The show of elevated and high-end tournaments continues this weekend at the Truist Championship, with even more fun on the horizon for next week's PGA Championship!
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If you aren't doing so already, you can follow me on Twitter @TeeOffSports. I am always around to answer any questions you may have about some of my Truist Championship predictions and PGA Tour picks from within my model.
Truist Championship Predictions, Picks
Outright Winners
Truist Championship Pick: Ludvig Aberg (+1400)
I talked about this on the Action Network podcast this week, but one thing about this board is that it presents an extremely robust top five in terms of win equity.
We can sit here and discuss proper totals and who should be where. However, it is going to be hard to ignore Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Aberg, Cameron Young and Matthew Fitzpatrick when running win equity nears the top.
You might notice that I took a very aggressive stance last week when I hit Cameron Young (13/1) and stacked him with Collin Morikawa (23/1). Honestly, that blueprint is perhaps even more prevalent here than where I ultimately landed, but I chose a different direction because of the high-end win equity marks I had for Rory McIlroy.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention in this article that there is real fear when it comes to opposing him. That doesn't mean we can't find edges elsewhere in the market, but McIlroy's statistical profile is extremely clean. Perhaps cleaner than we even got out of Scheffler last week when trying to decipher that board.
For me, the name I wanted to get my exposure to was Ludvig Aberg. We can talk about McIlroy's Masters title, Cameron Young's PLAYERS win + victory last week and Fitzpatrick's dominance in 2026. Still, it might come as a surprise to some of you reading this article that a lot of the 2026 trending metrics tend to prefer the winless Aberg over a handful of those names.
My model also ranked Aberg in the top five in this field for Weighted Scoring, Pure Driving, Driving + Approach Play, and Weighted Strokes Gained Total. That doesn't mean the Sunday woes won't come back in full effect if he finds himself in contention on Sunday, but that's an area I would live with if he does find himself near the top in round four.
Truist Championship Pick: Rickie Fowler (+3300)
You can shop around and find a better price. I had his proper price at 33/1, so I wanted to show that some of the low-end marks still played if you found yourself interested in Rickie Fowler.
This is not a common answer for me to give. In fact, it is only the eighth time I have ever wagered on the American in over eight years of being in the space — one of those being live during his 2023 Rocket Mortgage win.
Fowler's profile does lack some of the upside marks you would like to see, especially when we're purely talking about win equity. His top-25 marks across the board are promising, but only one top-10 category in his seven chances doesn't exactly scream, "BET THIS RIGHT NOW!"
So then why does my math believe Fowler has more win equity than you may see on the very surface level of this question?
For starters, you might notice that his "one-week" upside total cracked the top-10. That is an area that places extra weight on his back-to-back top-10 showings on tour. The thought is that good form will continue to replicate itself. And the second reason comes down to that flat distribution of production we have seen him generate.
I am not usually high on Fowler, so his jump into the top 15 on the slate does carry a little extra back-end weight than we might get from other players in this field.
If you shop around, you can likely find this closer to 50/1.
Truist Championship Pick: Min Woo Lee (+4000)
Min Woo Lee is someone the space has been all over for the past few months. I missed the early generations of good performances when he was finding success. That said, the latter production was also ignored during his less high-end output of missed cuts and fringe finishes. Honestly, this is the Fowler conversation we just had a second ago. Lee is not a person I play often, which intrigued me that he popped in my model.
I ran a threshold model to eliminate any golfer who didn't land in the top 25 in one of these four areas:
- Distance Off-The-Tee
- Strokes Gained Approach From 200+ in 2026
- Strokes Gained Around The Green
- Strokes Gained Putting
That left us with the following list of players to qualify in all four areas:
Lee may have missed his window of winning earlier in the year, but if you are checking the boxes that a three-time winner on tour is this season, I will take my chances at this 40/1 price.
Truist Championship Pick: Gary Woodland (60/1)
I've talked a lot this week about "Trending Form" and why it is important here. The big five are going to overlap the field in that area for obvious reasons, but it might surprise you to see Woodland land sixth behind that group inside my model.
Woodland is a basher of the ball off the tee. One of the longest players in action weekly, and someone who thrives when given these driver-heavy tests that allow him to show his skillset at a lengthier course.
That same sentiment resonates with his long iron play, and for someone who struggles with his touch around the green, the putter has been positive so far in 2026. If that trajectory can continue, he has a three-pronged systematic approach in place: hit it long, assail the lands from distance on your second shot, and make some putts.
Truist Championship Matchup Pick
Alex Smalley (-125) over Alex Noren
I've been touting Alex Smalley on a weekly basis in these articles. No point in stopping now!
My words at the Zurich rings truer than ever that the "aggressive returns" aren't stopping, and a victory might still be right around the corner. Is an elevated event asking too much? Maybe…But we can get exposure to him in other ways.
My model's biggest advantage came with Smalley over Noren. It is not to say that Noren can't find success after a seventh-place finish last week at the Cadillac Championship, but I am going to use that finish to try and extract a little value out of one of my favorite golfers.
Noren's profile does have negative marks for long iron play and distance. We see him above only two players in this field when it comes to Proximity from 200+ yards over the last season, and the driver only eclipses 15 names in that area.
Sure, the short-game is going to tell a different story of potential, but getting a chance to take Smalley is worth the risk when he is the second-most underpriced player on the board for me.
