The 2026 Cognizant Classic tees off with its first round on Thursday morning from PGA National in Florida.
After a couple of signature events, many top players are taking this week off, including Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
The favorite this week is Shane Lowry, who is checking in around +1900 to win the Cognizant Classic.
The defending champion of the Cognizant Classic is Joe Highsmith.
From favorites to long-shots, props, and more, these are our staff's 2026 Cognizant Classic best bets and favorite golf picks.
PGA Tour Expert Picks: Cognizant Classic
Shane Lowry First Round Leader (+3600)
By Tony Sartori
Shane Lowry enters this week as one of the tournament favorites, and it is worth considering him to hold the clubhouse lead after Thursday’s opening round. He has started 2026 in strong form, finishing T8 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and T24 at The Genesis Invitational.
A key part of Lowry’s early success has been his putting. He has gained true strokes putting in each of those two events.
The putter is especially important at PGA National, where each of the top five finishers last year ranked 21st or better in the field in strokes gained: putting. No other strokes-gained category showed a similar trend.
Given the profile of this venue, it is not surprising that Lowry has finished inside the top 11 here in each of the past four years.
Nicolai Hojgaard Outright Winner (+2150)
European players have always had a good track record at PGA National, and a few of them have made my betting card for the week. The first is Nicolai Hojgaard, who is 2nd in this field in Driving Distance and top 10 in this field in Strokes Gained: Approach. He's not great around the green, but he's a positive putter. If you look at statistics from this year, he's 2nd in the field in Bogey Avoidance, which should come in handy on a course with so many landmines.
Hojgaard has been in solid form to start the year, making all 4 cuts and posting 2 top 5 finishes in much stronger fields than this one. He wasn't in either of the Signature Events, so he should be well rested after two weeks off. He has yet to win on the PGA TOUR, but he already has 4 professional wins under his belt at the age of 24 years old. His most recent win was at the 2023 DP World Tour Championship, which is a Rolex Series event on the DP World Tour.
Mac Meissner (-111) Over Mackenzie Hughes
We keep going back-and-forth on the play within this article, which hopefully means Mac Meissner over Mackenzie Hughes will land us a winner at the Cognizant Classic and not turn into Tom Kim over Matt Wallace or John Parry over Garrick Higgo being the right choice to highlight.
Look, the math behind this wager isn't as crystal clear as it may appear at first glance on my sheet. Yes, it is the most significant edge I have for the week (proper has fallen a bit since Monday and is now in the -139 zone). However, that 5.55% implied edge does show a strong wager that loves the profile of Meissner and is ignoring some of the shaky course history, which has seen him post nothing inside the top-50 over his two trips to the venue.
PGA National is not necessarily a course that screams rollover predictability. That helps both of these golfers out since Hughes hasn't exactly been pristine here himself. We do have a strong recent return from Hughes so far in 2026, with a Bermuda putting increase and a relatively safe floor with his irons to start the year if this play doesn't find itself getting to the window, but an overall profile of inconsistent iron play is always just around the corner when you rank 99th in the field with your irons at courses with water and 108th for Weighted Proximity when merging proximity buckets together for this venue.
My hope is that Meissner's lack of returns at this track will land more under overall proximity this go-around than it does pure "water avoidance."
