up on a leaderboard now and then.
That was the pattern we saw out of Horschel in 2025, when he was seemingly alternating between top-10s and missed cuts throughout the season.
The wily veteran has seen this course more than just about anybody in this field, and although he didn’t make the weekend last year, that was his first MC at TPC Scottsdale in his last 11 trips.
Meanwhile, he’s got two top-10 finishes here since 2020.
Why Trust New York Post Betting
Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
