This week, we head to The Cliffs at Walnut Cove in Asheville, North Carolina, for the first PGA tournament in Asheville since the 1940s.
While many golfers look to get into form over the course of the tournament, there are more ways to bet on this tournament than just who will emerge victorious on Sunday.
For more instant gratification, we turn to the first-round leader market to find value on who will sit atop the leaderboard when play comes to an end on Thursday.
Here are my favorite Biltmore Championship first-round leader picks and PGA Tour predictions for Thursday's opening round. Make sure to download the Action Network app for more picks and analysis!
Biltmore Championship First-Round Leader Picks
First-Round Leader Pick: Ben James (+4300 at DraftKings)
With this being the inaugural edition of a tournament contested on a course that has never hosted a competitive event featuring players of this caliber, there is little course data to work with. That said, there are multiple reasons to believe that the short game will be the differentiator this week.
First, this is mountain golf, which means that players who typically struggle with distance will be able to keep pace with the heavier hitters. Second, The Cliffs at Walnut Cove features five par 3s and generous fairways on the par 4s and 5s.
Subsequently, two big areas to look at this week are strokes gained: approach and strokes gained: putting. This profile benefits Ben James, who made a lot of noise in his debut PGA Tour season.
James made the cut in seven of his eight events, posting a pair of top-five finishes over that stretch. His putter improved week by week, which led to those two finishes occurring over his final four tournaments.
James gained true strokes putting in each of those four events. Meanwhile, his iron play is already at a high level.
Entering this week, James ranks in the 82nd percentile in strokes gained: approach.
First-Round Leader Pick: Marco Penge (+4600 at DraftKings)
Another golfer worth targeting in Thursday’s opening round is Marco Penge. Like James, Penge fits this course well.
Penge ranks in the upper half of professional golfers in both strokes gained: approach and strokes gained: putting.
It's a notable return to the PGA Tour for Penge, who went through many off-course setbacks during his 2026 season. However, he is back in form, as evidenced by his get-right trip to Europe for the Husqvarna British Masters and Omega European Masters.
Penge finished inside the top 18 in each event, and it's worth noting that the latter was played in a mountain golf environment. With his off-course issues seemingly behind him, the 28-year-old appears to be back on track.
