Noonan’s 2026 Charles Schwab Challenge Outright Betting Picks & Preview

The PGA Tour has been coming to the legendary Colonial Country Club since 1946, and it’s held up through all the changes in the game. Precision is the name of the game, both off the tee and into these small bentgrass greens. Birdies are hard to come by, and historically, bombers have been forced to go less-than-driver more than most other tracks due to the many forced layups, doglegs, thick Bermuda rough, and tight tree-lined fairways. That appears to be changing, though.

We’ve seen an increase in driver usage off the tee over the past few years, a trend that will likely continue for some this week. Not everyone has the apex and carry distance required to drive it over the trees to cut off the many doglegs at Colonial, but those who can likely continue to try. Regardless, as is often the case, approach play is paramount this week.

Colonial Country Club is a par-70 course that measures 7,289 yards, making it a slightly above-average-length classical course. It features tree-lined fairways, numerous doglegs, and small greens. Notably, Colonial is the fifth toughest course on the Tour for gaining strokes off the tee. The fairways are among the narrowest on Tour, averaging only 27.5 yards in width, which makes it difficult to overpower the course.

Colonial also ranks among the toughest courses for making birdies, presenting a challenge to golfers year after year. It has the third-smallest average landing zone when considering both fairway width and green size, with a combination of 27.5 yards for fairways and 5,000 square feet for greens. Given its tight fairways and small greens, the course tests a player’s ball-striking skills. With the sixth-smallest greens on Tour and the fifth most penal rough, there is a strong emphasis on effective approach play, particularly with short to medium irons inside 175 yards.

The course underwent a significant renovation prior to the 2024 event, with renowned architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner leading the extensive makeover. The duo modernized the course’s features and restored it to its original form. Every aspect of the course infrastructure, including an irrigation system, bunkers, tees, and greens, was addressed. Many trees and bunkers were removed to create a more open and well-lit course.

For more details on the course and renovation, check out Ron’s course preview. It’s the best in the business, bar none. Also, don’t forget to check out our research tools, the Colonial course stats, along with the Tournament Cheat Sheet.

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Key Rabbit Hole Stats This Week:

• Rolling Form (L6M, L24 Rounds)
• SG: Total (Scoring Conditions; Average, Difficult, Very Difficult)
• Distance From the Edge of the Fairway (DFEF)
• SG: T2G (Difficult to gain OTT and on APP)
• SG: Par 4
• Scrambling (Short Grass)

There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game. My goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting in the outright market this week. Remember to check out the Rabbit Hole, our customizable stat database. It can help you pare down your player pool each week.

Utilize our Discord for up-to-the-minute lines and betting advice. My full card and live in-tournament bets will be posted there. Reach out if you need help getting started.

For outrights, I typically allot 1.5 to 2 units, sometimes more for bigger events. Overall, though, this strategy prevents me from chasing, knowing that I’m positioned to profit if I can hit 5-6 outrights a season. Anything beyond that is gravy. It also helps me stake bets to a flat “to win” amount regardless of their outright price.

*Betting lines are accurate at the time of publication in Discord.

Noonan’s Charles Schwab Challenge Outright Betting Picks

Justin Thomas

There’s a lot to like about Justin Thomas‘s game right now, and that’s something that we really haven’t been able to say very often of late. We’re still miles away from someone who was one of the top five players in the world from 2017-2022, but his tee-to-green game has been far more consistent over the past two months than it has been to start the 2026 season.

A poor Saturday at the PGA Championship (T4) kept Thomas from what would have been a third Wanamaker win, and the one poor round per start has been a trend I’m hoping he can break this week. His recent starts before Aronimink (T23 at Doral and solo 13th at Quail Hollow) were also done in by one poor round mixed in among three solid rounds, but I like how Colonial sets up for his game.

I think it’s a good week to look at correlary courses, it’s a big piece of my model build this week, and the list of Colonial comp courses screams Justin Thomas. He has wins at Southern Hills, Harbour Town, TPC Southwind, Waialae, and TPC Sawgrass. He’s finished T2 at Narashino and Innisbrook recently as well. Dating back to the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills, Thomas leads the field in SG: T2G (+1.19) per round on Colonial comp courses. His driver has been far more consistent this season, and he’s gained an average of 0.32 strokes per round over his last 24 rounds after being flat to the field (-0.01) over the past 75 rounds. He remains one of the elite short iron and wedge players in the world, and we’ll see that on display this week.

J.J. Spaun

I was blind-betting J.J. Spaun this week and was pleasantly surprised to see him open north of 30/1 on the odds board on Monday morning. Like Justin Thomas, Spaun’s game is perfectly suited to what has historically worked best at Colonial, and he’s also played exceptionally well at its correlary courses over the past handful of years (+1.04 SG: T2G), including a win at TPC San Antonio back in April.

Spaun was a popular longshot bet at Aronimink, but simply couldn’t navigate its tricky greens despite playing well tee-to-green (+1.74). His lead-in form since the San Antonio win has also been more in line with his 2025 breakout performance than his early 2026 season struggles, including a T14 at Doral and a T5 at Quail Hollow. Spaun finished second in my model this week, ranking out better than everyone else in the field in tee-to-green and ball-striking play in spots where it’s been difficult to gain off the tee and on approach. Spaun also leads the field in GIR% when filtering for courses with low GIR rate, difficult ball-striking, and small greens, which is exactly what we’re looking at this week at Colonial.

Max Greyserman

Max Greyserman‘s statistical profile has been flipped on its head of late, but it makes him a bit more appealing, in my opinion. Greyserman’s baseline putting performance was always among the best in the game, and a handicap typically involves looking for him to spike tee-to-green. Over his past few starts, it’s been the exact opposite.

Greyserman’s MC at Augusta was his third in a row, but he’s been excellent in the four starts since, getting better and better each time out. He followed up his T14 at Aronimink with a T9 last week at Craig Ranch despite losing 0.63 strokes per round on the greens, but he led the field in approach, gaining 2.8 strokes per round. He ranks fourth in this week’s field in SG: T2G over the past 16 rounds, so if he can continue to show consistency there and bring back the putter, he’s very live to win this week at 66/1.

Tony Finau

Tony Finau has some surprisingly good course history at Colonial. Outside of a missed cut in 2023, Finau has finished T35 or better in eight of nine starts, including two top-five finishes (2019 and 2022). The putter is still an issue, but he’s played better in his past two starts after a rough start to the 2026 season.

Finau’s approach play has been solid, gaining in five of his past six starts, so he’ll need to carry that over this week and keep himself in play off the tee. A field-average week on the greens should find him in the mix again, and that’s all we want at 75/1.

Andrew Novak

Andrew Novak fits perfectly on this card. I’m leaning heavily on recent form, comp course performance, and ball-striking, and Novak checks all the boxes for me at 75/1. He’s only gained strokes putting once in his past eight starts, but his tee-to-green play has resembled his play at this time last year when he broke out for the first time.

Novak ranks seventh in SG: T2G on Colonial comp courses and overall tee-to-green play over the past 16 rounds. On the greens, he couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat, but he’s field average on bentgrass greens over the past two years, which is something he can’t say for most putting surfaces. Again, we’re looking for continued success tee-to-green and a field-average putting performance.

Zach Bauchou

He’s yet to really threaten the top of the leaderboard, but we’ve seen a lot of good golf from Zach Bauchou in 2026. He’s finished inside the top 30 in six of his past 11 starts, including the past three starts, highlighted by last week’s T6 at Craig Ranch, where he gained throughout the bag. His lack of distance won’t be punished here, but his ball-striking ceiling could be rewarded.

Bauchou is likely a better finishing position bet than outright, but he won on the Korn Ferry Tour back in September on a shorter Par-70 positional track at Vanderbilt, so don’t be surprised if he flashes again this week.

Tom Hoge

At 140/1, the price is just too good to pass up. The TCU grad is back in Texas and coming off a T6 finish last week at Craig Ranch, where he finished fourth in approach at 1.81 strokes gained per round.

His putter has been disastrous since Riviera back in February, but he’s now gained on the greens in back-to-back weeks at Aronimink (T26) and Craig Ranch. Hoge was fourth in SG: BS here in 2024, the first year after the Hanse/Wagner renovation, so his chances to threaten the top of the board all come down to his ability to hole putts this week.