Austin Championship – Betting Preview

The PGA Tour returns to Austin, Texas for the first time since the 2023 WGC Dell Technologies Match Play, and it arrives at a course nobody in the field has played in competition. The inaugural Austin Championship presented by Compliance Solutions will be held on the Fazio Canyons Course at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa, a Tom Fazio design that opened in 1999 and was rebuilt under his direction in 2022. It is the first PGA event ever held on this course.

The tournament has already lived two lives before a single shot has been struck. It was announced on October 20, 2025 as the Good Good Championship, with the YouTube golf brand Good Good Golf as title sponsor in a multi year agreement. Good Good stepped away on August 27, 2026 after the backlash to a Callaway driver ad, and the Tour renamed the event the Austin Championship. Compliance Solutions, a Florida based tax and accounting firm that already sponsors a Korn Ferry Tour event in Oklahoma, was announced as presenting sponsor on November 2, 2026 on a one year deal. The purse stayed at $6 million, with $1.08 million and 500 FedExCup points to the winner.

Fazio Canyons will play to a par of 72 at 7,451 yards. The course runs through limestone canyons on the eastern edge of the Texas Hill Country, with Short Springs Branch, a limestone bedded creek, crossing or bordering a number of holes. The themes that repeatedly come up from those who have played it are large elevation changes on almost every hole, forced carries over creeks and ravines, a premium on finding the fairway from elevated tees, and a back nine that carries most of the difficulty. Robert Gogulich, first assistant and tournament director at Barton Creek Lakeside, stated, “Of the courses on property here at Barton Creek, the Fazio Canyons course is a true test. It challenges every part of your game while providing beautiful views of Hill Country scenery.”

The Field

The field for the Austin Championship does not include a single player ranked inside the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking. Austin Smotherman is the highest ranked player at No. 53, one of five players inside the top 60 along with Marco Penge (No. 54), Matt Wallace (No. 56), Andrew Novak (No. 58) and Jackson Koivun (No. 59). It is one of the thinnest fields of the FedExCup Fall, which makes it one of the more open events of the season.

Smotherman, Andrew Novak and Jackson Koivun are the main headliners. Smotherman won the Bank of Utah Championship and the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in consecutive starts, and Novak won the Mexico Open by five shots at 25 under on November 1. Koivun won the 3M Open in July. They are joined by other notables, including Brian Harman, Daniel Berger, Michael Kim, Max Homa, Nick Taylor, Chris Kirk, Denny McCarthy, Stephan Jaeger, Rasmus Hojgaard and 19 year old Blades Brown. As an inaugural event, there is no defending champion or list of past winners.

The local angle is the University of Texas. Five former Longhorns are in the field: Pierceson Coody, Doug Ghim, Beau Hossler, Christiaan Maas and Tommy Morrison. Maas and Morrison are two of the four sponsor exemptions, along with Miles Russell and Austin native Cole Sherwood. Casey Russell is in as the Section Champion. Morrison won the 2026 Korn Ferry Tour Route 66 Cup, a points race co-introduced by Compliance Solutions.

This is the penultimate event of the 2026 FedExCup Fall, with only the RSM Classic left after it. The top 100 in the FedExCup standings keep full status for 2027, Nos. 51 through 60 earn the Aon Next 10 spots in the first two Signature Events at Pebble Beach and Riviera, and Nos. 101 through 125 fall to conditional status. The event is 72 holes of stroke play with the standard 36 hole cut to the low 65 and ties.

Austin Championship – Final Model

In each preview article and on Discord, I present my final model, which gives a detailed player ranking of the most important stats and splits for the week. My modeling is based on the PGA’s Strokes Gained data, which is categorized into SG: Off the Tee (OTT), SG: Approach (APP), SG: Around the Green (ARG), and SG: Putting (P). Learn more about Strokes Gained and why it can be so useful in analyzing the past and predicting future performance. Many of these specific metrics and conditions can be found in “The Rabbit Hole“, with my final model exclusively published here and in the Discord for subscribers.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qyyE-k-bbTKs7KDfunThBkQWmHOyQ-igCaEFl8Qz11E/edit?gid=1341392181#gid=1341392181

Outright Betting Selections

For the most up-to-date picks, check out my Twitter and subscribe to our Discord at BetspertsGolf.com.

• Koivun +1650 (1.45u) – DK
• Kohles +4500 (0.52u) – FD
• Greyserman +6000 (0.39u) – Fanatics
• Thompson +6600 (0.35u) – Rivers
• Homa +6600 (0.35u) – Rivers
• Suber +6600 (0.35u) – MGM
• Taylor +8000 (0.29u) – MGM
• McCarty +12500 (0.19u) – Rivers

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Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images